Building Engaged Team

In my last post I talked about how to identify disengagement in our respective teams and from the observations receivedfrom various colleagues and friends it was pretty clear that an engaged team is the most valuable tool for a manager and ultimately a precious asset for the organization.

Speaking to many colleagues and other successful managers what I gather is that one of the key day to day job of every manager is work on building engagement within the teams. Broadly the tactics employed by managers to build engagement are basedon: Transparency, Relationships and Opportunity.

Transparency is one of the key factor which lead to better engagement. In an organization where the culture promoted is of transparency, employees relate better to the organization’s mission goals etc. and thus work with their minds and hearts  in helping organization  achieve their goals. So as a team leader ithelps to first explain the rational in a transparent manner  to theteam as to why a particular task is to be done. As a manager it often helps when you have a transparent performance appraisal process. This clearsany ambiguitythat employees might have and in all probability, they would agree to the  performance ratings. An engaged employee devotes most of his /her time in helping achieving the organization its milestones. Such an employee has full trust on his manager and the organization.

When it comes to building trust within the team, Strong Positive Relationships hold the key. As a manager if you  build relationships with the teammembers individuallyand in collection. Simple things like before asking about what job is is he doing or what  is the progress on the task assigned, instead if the manager takes a minute to ask the individual as to how he is doing or feeling for the day or even things like asking that did you have your lunch today or even asking whether he had taken his kid for vaccination to doctor. Such things help in building the rapport. The individual feels thatthe organization and particularly the manager as a whole care for him. The employee feels that his leader is there to help him in the process of guiding him  towards making him a better professional.

Once a team member feels that he can realize his individual goals while pursuing the company goals he feels totally engaged and charged up. He  believes that the organization can provide him adequate opportunity to grow and realize their individual dreams. And every growing organization do present opportunities for employees to grow. As managers when we come to know that there is an opportunity for a team member to grow , then even at the risk of  letting your best employee go, one should encourage the particular individual in concern to take up the assignment and thus help him grow. Once there is a case of growth in the team, then the other team members see the opportunity of growth for themselves and it opens up the option for the manager to build further engagement within the team through coaching and mentoring.

 Quoting Jack Welch : “ there are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow”