5 Ways To Build a Proactive Marketing Team Part 1 of 2
Managers often feel like everything is going far too slow. The business goals are ambitious. No surprise, one of the top goals of marketing leaders is for their teams and themselves to become more proactive. Wouldn't it be great to prevent fires from starting, instead of running around fixing issues all the time?
There are many benefits to developing a proactive team. Proactive employees tend to be more self-motivated, innovative problem-solvers, more engaged with their job and more productive.
By now, you are probably asking yourself: "Yes, great! But how do I get there? I've already got enough on my plate! The last thing I need is another list to tell me all the things I should be doing to be a good manager."
I feel for you! There seems to be an endless list of demands from managers nowadays. I promise if you can include only two things from the list below in your leadership style, you will find find projects move along faster. Your team will thank you by taking work off your hands so you can focus on the things that matter most.
#1 Create an environment of safety and trust
What do people fear even more than death? Making themselves ridiculous or seem incompetent when speaking in public. You see, the bar is very high if you expect your team to put themselves out there and be proactive. You can help them by creating an environment of psychological safety. Google invested millions in its Aristotle project to find out what key factors were needed to build a highly effective team. "Psychological Safety" came out as the #1. Ask yourself:
"Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?"
It seems so obvious and yet, employees often don't feel safe, especially when engaging with senior managers. People need to feel safe that they will not to be judged by their peers when they share their thoughts and ideas.
#2 Implement a solutions-only policy
You have just sat down at your desk, and your team members are already queuing to get your feedback on their problems? Congratulations, you have successfully established your brand as an expert problem-solver! It feels great to be needed and to help colleagues to solve their issues. Unfortunately, they never run out of problems, but appreciate you so much that they bring more. In return, you don't seem to find time for essential topics like strategy and innovation.
Step out of this hamster wheel by asking your team for solutions. Nobody shall bring you a problem without suggesting a solution. It doesn't matter if it's a good suggestion or not (see psychological safety above). What matters is that they feel empowered to become part of the solution.
#3 Step out of the victim mode and stop blaming others
When the business gets tough, and expectations rise, sometimes it makes people feel helpless. In this situation, it's easy to deflect our responsibility and look elsewhere for the cause of the problem. The blame game has already started when you hear statements like
"They can never do it right."
"They don't know what they want."
"We always need to compensate for their mistakes."
While this might make us feel better, it worsens the problem. At this point, communication between and within teams suffers. As a consequence, trust is lost, and collaboration gets even harder.
Stop your team to play the blame game. Instead, spend more time with stake-holders, empathize, build trust, and co-create solutions.
... to be continued ...
Please continue and read Part 2 of the article.
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If you found this article interesting, download your free copy of the "Time Reclaimer System" and learn about the 3 simple steps to reclaim time for marketing managers.
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Christian works as an executive coach and marketing consultant. He helps marketing leaders to become focused, faster and more efficient. His approach is to integrate business goals with the required behavioral change. Key areas of expertise are internal positioning of marketing, partnering with other business functions and working in multi-cultural, international, dispersed teams.