How to rebuild an underperforming team??

Great managers know and value the unique abilities of employees - Marcus Buckingham

Self-Assessment for Managers. It is important that before starting on the journey of rebuilding your team an honest and full appraisal of your own abilities be made.

Knowing the team's strengths and weaknesses. When we use our strengths at work, from teamwork to customer service excellence, we feel better engaged and motivated. Managers who know their employees well know how to ensure this happens every day.

Describe a time when you harnessed an employee’s skill or strength to improve team productivity.

On a scale of 1-10, how well do you know your employees?

Do you feel more aware of some employees’ strengths and weaknesses than others?

When assigning team projects, I make sure that each team member can play to their strengths.?True/False

Communicating with your team. One of the building blocks of great management. Give managers the chance to take a moment to think about their communication style and strategy.

I would describe my communication style in the following way:

I?check in?daily with employees and ask questions of each employee.?True/False

How regularly do you schedule one on ones with employees? How useful do you find these meetings?

How have you adapted your communication style during remote work?

Ability to motivate. Managers are motivators! From?employee wellbeing levels. These questions help managers reflect on how intentional they are about employee motivation.

I always thank employees for a job well done. True/False

I make time for team-building exercises?True/False

Describe how motivated your employees have been recently, you noticed any changes in motivation levels or productivity?

I regularly check in and offer employees support as they complete tasks

How do you cope with?employee burnout?on your team?

Questions about collaboration within your team. Comes naturally to some teams – but often, managers have to create the conditions for great teamwork. Ensure that tasks are delegated in a way that matches each employee’s strengths.

I regularly encourage team members to pool their skills and collaborate on projects True/False

Team members work effectively together and there is little or no interpersonal conflict True/False

I take on a coaching role when team members hit roadblocks on projects True/False

Describe the role of collaboration and teamwork on your team. Do employees work better independently / in a group?

How might you improve collaboration?

Questions about performance management. Managers are responsible for keeping track of whether employees are working at their best. Performance management is a fine balance – managers should?trust employees?whilst also setting?clear expectations.

How often do you give informal feedback to employees??Never to Very Often

Reflect on the previous performance review cycle. Do you feel it motivated or demotivated employees?

How would you change the?performance review?process to better engage employees?

How do you hold employees accountable for completing tasks?

Manager’s own career development. Self-evaluations are an opportunity for managers to reflect on their own careers. This helps make the process?constructive?and forward-looking. Managers are improving their skills not only for their teams, but also so they can equip themselves for their careers longer term.

The thing I must enjoy about my job is:

The thing I least enjoy about my job is:

Where do you see yourself in five years time?

1. How has being a manager challenged you?

What skills would you most like to develop looking forwards?

How to rebuild a Team

Praise. This is one of our most basic human needs, and when people do a good job, they expect to receive that from their boss. It doesn't need to be over the top; it can often just be a simple "thank you" or "good job, well done." Praise is one of a leader's most powerful tools, yet too many use it too sparingly.

Timely, Constructive Feedback. We all make mistakes, but criticism rarely helps to fix them. What teams want is timely, constructive feedback. If the result is not what you expect, then let them know, but do it in a way that allows them to learn and improve, so that they will know how to avoid the mistake next time.

Stand Up for the Team. Too many leaders just throw their teams under the bus when things go wrong. But as the leader, when things go wrong you're still part of it, you can't just disassociate yourself from the failure. That doesn't mean you need to put your hands up and say, "My fault," but you should look to defend your team and protect them from criticism. Leaders who do that will find that their teams will stand by them when things are not going well, but when they don't, their teams will leave them to struggle.

Performance expectations. These are requirements that include?expected results, behaviour and actions. These are commonly documented in contracts, job descriptions, team policies and performance management documentation such that they may not be captured as a single document.

Revisit project plans. Before delving into the evaluation processes, it is important to revisit the original goals of the plan. Taking a step back, allows you to be better informed and puts you in the right frame of mind to draw realistic conclusions. If you constantly have a view of the final outcomes in mind, your evaluation may be skewed.

Interview each team member. Evaluation interviews should be conducted in both a group environment as well as individually. Group interviews are harder to organise with social distancing rules and limited people allowed in rooms. Managers must arrange interviews that adhere to distancing rules, while still being able to gain the required information to provide insights. You may find that group members hold back their thoughts in the group interview setting therefore it is important to conduct both so comparisons can be made. Try to discover each group member’s feelings, how they thought the dynamics in the group worked, any of their concerns and what they felt worked well. This provides an opportunity for both the manager and the individual employee to provide constructive feedback in an informal setting.

