Coach Train Learn

Finding The Real Value of TEAM

There is a bit of management-speak that I like. It’s the mnemonic TEAM‘.

‘TEAM‘ stands for ‘Together’, ‘Each’, ‘Achieves’, ‘More’.

The implication being that when you add the contributions of individuals together, the outcome is more than the sum of the parts.

This actually makes quite a bit of common sense and as with all things, it’s very true in some ways.

Let’s say you throw a team of people together and let them get on with, say, a project. Of course they will use each of their own individual skills to make at least something happen.

And that will be more than if each individual did their small bit.

In fact, with very little effort and just with the team working together, there would be an outcome better than those of single individuals working together.

The very act of working together catalyzes improved performance on its own.

As the team leader, you can get more from them than this.

Showing your best leadership skills, you can engage the team - the individuals in the team - to create more than expected, when you leverage their ability to discuss and synthesize improved ideas and then actions bigger than those valuable - yet always individual - contributions.

Being a team leader is all about facilitating more from the excellent individual contributions and creating synergy - the art of making 1+1=3 (at least).

By listening and asking searching questions of the team, you energize individual thinking to become much greater in their capacity to mould creative outcomes.

Much more than just leaving them alone to get on with it.

Giving In - Or Just Being Smart?

Sometimes, as managers, we have a very initimate decision to make.

We have to decide whether getting over ourselves is more valuable in the context we are in, or standing our ground, being smart, and winning the war, not the battle.

You see, when you have developed a series of skills that are of great use to you, it can mean that you need to be pretty smart in how you use them.

And that can, from time to time mean that you seem to have to give way, rather than be the manager you are.

In fact, you have to use your new found skills to act more smartly and give some things up, because the final outcome will be much more valuable.

You want an example now, don’t you!

Take a member of your team who has a problem to solve. They bring it to you and you immediately know what the answer is, so you could fix it for them.

This would fulfil your own ego, showing how great you are - and over time you will find that you fix many more things for others on your team.

Knowing what you know, it’s ’smarter’ not to know the answer sometimes (even though you are just itching to tell them), because in the bigger picture, sending them off to find out the answer is a ’smarter’ thing to do.

Showing them that you don’t know everything is much ’smarter’ in the bigger context of creating a team of capable and resourceful people.

Smarter is sometimes about not looking quite so clever as you are!

Just Helping Out

There is a time in any manager’s career, when the moment hits you, that your work has changed.

It’s in this brief moment, that you realize that you have stepped up from being a worker, to a manager.

In those few seconds of realization, you notice that something has shifted for you and you will never be the same again.

You realize that you cannot do it all any more.

You are moving from a person who is all knowing and all doing, to a manager who manages the people in the team to be all knowing (cumulatively) and all doing (collectively).

For many managers, they never have this ‘aha’ moment and they struggle on for their careers being inadequate, overworked and ultimately overstretched.

For others, they are able to recognize that they need to step back, do less and utilize the skills of management for which they were placed in position in the first place.

Then, there’s the twist to the tale - you still have to know stuff and do stuff too!

The key point is that now, it’s by choice where and when you get involved.

You can choose, selectively, where you show up for those jobs that are now delegated to others in your team.

And it’s so important that you do, from time to time, gets your hands dirty, just like in the old days.

It’s just that now, you decide when best to get involved in the work that others do. You choose to do it when you need to show solidarity; to help when they’re short-handed; to have fun; to team-build and more.

It’s the very fact that you know you can; you choose to or not to and that, ultimately, you’ve made the transition from chunks of the workload being yours - and yours alone - to them being someone else’s - and you will still help out when you feel it’s right to do so.

Now, you are a manager.

Future Perfect

There is a value in focusing fully on the present, to ensure that the work you do is getting the very best attention.

After all, if you take your eye off the ball, it’s so easy for things to slip.

Soon, if you aren’t careful, you are struggling to do even the basics well.

The best managers tend to leave day to day delivery of the goods to their people, empowered to make the right decisions and having the confidence to do just that.

Good managers set the criteria for success and let their people just get on with it.

In these cases, those who really know what they are doing spend time examining where the successes are and understand why they are doing well.

By striving for excellence in all their areas of accountability, they take stock of where they need to pay more attention to achieve outcomes that are exceptional.

Seeking actions that truly will be a ‘future perfect’, step by step, may mean there are some tough decisions to be made.

And being focused on the future as well as the present, means that changes, where needed, can be made.

Actions in the short-term, will reap the benefits in the months and years to come.