Getting the Best Out of You and Your Team

04.03.2015

If the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, then this adage achieves even greater truth when applied to you and the team you lead.

No matter what your industry, as an employer your day-to-day work will most likely be challenging and fascinating in equal measures. The drive to assemble the cogs that will make your enterprise run and grow smoothly can mean you’re regularly putting in 60-hour weeks.

In building a sound foundation of personnel, you need to surround yourself with individuals who will complement your dynamism – people who understand your visionary wavelength and the no-nonsense language you speak. Follow the five following steps to help get your team working in the right way:

Cause before reward

An employee whose primary passion is the work’s cause, not the money it pays. Such individuals will be happier and more able to use their initiative in a way that helps you stay on sight with what you want to achieve. Your team members need to be able to communicate their enthusiasm and commitment to get customers and clients on board and ready to believe in your company’s expertise. The root of this enthusiasm lies in passion for the vocation, and if you are talented enough to spot those who fall into this category, your business will take off in directions you never anticipated.

Take a united approach

A vision might be common across the workforce, but ways of making it a reality will vary. Try to stay in touch with your team as much as possible to avoid employees charging off in the wrong direction. Whether you use team meetings, one-on-one talks, Skype, emails or phone meetings, keeping open two-way dialogue with your colleagues is crucial to your firm’s balanced development.

Cut the nonsense

If your company is not a global corporation, adopting a McDonald’s-sized ego will only weigh procedures down with a glut of red tape. Enjoy the freedom working in a small-team culture can bring; you very probably do not need complex procedure systems, hard and fast rules and a constitution written in gold. Delusions of grandeur are a sure way to lose the faith and cooperation of the employees you’ve worked so hard to get on your side.

Encourage feedback

Let your workers know that the success of the company depends on the team’s ideas as much as on its effort and creativity to get jobs done. Allowing your employees to voice their concerns will get new perspectives on the way things are done, while nurturing a more engaged team. Diversity in people and, consequently, of thinking should be a key element of your office’s cultural dynamic; it will encourage staff members to let their skills come to the fore in a professional manner.

One step at a time

Hunger for success is good, but it is easy to overload a staff-base. A team where everyone is frothing to run before they can walk is great, but appointing too many tasks too soon is likely to deluge employees, leading to silence and inactivity. On the opposite side of the spectrum, sometimes setting reasonable goals and deadlines could, however, have the opposite effect and may even lead to workers seeking for more responsibility as they thrive off the feel-good factor of accomplishment.

Finally, always remember to practice what you preach. Adopt a first-to-arrive, last-to-leave approach that will demonstrate to your employees what real commitment means and what it can achieve. Similarly, recognise that your lifestyle will send out the surest message about your expectations of others: come into work tired and worse for wear and you can be certain that the same ethos will permeate your workforce. Your business starts with you, so make sure you stay healthy and bright if you want your firm to follow suit.