Dear Kate 

Whether you work in a small or a large business, there’'s a critical insight that will help you make a better job of leading your team – and give you a much easier ride, freeing up more of your time and energy to grow your business. Interested? Read on…

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Best wishes,

Kate

01865 881056

Do you have a team working with you, either a loose group put together to fulfil a project in your business, or a permanent team reporting directly to you? If so, have you ever stopped to consider how best to manage this motley group of people?

Many people who end up in your position would say something along the lines of, “well, I believe in treating people fairly and equitably, communicating honestly and giving clear direction”. All well and good, but how does this differ from how you treat people when you’'re dealing with them one on one?

A Life of Its Own

What many managers miss when they take on leading a team is that there comes a point where a team of people takes on a life of its own, quite distinct from the individual one on one relationships that random groups of people have. And it’s at this point that many managers suddenly feel as the spider must feel when too many flies land on the web at once!

Do you find yourself saying things like:

• Why am I always ‘firefighting?
• Why is it so hard to get people to do what I really need them to do?
• Why are people in my business duplicating work, or missing things completely and ‘dropping the ball’?
• Why does everything always end up on my desk?

And you’'ve got your own job to do, too! It’s almost as if the skills that have served you well in managing yourself and your work, and maybe in managing one or two other people, have suddenly deserted you. Don’t worry, they haven'’t – but what you have missed is that there'’s been a ‘state change’ in your business.

When a team reaches a certain size it begins to have a dynamic of its own. You can no longer sit in the middle of the web and manage the individuals –or if you try, it'’ll be a recipe for chaos and stress. You’'ll also permanently restrict the capacity of your business to grow, as you simply cannot manage more than a certain number of people in this way.

So what needs to change?

Some conversations are better held as a team. Questions like:

• What are the basic groundrules around here?
• How should we run our meetings?
• What are our values?
• What behaviour is and isn’'t acceptable between us, and between us and our customers?
• Who is accountable for what and to whom?
• What does it actually mean to ‘be accountable’ anyway?

These, and many others, are all conversations which the team should hold together. They should negotiate the rules and thrash out solutions which work for everybody. That way they take ownership of the groundrules and the behaviour, and you no longer need to pull the strings. Your role changes, freeing you up to do the things you know you need to do to grow your business.

Opening a ‘Can of Worms’?

Of course holding team conversations is a skill in its own right and one which many managers avoid, as it seems like opening a ‘can of worms’. Well, believe me, you are potentially going to have an even bigger can of worms to deal with if you don'’t have these conversations now, in the early days of the team and before anything goes wrong. The very worst time to have some of the above conversations is when two or more members of the team have fallen out over something!

A Different Kind of Animal!

So there are two key steps to take in becoming a good team leader:

1. Recognise that things have changed. You are dealing with a different ‘animal’ now, and it demands different skills.
2. Learn the skills!

A good starting point is to engage a facilitator for your early meetings. Observe how a skilled facilitator handles the team, and group conversations, and use this person to train you in the skills. Understand the dynamics involved and learn to manage them yourself and you will enormously free up your time and energy to spend on growing and developing your business, rather than wasting time firefighting and doing your team’'s jobs for them!

Give me a call if this strikes a chord with you and you’d like to talk further – 01865 881056; or email me: km@shineconsulting.co.uk.

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