Many organisations do not have the luxury of time or choice when putting together a team to achieve a strategic objective. In many cases, teams that work in specific departments are already in situ, and in other organisations, there are limited resources to pull a team together. However, team dynamics and operational cohesion are crucial aspects of any successful project! From a strategic perspective, assembling the right people with complementary skills is critical to the successful implementation of a strategic decision. If you are faced with an upcoming project in your organisation, and have the luxury of time and choice, then what type of considerations do you need to make when putting your team together? Below are ten questions you can ask yourself to help gather together the best people for the job.
1) What skills do I need in the team?
This sounds painfully obvious, but it can be overlooked, particularly if a team is already in place and has worked together before. Moreover, as a leader, there will always be a desire to maintain team harmony from the off, and not rock the boat too much. But without properly analysing the skills and strengths evidenced within the team, and aligning them to the project deliverables, you leave yourself open to disharmony raising its head further on down the road, when certain skills prove beyond job role or skill set. If the project strategy is not clear on the skills requirements, it is worth revisiting it before assembling the team.
2) What styles best suit the work involved?
It is worth considering whether certain personality types will suit certain aspects of the work at hand. For example, if there is a customer facing aspect to the team’s responsibilities, ensuring you have a person who is comfortable in social or selling situations will be far more beneficial than giving such responsibility to a technically focused, introverted team member. This may create anxiety among the introvert which would hamper them working to their full potential. Ideally, skills and styles need to be looked at together when assembling a team, to ensure it works as effectively as possible and can meet a variety of challenges. Consider what social traits are required for each job role and for the team as a whole. Playing to one’s technical and social strengths can create a significant momentum and a positive team dynamic.
3) What formal processes do I need to have in place to ensure objectives are met?
This is often dependent upon the organisation – some project plans can be more informal than others! If your organisation operates on the informal side of things, consider what you can do to formalise your processes, project deliverables, milestones, reviews, performance indicators, etc. For example, are there clear written roles and responsibilities in place for all to see and refer to? Are the lines of reporting clear to all? What are the KPI’s? Are they achievable? Often, when introducing formal processes to an informal organisation, it helps to break things down into sub projects, shortening time frames and maintaining momentum. But the more formal your planning, the more you can clearly evidence project success.
4) Do I know the strengths and weaknesses of my team members?
Other than anecdotally, can you identify clear strengths and weaknesses in the team, and align complimentary skill sets? For example, you may have a team member that is excellent at coming up with ideas and seeing the big picture but is less interested in detail and accuracy. If you can align this person with a detail focused person who enjoys completing tasks and addressing the finer details, this could be an excellent match up. However, such differences in approach can often lead to mutual frustration if communication styles are unknown. (For more information on this, read our article “can personality profiling really help your organisation?”) Make sure that any collaboration within the team is explained in terms of the strengths that each team member brings to the table. This will help them play to their own strengths and respect the strengths of others.
5) Do I know how to get the best out of each team member?
Team members may well be motivated by different things, however what unites them is that they will want to feel acknowledged and recognised for their work and achievements. Ensuring you know what drives your team individually will help you lead effectively. E.g., one person might want public praise, another may not want to be singled out. Find out what will spur them on, and if possible, what demotivates them. How do they behave when they are firing on all cylinders? What about when they’re frustrated? If possible, do this in the planning stage so you can identify individuals for certain motivating tasks, or recognise any potential warning signs.
6) Do my team know how to communicate effectively with each other?
Nothing can be more frustrating from a management standpoint than poor communication among the team, leading to disharmony and a lack of focus on the project. Has any training been given to employees on how to effectively work within a team? If not, consider what you can do to mitigate communication failures: either be explicitly clear in how the team is to communicate, e.g., making handover notes or CRM updates a compulsory part of the project workflow, or get the team to understand (whether formally or informally) what communication style each team member prefers.
7) How do they want to be communicated with?
Whilst it is important for you and the team to understand how to communicate on an individual level, you need to be able to effectively communicate with the team as a whole. Again, this is often overlooked, and getting it wrong can quickly lead to a “team vs manager” dynamic. The easiest way to find out how to communicate best with the team as a whole is to ask them. How frequently do they want direction? How often do they want to meet? What medium works best for communication? Ensure these types of questions are covered in a kick off meeting and go with the consensus.
8) What management style will work best/is expected?
Nothing frustrates a team like micromanagement, or indeed an absent manager! Of course, these things are open to individual interpretation. But the easiest way to establish clarity and manage expectations in this regard is to define what this looks like in advance. Similar to the communication discussion in the previous paragraph, seek to understand what management style works best on a team and individual basis. The essence of effective management is in communicating clearly and making sure you are positively received. So, a participative approach to management and communication preferences will serve a team well in the midst of a project.
9) Do they have context as to what needs to be achieved and why?
A key reason why some projects do not meet their initial expectations is because of a lack of context; a team didn’t have all the information or know how their actions impacted on other parts of the business or the organisation as a whole. Setting the scene for a team so they know why their work matters is an effective way of keeping them on track. Whilst a team may not need to know every aspect of a particular strategy, they need to know to what end they are working. A strategy “one pager” (however informal), as advocated by Robert Kaplan and David Norton as part of their Balanced Scorecard, can be a useful reference point for a team to be able to keep the big picture in focus.
10) What obstacles do I anticipate and how will I deal with them?
There will always be things that you as a leader cannot legislate for, but it helps to at least try and anticipate likely scenarios based on your previous experiences. You might consider how you can most quickly address team dynamic issues or work backlogs before they happen. What operational issues have arisen in the past and what solutions have worked well? What are the most common objections from a particular stakeholder group and what can be done to manage them? This can be a useful troubleshooting exercise to do with the team at the outset of a project, to both prepare for setbacks and to create a bit of unity. It may also save on time and admin as consensus has been reached on the best course of action in common situations.
Conclusion
Many organisations admit to not implementing their strategy as effectively as they would like, the day-to-day operational grind often being cited as a reason for falling short of desired outcomes. But this needn’t always be the case! Having examined the above questions, it is clear that you can contribute greatly to the success of a project by planning effectively and assembling the right team. If enough time is spent on planning and people, the chances of creating a productive, cohesive, happy, and motivated team are high – as is the likelihood of project success.
