Managing Teams in a Week: Teach Yourself

Nigel Cumberland

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781444183955
• eBook ISBN: 9781444183979
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Managing teams requires very different skills than managing individuals, processes or
projects. Management expert Nigel Cumberland will show you how to hit the ground running, identify goals for your team, fill your team with the right members, and help your team reach its potential so that it is more than just the sum of its parts.Sunday: Getting started with a team
Monday: Aligning and goal-setting
Tuesday: Communication and processes within a team
Wednesday: Managing poor performance or difficult team members
Thursday: Delegating and managing work within a team
Friday: Growing the team through training and development
Saturday: Succession planning in the team

The Sunday and Monday chapters have discussed how to take over a new team, the different stages of team development and how to set your team’s direction and goals. This has created a framework that allows you to get the team as a whole into an optimal shape or alignment. We will now explore how to ensure that each individual member of your team is able to perform his or her role optimally.

This chapter will show you how to:

• Place the right people in roles that suit their interests, personality, skills and experience

• Use a model to understand the typical kinds of work-role preferences that different people might have

• Delegate and allocate work to your team to ensure that the work is completed and that the work is shared fairly

• Ensure that individuals’ goals and key performance indicators are in alignment with the team’s and organization’s goals

• Engage with, empower and motivate your team so that they will succeed in ways above and beyond what is expected of them.

Managing the individuals in your team

‘An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.’

Stephen Covey

A participant in a management training course that I was leading recently said that he would rather be in charge of 100 machines than be in charge of just one person. That may sound extreme but many managers, even those with many years of experience in leading others, can feel overwhelmed by the prospect of having to manage and deal with the individuals in their team.

A key role of anyone leading a team is to ensure that each member of the team:

• is placed in the optimal job role

• understands what to do

• knows why it needs doing

• understands how to do it

• is able to do it

• actually wants to do it.

I have developed the following six-step framework to help you ensure that each person in a team is given every possible chance of being a successful performer and contributor who will hopefully stay with the team.

The six-step team talent management framework

In many ways being a great manager is learning to ask the right questions, rather than knowing the answers. The ‘six steps’ are in the form of six questions which you are strongly encouraged to ask yourself whenever you face challenges in managing members of your team.

The remainder of this chapter will walk you through this important model.

Step 1. WHO do you place in each role within your team?

Before determining what work, task and goals each team member needs to complete, you must first ensure that you have the ideal people in each job role.

I once hired an accountant to work in my team and for a couple of years she did a great job. She was a highly qualified accountant with a stellar track record. Then one day she made a serious mistake in a spreadsheet that she had created. When she came to apologize we began talking about how tedious and sometimes boring being an accountant can be. She then revealed that she did not enjoy her job any more and that was probably why she was making mistakes. She spoke of preferring job roles that would be more people-focused and customer-facing. Luckily I was able to offer her a customer service role which she enjoyed and performed well. She is not unique; so many people work in jobs that they either do not enjoy and/or are not very good at. Can you imagine how unproductive your team would be if it were filled with such people?

As a manager you must ensure that each role is filled by the ideal individual – someone who is able, motivated and willing to perform well in that role. You must decide the criteria team members must meet in order to perform wel...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• About the Author
• Title
• Contents 
• Introduction
• Sunday Getting started with your team
• Monday Alignment and goal-setting for your team
• Tuesday Delegating and managing the work within your team
• Wednesday Optimal communication within your team
• Thursday Managing poor performers in your team
• Friday Managing high performers in your team
• Saturday Creating and maintaining a culture of excellence
• Surviving in tough times
• Answers
• Copyright