In my recent webinar I discussed 6 Keys to a Winning Team.
Whatever the size of your businesses, you are unlikely to be working on your own. Your team may consist of your employees, partners, suppliers, customers, or sub-contractors. To grow or attain greatness, your team will need to expand. As you become established you will be looking to out-source the routine or mundane tasks to others so that you can concentrate on the core purpose of your business.
It is therefore important you build and maintain a team to work in the most efficient and synergistic way. Covid-19 has disrupted a lot of things, not least our ability to work as a team together in one place. The principles of running an effective team have not changed, but the techniques used have had to adapt.
At ActionCOACH we focus on 6 Keys to a Winning Team which are:
- Strong Leadership – holding the vision, providing inspiration and responsibility
- Common Goal – so you are all working towards the same outcome
- Rules of the Game – describe how you will work together
- Action Plan – who does what when.
- Support Risk Taking – if you are going to get better you will need try new things, which means taking controlled risks.
- 100% involvement – everyone in the team must be involved
Running through all of these is strong and effective communication and developing a WIN WIN mindset across the team.
Adapting to COVID-19
Many teams are split across different locations at the moment, part of the team may either still be furloughed or working from home which could lead to feelings of isolation as we can no longer able to enjoy those daily, informal interactions that help us connect with each other as people for example those quick morning chats around the coffee machine or a catch up during the lunch break.
To enable you to utilise the 6 keys, leaders will need to find a way to keep the entire team communicating and involved. If you have an approach that is working, great, please share what you are doing with us, we would love to know. As teams come out of furlough start work again, either remote or not, planning how to incentivise the team will be important to the success of your business as it bounces back.
Team members on Furlough
Keep furloughed employees informed of your plans and your progress, they may not be able to work but they will still be interested in what is happening, especially around returning to work.
Continue to keep employees who are not in work engaged with the industry and the business without encroaching on government rules about working whilst on furlough. Technology has given us some great tools to use, for example you can use WhatsApp group to share daily activities, appropriate jokes and generally show you care. In between the caring stuff you can add in news about the industry or success stories. Share articles in case they ‘choose’ to read them etc
Virtual get together can be easily organised and elaborated on. You don’t have to spend money, a simple quiz or get together on Zoom will go a long way to maintaining contact. Having fun together can help keep a team connected!
I know of furloughed team members who have heard nothing from their employers, they feel abandoned, out of touch and ultimately dis-engaged. The good ones are all looking for new employment, where their talents and unique skills will be appreciated.
Leading Remote Working Teams
We are not going to be back in the workplace like we were before for a long time. Socially distanced workspaces mean that capacity for teams working together has decreased. Teams of 20 will only be able to work together in teams of 6 or so. Even if there is space, concerns over shielding employees and protecting staff may mean that more people are working permanently from home or taking turns working in bubbles to contain the risk.
This creates logistical problems that need to be solved, but also mindset challenges where team members are feeling vulnerable or over-burdened. Your team may also be carrying some of the workload of furlough staff or doing tasks they wouldn’t have been doing before lockdown. They may feel motivated by this or deflated. Some staff may have needed retraining for specific tasks or taken on more responsibility.
Whatever tasks they are doing it’s important to help them remain motivated.
I recommend to all my clients that they have a 15 min daily call first thing with all their team. Talk about the main achievement of yesterday and the two priority tasks for the day ahead. This gives you an opportunity to check tasks are being completed, shows them you are interested and gives you the opportunity to give praise. You can give guidance and direction if necessary. It also gives the team the opportunity to ask questions and allow them to get on with their task without delay. This format will also keep each team member on task as they will be keen to impress you each day by showing that they have completed what they are doing. Having all the team members together will maintain team dynamics and productivity will remain high as team members help each other.
See the full webinar here
If you would like 30 minutes to talk about building a better team Book Here
Angela
