Category Archives: Team Management

Seven Tips for Building an Amazing Team

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This is a guest blog written by Helen Pethybridge from ActionCOACH.

As a business owner, you understand how important it is to have the best people around you. And when they’re in, then making sure they are all pulling in the same direction in your growing business. Once you have the right people in the right places, that have the trust and support they need, you will see massive increases in morale, productivity and therefore results: increased profits. Here are my 7 tips for building an amazing team:

  1. Clear responsibilities

Firstly, get off to a flying start by being clear – and I mean really clear – on what is the work to be done, how will the work be measured, and how are these activities best grouped together into role or jobs. Make sure there is ‘clear space’ between the accountabilities of each different role in the team – so the job holders don’t ‘trip over’ one another.

  1. Hire on attitude

Next define the skills and experiences that are absolutely necessary to do the job and keep them to the minimum you can get away with. Be as broad as you can in terms of the type of product experience, the years’ experiences already gained, the qualifications needed, the broader the range of transferable skills the better for attracting more applicants. This allows you to attract as many diverse people as possible, from a broad range of backgrounds and industries. THEN you get the opportunity to narrow down your applicant pool based on attitude. Remember, it’s much easier to train skills, than change attitudes… So, hire on attitude. This gives you a real head start on creating an amazing team.

  1. Nurture

My third tip is to nurture your team members especially your new hires through their onboarding time. You’ve spent all this time and effort on hiring them, so why wouldn’t you invest a little more time to make sure they land smoothly in your team? It beggars belief that when a manager hires their dream candidate they can’t manage to be in the office with them on their first day.

  1. Give them space

So now you’ve a got great people in place in well-designed roles, next you need to keep them and build them into a team. Your role is to give them overall direction and structure and then let them get on with it.  You’ve hired the best, so show your trust in them. Provide ‘leadership cover’ if things go a little awry that supports them and take the flack yourself.

  1. Be accessible

Give your team first priority on your time. They’ll deal with everything for you as long as they know that when they do actually need you, you are accessible and responsive. Look after the team, and the team will look after the work, and the clients.

  1. Reward your team’s success

Give credit where credit is due, publicly recognise and celebrate the team’s achievements and success encompassing the whole team effort not just the visible team members ‘fronting’ the work they’re always supported by their colleagues in the background probably doing most of the work.

  1. Be a risk taker

My final top tip is to take risks on talented people. Keep everyone stretched and challenged. Support them to grow into their role, rather than hiring ‘ready-made’ who’ll be bored before you’ve finished their induction…

When teams have ‘space’ to operate and have the trust and support from their leader, they have a happy habit of getting on with working together, delivering amazing results and supporting each other and you just got yourself a dream team.

Find out more about what Helen does at actioncoach.co.uk/helen-pethybridge.

How Does Snow White Manage the Seven Dwarfs?

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Managing a team of employees brings with it many challenges. Everyone in the team is different – with different needs and needing to be managed differently. How do you work with everyone in your team, to make sure that everyone is pulling together and ensuring that you’re getting the best from each individual and therefore the team as a whole?

In this festive blog, we’ll look at how Snow White manages the very different characters of the seven Dwarfs, for the best effect.

Did you know that six out of seven dwarfs are not Happy?

The seven Dwarfs are all very different and need to be managed differently by Snow White, if she is to get the best from her team. As their manager, she has spent a lot of time getting to know each of the Dwarfs and what motivates them. She has also used a number of different personality profiling tools to help her. Here’s what she’s learnt over the years.

Doc – is a great team leader and a fixer. He can often see a solution to a problem that the others can’t figure out. But he can be a bit bossy too, expecting the other Dwarfs to jump when he gives them an order. Snow White has to give him enough challenging work to stop him from getting bored and trying to boss the others around.

Grumpy – is the technician of the team. He’s great with detail and analysis, but this means that he’s not good at speaking to clients. He gets frustrated when anyone asks him a silly question or doesn’t understand the answer he gives them. He just wants to be left to get on with his work, which he’s actually really good at.

