Category Archives: team roles

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, creativity methods, feedback, team dynamics, team roles, Uncategorized, work plans

Managing Virtual Teams

4 Comments

We often have to work with people in different cities in my business, and sometimes even different time zones! It can be a huge challenge to coordinate work with people you usually don’t see on a day to day basis.  It seems like more and more companies are moving to teleworking, so I thought it would be good to go over some key tips on managing a virtual team:

1) Organize regular meetings with individuals as well as the team as a whole.

This doesn’t have to be in-person; a phone call or Skype can be just as effective. The main thing is you want to make sure everyone is on the same page. The team needs to feel cohesive and like they are all “in the loop” on what’s happening. We do daily “show calls” with all of our team members in Abu Dhabi, London and here in Atlanta. While this may not be feasible for every team, even a set weekly/monthly phone call can be good to foster communication and a sense of inclusiveness.  A phone meeting is also a good way to address any team problems out in the open.

2) Rotate locations: Try to make sure members spend some time physically with the team in their home base, even if all members can’t all be there at once.

This is a critical part of getting a team to work together effectively. Once you put a face with that voice on the phone, you form a  personal connection with that person. It’s also good to see how people function differently while working in the same room. This gives you the opportunity to confront any workflow or personnel issues. This would also be a good time to help the team bond through a social activity, games, etc.

3) Recognize cultural sensitivity.  Be aware of cultural differences on your team so you can head off any potential issues.

I work with people from a variety of backgrounds and walks of life. It is so important to be aware that people often have very different styles of communication and management.  A good way to head off issues is to make the team aware of the expectations for communication and conflict resolution. For example, a manager could instruct team members to mediate conflict themselves, before rushing to upper management to handle the situation.  Team building exercises and cultural awareness classes could also help.

The biggest takeaway I got from this article is the importance of having good communication!  It’s not easy managing a team flung across different cities or countries. But the team will work a lot more smoothly if everyone is kept in the loop, and any problems are dealt with quickly and transparently.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/iese/2013/06/20/managing-virtual-teams-ten-tips/

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles

Listen, Learn and then Lead

2 Comments

2) Planning the Work of a Team, 3) Managing a Project Team

http://www.ted.com/speakers/stanley_mcchrystal

So I openly admit bias on my inspirational and informative reference (but in fairness most of my other Military Officer vets have incredible admiration for the guy). The former commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, General Stanly McChrystal, gave an incredible lecture via TED that is applicable to anyone wishing to take on a leadership role in a not just challenging environment but seek to implement transformational changes to said organization. As with many of my peers, I too have been in (and will seek post-MBA) leadership positions that have entirely different duties and responsibilities than my previous roles. From the transition from a Platoon Leader as a Second Lieutenant in a Sapper Platoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5LqGCtzYI ) to my other less interesting (and more plans-oriented) positions I realized that there are certain traits that make leaders excel in any field or organization that they are placed in.

One of the common themes at the US Army Officer Candidate School is leadership is leadership: irrespective of your specialty or organizational level responsibility. It has taken years for me to develop (and am still learning in the corporate world now) but the key traits I have observed and am now especially cognizant of are best summed up by General McChrystal:

Listen, Learn and then Lead.

Reflecting on all the skills one learns during his or her MBA experience I believe it to be equally important to understand how to implement your ideas to fully utilize lessons learned from classes such as Management Practice. In the course of leading often skeptical clients or coworkers (or Soldiers and civilians in the General’s case), McChrystal suggests to first listen. Listening is quite possibly the most difficult task leaders have, particularly as we are prone to defaulting to preconceived notions on how the role and responsibilities should play out before we even arrive; this is especially difficult when compounded with issues such as generational differences, prior experiences and job diversity. Throughout the learning phase (continuous) the main goal is to build trust and rapport; people tend to work harder and with more conviction when they believe someone has their best interest in mind; this is particularly true when it comes to leading higher risk maneuvers or actions where the natural tendency is risk-aversion to prevent failure / negative performance reviews. Finally there is learning when to fully lead. “When in charge be in charge” is one of the idioms always taught to military officers; when you have demonstrated the listening and learning traits to your group this becomes significantly easier to execute. I have found these leadership maxims to be of extreme value regardless of leading Soldiers in warzones or my peers when implementing a new sales strategy as a novice to seasoned sales representatives.

