Feeding Baby Elephants Chapter 4: Building a Team

Part 2: Learning by Doing

After going through all this learning for the first 6 years of my career, it was now my turn to build a team and make it work. It was not easy considering that I had always worked by myself. This was therefore very important to me. It was one of the reasons why I took up the job, to address a clear weakness in my career (Check Chapter 3: Making tough Career Choices). Looking back on what we achieved over such a short time, I can attest that it was a great success. Here is what worked for me:

1. There is time for Discovery: Allow yourself to discover the team, and allow the team to discover themselves. The biggest challenge about this job was that everything was new; the company, the people, the processes. It was starting from scratch. One of the worst mistakes you can ever make is to prescribe a solution before you even give yourself time to understand the situation. So I allowed myself and my team to discover ourselves, to discover the new roles, to discover the new company. We would sit down everyday, map out what needed to be done and assign tasks as we go. In the process, everyone starts to find themselves, start to establish a routine, start to form processes that works. Within a few weeks of this launch mode, we were already setting solid processes. I was also picking strengths and weaknesses on my team members. This is critical even for an established team. When a new member joins in, let them assimilate before you can start assigned predefined tasks. Their new perspective may surprise you as they shake the status quo.
2. Piecemeals Slows Learning and Innovation: When you design the job descriptions and when assigning responsibilities ensure that every team member sees a process from beginning to end. This way, they get to learn the consequences of their actions and learn to improve the whole value chain. I will give an insurance example here: an underwriter accepting business must also place reinsurance for that business and when a claim comes, they must participate in the claim validation. This way, they get to appreciate all the terms imposed to the policy. They also get to pick the mistake made on the initial stages of the process. That's an effective way to learn. Being responsible for just a portion of the process blinds the team member to the impact of their decisions on the next team member. Lastly, being responsible for the whole value chain instils ownership. We spoke of ownership in Part 1 of this Chapter (see it here).
3. Show them how its done: This follows from Part 1 where we learnt to lead. Your team will rely on you for those moments when they don't know what to do or when they are not sure what to do. When that time comes, you need to step up and lead. This means you have to constantly improve yourself and be current to your profession. Your team has to rely on each other and also rely on the team leader. I remember strongly those moments, I would walk to my team and ask for the chair so that we can sit together to do whatever it is that had been bothering them. These are bonding moments that leave a lasting impression on your team. This is not the moment to make your team feel bad for not knowing, its a moment to teach them no-one knows everything therefore they need each other.?

That's all for 2021. Lets meet again in 2022 for Chapter 5 onwards as we learn together. Happy Holidays and Blessed New Year!