Developing Teams and Individuals

Being a manager is much more than overseeing day to day tasks. In order for your business to be successful, developing the individuals and turning them into a team is a main priority. You can only grow as much as your staff will allow. Weak team members can bring down the production in your company.

Develop Individuals through a Variety of Means

Before you can build a team, you have to work toward developing each staff person’s abilities. Take the time necessary to make certain they have proper training to do their job. Here are a few ways you can do this:

  • Pay For Training – Find a training event that the staff person can attend. Be sure to help them understand that this training is important to their continued employment at your company. All too often, employees will blow off training events and look at the day as a free day. They might be tempted to attend only a portion of the day. It should be clearly understood that they are expected to attend all parts of the training session and provide you with a report of what they learned.
  • Let Them Be a Shadow – Allow a less experienced individual to shadow more experienced people within the company. They can see first-hand how a more experienced individual handles situations. The more experienced person should understand that it is their responsibility to fill in training gaps the shadow is missing. The shadow should understand that this is not to insult their abilities, but rather to help them be a better employee.
  • Give Valuable Reviews – Everyone benefits from receiving valuable feedback on their performance. The reason behind the review is not to point out every wrong thing the staff person does. Rather, it should give positive feedback in appropriate areas, as well as outline guidelines of where they need to improve.

Turn A Group of Individuals Into a Team

It is important to take development of your staff to the next step. You have to take the individuals and build a team. This can be a difficult task when you deal with many personality types. Here are a few ways to bring a group together:

  • Establish a United Goal – Without a well-defined goal your staff has fewer chances of becoming a team. Teams have a common goal they are trying to reach together. For example, a baseball team has the goal of winning the game. That looks very different to each member. It is the job of the coach to cast the vision of how the task will get accomplished. That is your role, be the coach of the team.
  • Get Team Together Outside of Work Hours –Most people are different when they are at work versus a social situation. Having a get together on a quarterly basis will give your staff a different perspective on those people. In particular, this can help personality types that have a hard time getting along with one another.

These are a few things that you should do to develop and lead your team. As a manager, you are more like a coach then a task master.

 

If you have any questions about this article, or how we can help you develop your individuals or teams, contact us today!

 


Written for us by our associate Gary Sorrell, Sorrell Associates, LLC.

Copyright protected. All rights reserved

Comments are closed.