Building High Performing Team – 1: Fill the Skill Gaps

Increasing efficiencies has been one of the focus areas for any team or organization. But on the other hand, in my entire career so far, I haven’t met anyone, who wants to perform poorly. Everyone intends to give his best in his own capacity.?

Then the question arises, why it should be the focus area? It should not be of any concern for any team at all, where is the Gap? Let’s think and share our views on this today.?

There might be several answers to this question, in fact, plenty of corrective measures might have already taken by you to improve the team efficiencies. The actions might be more effective and sustainable if you go in more details and find root cause of performing low.

As a leader we must take the responsibility for teams or an individual and put serious efforts to improve their performance, especially when the same team or individual had performed well previously.

?IMO, there are no more than three reasons, mentioned below, which cause low output of any team. Please share your thoughts if you see any additional inputs apart from listed three??

1. Skill Gap
2. Lack of motivation
3. Inadequate resources and support to teams

?Filling the Skill Gap

?I have been a big admirer of trainings and learnings. I guess, I have attended around 100s of trainings, if not more, but I hardly remember few 10s, those really helped me in my job to get me better.

If I think more in deep, these trainings were customized as per my needs to perform my work better and I applied & practiced these learnings in my day-to-day job. Rest of the trainings got faded away over the period and were not worth of spending my time and money in those trainings.

?In this article today, I am sharing my experiences and practices, I follow to fill the skill gaps in my team. ?I consider below listed points and these have been effective for me & my team in getting desired sustainable results.?

1. Understanding team and individuals better, their skills, potential, aspiration, strengths etc. by working closely and being engaged with them.
2. Finding the skill gaps for an individual or team, identifying their learning & training needs, involving team in the decisions you make. This should not be unilateral. If team is involved in any decision, it becomes their commitment not only yours.
3. Plan for Trainings & Learnings, take it as a project, real learnings are applying in day-to-day job, practicing more and exploring more. A few hours/days classroom trainings can’t help anyone, if it’s not applied in your work.
4. Building SMEs. developing expertise in team, making them owners of a specific area and building culture of knowledge sharing is desirable.
5. Solid Documentation is a great learning tool. Make sure the documents are live.

?Lastly, sharing with you, Daniel Greenberg’s quote. - “You can't make someone learn something - you really can't teach someone something - they have to want to learn it. And if they want to learn, they will.”

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So, Be Realistic. Don’t expect 100%, it's a gradual process and takes time, have patience.

?Many Thanks for your time. Please share your views, it will enrich my learnings from your experience.