Listen carefully. As a manager, you must pay careful attention to what each person says during these debriefing interviews. Some people may be apprehensive, to be honest, and it is in your best interests to seek the truth from them. Make each person feel comfortable in providing confidential feedback, and if you feel that they are holding back, try to approach the question in a different way.

Identify key challenges. After conducting the interviews, sit down and extract the key challenges that were faced throughout the project. There may be both obvious and very subtle problems that occurred but it is important to analyse each one. Areas of analysis could include deadlines that were not met, the quality of the work, and whether staff were assigned the correct tasks based on their skillsets.

Plan for next time.?Many teamwork plans can go wasted without proper analysis and forward planning. Following up on the results of the plan is just as important as the plan itself. Use your findings from the interviews to plan for the next time. This will be of assistance in areas such as delegation and the setting of deadlines in future plans

Is your team underperforming? Are there constant arguments, silence, threats, accusations, and blame? Does everyone seem to be just going through the motions, turning up but lacking the drive to do anything more than the bare minimum?

Get to the Heart of the Problem. Getting to the heart of the problem and identifying the core issue is key to being able to rebuild the team. Many organisations think that simply sending a team on a team building day will resolve everything – but this is simply not the case. Here are some steps you can take to identify the problem with the team:

One-on-one interviews: Getting everyone alone takes more time, but it could allow some people to speak more frankly and openly than in the group setting, especially if they do not feel safe speaking up in the group. You will need to compare stories or different points of view which could be conflicting.

Team Retrospective: If you think that everyone in the team will be able to speak openly, then a team retrospective (or retrospectives if one doesn’t get to the heart of the problem with the team) could be the most efficient way. ?There are positive retrospective formats that help to remind the team of the positive aspects of the team – this might be helpful before you move into the issues in the team.

Reestablishing Trust in the Team. If trust between the team members is broken, consistent steps need to be taken to restore it. You and the team need to acknowledge and address the source of the distrust to be able to move forward.

Negative or Antisocial Behaviour. There’s a model that shows dysfunctional behaviours actually can arise from a positive intent – the idea being that people actually have good intentions, but because of other factors, the actual behaviour that comes out is negative, anti-social or dysfunctional in another way. This is a good starting point when examining the dysfunctional behaviour you might be seeing in the team. The goal is to stop the behaviour, but ideally, you should see the intent, and establish why this behaviour is exhibited – perhaps the person, despite the behaviour, has something important to say.

Give the team a voice and listen. If you’ve got to the heart of the problem, then you need to take action so that the situation can improve. But what action should you take? Ask the team. Often they’ll be right – at the very least you’ll have food for thought to find the right actions to take.

Get the team’s input. You’ll need to ask them, and this means running another workshop. . The retrospective formats are built to get input from teams on issues they are facing, and then decide what should be done about it. Focus on specific, realistic and achievable actions. Make them part of your work day, and give the team time to work on theirs as well. Make yourself and the team accountable for taking these actions, and then periodically reflect on how things have or have not changed, look at what has and has not worked – make it a habit for everyone to take on these experiments, examine how things changed, and then refining.

Identify the problem:?Is it a lack of direction or motivation, a high workload, or are there other issues that are impacting the team?

Take small steps:?Don’t expect that by giving a big speech that things will magically turn around. Instead, plan and execute small changes consistently.

Promote positivity and celebrate the small wins:?If you see a positive change, such as a change in attitude or work quality or throughput, make sure you highlight it.

Be clear and consistent about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the team:?Set the standard you expect and model that standard.

Positive and constructive conflict is beneficial:?Some teams and leaders make the mistake of trying to avoid all types of conflict. Some positive and constructive conflict is beneficial to the team – but at any phase, some conflict is required to have a high-performing team.

Establish a feedback loop:?To experiment with ideas to make improvements and get regular feedback.

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.– H. E. Luccock, Professor

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. – Andrew Carnegie

The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.– James Cash Penney

Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work a company work, a society work, a civilization work. – Vince Lombardi

None of us is as smart as all of us.– Ken Blanchard

Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there. – Virginia Burden

No member of a crew is praised for the rugged individuality of his rowing.– Ralph Stripey

The chain is only as strong as its weakest link, for if that fails the chain fails and the object that it has been holding up falls to the ground. – Thomas Reid

He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. – Aristotle

Asking for Help. Sometimes, despite your and the team's best efforts things may not improve. Seek help. Maybe you just need to bring in someone else who is not caught up in the situation to give the team members someone else to talk to and to see things from a different perspective. It is not a sign of weakness to seek help, and it will be a great learning experience for you and the team.

Sum it up

Share your thoughts in the comments section and?please like and share?this article. I love to continue to learn.

About Peter

After being in business for the past 50 years still enjoy learning and sharing my thoughts on business and life. From New Zealand but enjoy now living in Gold Coast Queensland.

https://www.arria.com

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