Driving Team To Perform
Few years back, I got an opportunity to build a team. Let me clarify, a small team. It was an arduous task. A list of names from a different business unit. They were heavily invested into editing of scientific journal for years. Editing that was very mechanical in nature. Watertight editorial guidelines and sacrosanct timelines. Selection process was very unconventional. It was an experiment that worked. With team onboard, the challenge was to manage the shift. Shift from a very mechanical job task to a creative job role. Therefore, we started with incremental goal setting. The first step was to give them low level of challenges with elements of continuous mechanical task into it. Then followed a series of mute observation sessions. I had my own checklist for observing these people.
One of the key checklist items was the amount of effort they are investing without being worried about the outcome. It gave a clear idea of their belief system. They did not know if they have the capability to succeed but they wanted to control the outcome. And precisely for this reason they were not allowed to do practice, they were coached to do deliberate practice. Deliberate practice to close performance gap keeping in mind that growth and performance is an iterative process. Prolonged deliberate practice based on goal-relevant techniques closed major performance gaps and they soon became self-regulated. Other than handling their core task, they were handling vendors and clients as well. The primary reasons of success was goal setting with varying attributes. The attributes were motivation, task at hand, objective, focus, and success parameters. Each of these attributes were assigned two values along with their description. The attributes did not follow a particular sequence of implementation. It was implemented based on the scenario planning. And the best part of this entire exercise was that there was nothing formal about it. At time, team knew what they are doing. At times, they were clueless. Some of you can relate to it especially those who were part of the team I am talking about ??. The strategy largely worked but with fair share of failure as well. Failure accepted as feedback and due course of correction being actioned.
Founder - Leadership Development SaaS Platform "GOALS N U", Investor, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Design Thinking Master Practitioner, Director on Board, Indian Society of NLP, Six Sigma Black Belt, ACC
4 年You created a belief for your team that basics matter. Mastery over these basics will propel performance. They believed in you and you have backed them up when it mattered. Perhaps a powerful reason for your team being with you Anurag Dayal
Learning Designer & Consultant | PSM? | Kotter? Change Management | Human Resources | Behavior Science
4 年“They did not know if they have the capability to succeed but they wanted to control the outcome.” And the realization that we could achieve more and are more (through deliberate coaching) drove our performance. I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to work with you directly—which has enabled me to learn, practice, and pass on the strong work ethics you instilled in us. You shared impactful insights and lessons—be it regarding leadership, workplace culture and dynamics, communication, discipline, and personal growth. Not only was the selection process unconventional, the way you managed the team was as well. As we were a small team, we got to explore the project process holistically rather than just the specific tasks expected from our role. We were clueless *most* of the time, but that helped us navigate through ambiguity and enhanced our learning exponentially—we forged our own paths and had the autonomy and support to do so. We failed numerous times, but you helped us fail forward. And the lessons gleaned from those failures still stay with me today. Thank you for investing in us, and I hope we can work together again someday. ??