Google ‘Team Management’ and ‘Organize a Team’ and we’ll find countless people telling us countless times how to do it. In my experience, it comes down to just a few simple things…
And here they are:
- Be clear what the objective is – share with our team the purpose of being in a team in the first place. E.g. to make our customers happy; to build a widget; to help people find stuff.
- Give tasks to people who are best at doing them – use people strengths. If Bill is good at communicating to customers, then give him that job. If Sharon is the best at writing reports, give her that job.
- Set deadlines – every task, no matter how small, must have a start time, and an end time.
- Set standards – every task, no matter how small, must be measurable, and the target measurement must be set, communicated and achievable.
- Share progress – team progress must be communicated for all to see.
- Have backup – if a team-member is off sick, or unavailable, someone else must be able to step in to plug the gap.
- Review history – we should look back, with our team, and identify what works, what doesn’t work, and learn from it.
- Forget job titles – job titles mean nothing if there is work to be done. Everyone in our team must feel empowered to fill gaps if they go unfilled.
- Define roles and responsibilities – notwithstanding point 8, lay out to our teams who is responsible for what, who is accountable, who must be informed, and who must support. If it helps, plot these in a RACI matrix.
- Share success – a team is a machine that depends on all its working parts, so reward must be shared across the team.