Happy – is always happy! He’s great at motivating the rest of the team and keeping projects going through his energy. He does get distracted easily and sometimes comes up with a new idea before finishing the project that he’s working on. He relies on other members of the team to get the work finished.

Sleepy – sometimes the others think that he’s not pulling his weight as he’s always taking time out for a snooze. But actually, Sleepy is the reflector in the team. When Happy comes up with yet another great new idea, Sleepy is the one who will sleep on it and then come back with the useful questions and suggestions that help the team to decide whether or not to pursue this particular idea.

Dopey – is the joker in the team. He likes to have a laugh and can keep things light, even when the team is working to a deadline. He loves playing practical jokes on Grumpy and teasing Doc when he gets too bossy.

Bashful – is the shy, quiet one in the team. Snow While can’t shout at him if he does something wrong, but spends time explaining exactly what she wants him to do and he’ll do a great job for her. She won’t ask him to go networking or give a presentation to the rest of the Dwarfs because he’s too much of an introvert to do that. He’s a steady, reliable worker who often finishes what Happy starts.

Sneezy – is the member of the team who will come down with the latest bug first. He complains a lot about how it’s too cold or too hot in the office, but Snow White has learnt to keep him busy with plenty of interesting work and responsibility for projects.

By spending time with each of her team members, Snow White has come to know their strengths very well. She can manage them individually and as a team, to get the best from them all through the year!

What Do You Do if an Employee Appeals Your Decision?

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If you’ve had to make a decision about one of your employees and an issue such as their flexible working request or a disciplinary situation, your employee has the right to appeal against your decision.

What do you do next? How should you handle their appeal?

Your employee can appeal against a disciplinary decision on both conduct and performance matters, or any other employment decision, but they must do so in writing. They need to set out the grounds for their appeal within the number of days set out in your own policy, of you giving them your decision.

You should then hear their appeal without delay. Where possible this should be done by a manager, preferably more senior and not previously involved in the case. This is not always possible in a smaller business, so the same manager or owner may have to hear the appeal, and they must be objective. At this meeting you need to hear what your employee has to say, and consider it against all the facts. You may need to carry out further investigations in order to reach your conclusion, before making your final decision.

Following the meeting, you should write to your employee to tell them the outcome of the appeal, and how the decision was reached. Examples of all the letters for all stages of the formal disciplinary process are available from the Disciplining staff section of the Acas website.

Whatever decision is made regarding the appeal, you must keep a confidential written record of the case.

If you run a small business and need someone impartial to handle appeals, or initial disciplinary meetings for you, do get in touch to talk about how we can do this for you. Call us on 0118 940 3032 or email sueferguson@optionshr.co.uk.

Learning to Manage Your Team

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Recently one of my clients asked me to help one of the managers in her business, who wasn’t that confident in his role. Rather than sending the manager on an off the shelf ‘learn to manage’ course, my client asked what I thought would work best. After a brief conversation with my client, to find out about her concerns, I then spoke to the manager. As a result, we decided that some 1-2-1 management coaching sessions with the manager would be ideal.

One of the manager’s main issues was that he needed to learn how to deal with long serving members of staff. There had been a number of incidences when he might ask them to do something, for them to tell him that it wasn’t part of their job. Both the members of staff have been with the company for some time and like the way things always used to be. They weren’t keen on change – something many of us struggle with.

Rather than come down heavy handed on his staff, the manager and I agreed, during one of our sessions, that he needed to learn how to push back and challenge his team members. To help him do this more effectively we used the Quest personality profiling system, to show up in which areas he is stronger and weaker. This showed us the skills that we needed to work on. It’s not possible to turn all your weaknesses into strengths; you need to understand which are the most important ones that you can develop.

We also looked at the manager’s best communication style and how that relates to the communication styles of his team members. We discussed the importance of not treating everyone the same. Instead, look at how they like to be managed and find a middle ground.

I will carry on working with my client’s manager, over the coming months, to coach him in his job and help him to overcome other obstacles that will come his way, as his confidence builds.

If you would like to arrange 1-2-1 Coaching for your members of staff, do get in touch. We can discuss the issues and work out the best way forward, for you and for them. Call us on 0118 940 3032 or click here to email me.