The “Listen, learn and lead” design is paramount to a leader’s success, particularly of importance when leading teams with informational and generational differences.

feedback, team dynamics, team roles, work plans

Effective Leadership & Knowing Your Team

1 Comment

I’ve been able to work in a small office over the past 5 years, and one of the things I’ve really come to appreciate is the flexibility provided to our employees in terms of their work roles and job descriptions. Oftentimes, we hire someone with the intent they’ll complete a specific job or task in our office but then find their skill-set or personality lends itself better to a completely different role. We’ve had the ability to frequently re-organize and assign people to new areas with their specific strengths in mind, oftentimes leading to an increase of quality work output.

This seems to support the phrase “you should hire for personality and train for skill,” which I’ve heard on occasion. Given my experience, and within reason, this seems to make sense. If your employee fits into the office culture and has the basic intelligence level needed to succeed after a period of training, how can you go wrong? To effectively do this, a manager undoubtedly needs to know their team well. Good leaders need to understand their employee’s strengths and weaknesses, their goals and professional aspirations, as well as how each member interacts with the others.

I’ve copied two excerpts below that highlight these points. You have to know your employees well and then help them assume the role that not only makes them most happy at work, but will ultimately benefit the organization as whole:

2. Know Their Stories – Take time to get to know the people you work with, especially your direct reports. Have coffee or a meal with them. Ask questions to learn about their lives and what’s important to them. Questions unrelated to work might include “so you were born and then what happened?”; “what are your interests outside of work?”; and “where did you grow up?” These questions typically open the door for you to ask follow-up questions. This will give you insights into how the people you work with are wired, including what they value at work and in their lives outside of work.

3. Help People Get Into the “Right Role” – Help your direct reports get into the right role that fits their interests and strengths, and provides the right degree of challenge. If you are not able to get them a role that is a good fit, consider responsibilities or projects you can assign them that fit well with their wiring.

 

What I’m most curious about, is whether the flexibility and real-world practice of these two traits carry over into larger corporations or organizational structures. Do those of you who work in larger environments experience this type of management style and job responsibility flexibility?

See the full article here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2014/07/10/7-best-practices-to-boost-employee-engagement/

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles, Uncategorized

What Makes a Great Manager?

2 Comments

The article “What Great Managers Do” by Marcus Buckingham uses the old aphorism “he’s playing chess while the rest are playing checkers”, but in a different light.

Here the phrase doesn’t represent managers who are simply more strategic in their style, but likens a checkers approach to management as one that treats all employees as uniform pieces toward a success goal. Meanwhile, chess is a more apt comparison, since employees are never homogeneous.

Some employees excel in types of projects, but struggle endlessly in others. A great manager exploits the strengths of each employee and can work outside the framework of an original plan by recognizing who should be working on what.

How many have seen people fired for failing in one aspect of their job when you’ve seen them excel elsewhere? I’m thinking about the “A for effort gets generous severance” from our Netflix recruitment slide deck in particular. Would a great manager be able to save that human capital and repurpose the employee where their strengths lie? Or is that kind of effort a waste of time and resources?

Article: http://hbr.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do/ar/1

Edit: Here’s more on the topic, including info behind the research and the book by Marcus Buckingham. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-be-a-great-manager-2013-8

04-Managing a project team, team roles

Finding or Acting as a Mentor

8 Comments

In my career thus far, I’ve been in mostly start-up environments that lack a formally structured mentor-mentee program, but I’ve still had the opportunity to discover how important it is for growth. My career has exploded when I’ve had the opportunity to work with a mentor and, conversely, grown stagnant when I’ve simply worked for a boss.

This article by Rachel Ensign of the Wall Street Journal takes the point of view of someone looking to climb the corporate ladder, seeking out a mentor. You and I are more somewhere in the middle; many of us have direct reports or are managing teams, but are still in the early stages of careers.

I’ll pose these questions as conversation starters:

  • How many of you have a mentor rather than a boss (it’s possible to have both)?
  • How did you find/develop that relationship?
  • How many of you take an active role in being a mentor to others, past the required exercises of formal reviews?

Any time I interview for a job, “Who would serve as my mentor?” is one of my questions. The worst feeling in a job is just doing the work and feeling no professional progress with no one to talk to about changing the situation (or that person not listening).

A link to the original article: “http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303404704577309750220810364“