»Alexey Barinsky spoke about his approaches to working relationships in a team.
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One way or another, I have been leading people not so long ago - about 15 years. During this time, I tried to be authoritarian and democratic, did micromanagement and management by goals, used HR practices adopted in the company, and went on strike against them.
I've experimented quite a bit with motivation, goal setting, and organizational structures. And, probably, I could write a separate column for each of the above points.
But today I would not want to talk about the choice of any of the listed parameters, but in general, tell about such a very difficult situation - you enter a room, there are five (ten, one hundred) people ready to move mountains, and now it’s your turn ...
I'm not the smartest person in this room
I negotiate this with myself from the very beginning. Because if that statement is not true, then what the hell are we doing? If I'm not the most the best peoplewhy are they with me?
In fact, it is not that easy. It always seems to me that I know everything better than others, I always have an opinion, I am good at negotiations and with a high degree of probability I am able to make sure that my decision was made.
But the point is to choose the smartest solution, not mine. In practice, this means that I have to remove the personal from the table and lead the discussion from the point of view of the position, not the person. I'm just a CEO looking for the best solution possible, and that solution will most likely be brought by someone in the room.
I listen very carefully (not as usual), delve deeply into the essence, dig into the most obvious things with questions, and so on. Because I'm not the smartest person in the room.
My goals are of interest only to me
The fact is that the guys in the room have two things in which they are all very likely to diverge. The first is how they see the future of your company, what you are striving for. And the second is their own reason for being in the same room with you.
It always throws me off balance. It seems to me that I spend so much effort to tell about the vision, our strategy, principles, I try to talk a lot about values \u200b\u200b- and all the same. Very often I ask "what is the" Dump "?" from three employees and I get three different answers.
As a decision, I made the following - we just sit down and honestly tell each other what we associate with work. Financial success, thirst for fame, the opportunity to realize their desires or "work off karma" - whatever.
In this case, it is important to set the degree of discussion yourself. I am usually the first to speak openly about my goals and how I am going to implement them in the project. After that, it is important to support the next speakers and help them speak openly.
After that, together we find what is in common in our personal aspirations, and we unite not around each other, but around this common goal. And it has never coincided with my personal one. In general, during such a dialogue, it usually turns out that what I want does not bother the others at all.
No managers needed
I believe in the power of the sum of intelligences. I admit that one person can lead a company to success if it's Steve Jobs, for example, but I'm definitely not Steve Jobs. For me, this means, in particular, that the traditional vertical structure does not suit me. I want as many heads and voices as possible.
In the company, we diligently dispose of the appointed leaders, job descriptions, planning and management by goals. The task boils down to ensuring the norms and hygiene of communication and to enable the team to organize themselves independently in any organizational structures, departments and divisions that are suitable for the moment.
Instead of appointed managers, the team itself chooses those who will be responsible for the result in the areas, and itself in a convenient form fixes agreements between people and normalizes work processes. This replaces our instructions. Instead of setting KPIs, there are general meetings, an open declaration of what a person plans to do, and feedback from everyone. As much feedback as possible.
Open salaries
This is a fundamental point. We want everyone at the "Landfill" to know how much a person receives, without exception. This incredibly raises awareness, makes people more open, removes the ability to manipulate it, and has a bunch of other positive effects.
In addition, it is a very cool marker for making personnel decisions, and it greatly facilitates the planning of our development. I know that this is not accepted and even illegal, but I am ready to pay a fine if I have to. Open salaries make our team healthier, and I feel strong support from people in this matter. I think they feel more fair in this.
As many conflicts as possible
We love conflict. They turn us on, develop, make us think, give birth to unexpected solutions, and so on. If in a conflict both parties are fighting for the smartest, fastest and easiest way to promote the company, and not realize personal ambitions, then this is not a problem, but a gift.
Let opinions and people clash as often as possible, let there be a lot of feedback, let there be areas for development and open problems. I appreciate that everyone can come up and argue with me about my not the smartest decision. It is important for me that others are ready to participate so actively in my development.
I don't have to make decisions
The more decisions are made without my participation, the cooler. The sooner we make a decision, the sooner we start to act. We have to make a lot of mistakes to be smarter and stronger. Every person on my team has the right to make any decision.
When hiring, I promised every employee the right to make mistakes. And I continue to constantly encourage them to make as many different decisions as possible, including those concerning the whole team. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort, and sometimes I just flatly refuse to decide something. After all, I also had a train of pretty lousy ideas. I do not think that any of my colleagues will surpass me in this.
Responsible for words
If I have promised, it means that I will do it. No options or excuses. Anyone on my team knows that I can be taken at my word and respects it. Typically, this always becomes mutual.
Strong external enemy
If I have gathered talented, intelligent, strong, active and ambitious people in one room, I must find an external “enemy” for them, otherwise the war will inevitably begin inside.
Vision
I have to know where to go. If I don't know, I must find out. There is nothing more tiring even for very strong manthan aimless activity with an incomprehensible aim.
Even worse - constant maneuvers without achieving any intelligible results. It is monstrously depressing. I even read somewhere that this was used in Nazi camps to suppress the will of prisoners. I readily believe it worked.
Success
Do I need to write about how victory invigorates? Having tasted and celebrated the overall success once, I will do anything to repeat it. These people in the room are no longer colleagues and not friends, these are the guys with whom you went through a lot, broke big and important uncles, made money, became famous, lost everything, repaired, swore, put up, despair, raged, loved, missed, tired.
It's a great sense of community, a sense of the shoulder, a sense of not being alone - feeling like the best team in the world.
At the very start of my business, I once attended one event where a successful entrepreneur spoke. He was asked the standard question: "What is the most important thing in business?" He answered without hesitation: “The most important thing in business is to create a Real Team. Cohesive, creative, competent, dynamic, well motivated. Everything else is secondary: ideas, resources, infrastructure, etc. If you have a good team, you can do any business you like, promote any idea, even an ineffective and banal one, - all the same, the Team will "pull" the business. “Bite into teeth” and take the project to the top! ”.
First, let's define what we will call a command in this article. In a broad sense, a team is everyone who works in one company, and it's good when, for any size of business, everyone feels like one single team (few succeed, a good example of Virgin or early Google).
At the startup level, the team is all your key employees and specialists.
With the growth of the business and the number of people involved in it, the team is already the leaders responsible for key areas of the business and key specialists who are directly involved in the development of the strategy and tactics of the organization, on whom you can rely and with whom you go together to the set global goal ... They are no longer employees, they are associates. It is about such a command that the article is talking about.
Is it possible to do without a team at all? Yes of course. Until the project has reached a certain scale. I myself have small (but quite successfully earning) Internet projects, where the whole team is myself. But in a serious project designed for a large audience, you cannot do without a team. Here it is for sure - one in the field is not a warrior.
Why do you need a team?
A team is needed, first of all, to develop strong decisions. The collective mind is always stronger and the collective experience is always broader. As a result, the team almost always makes a stronger and more balanced decision than one person. Or it strengthens an already invented good decision by an order of magnitude. The larger the team, the more knowledge and experience it has and the stronger the decisions it can make. But the larger the team becomes, the more difficult it is to manage it.
And of course, the core members of your team will take over and will oversee the key areas of the business. Each will have their own areas of responsibility, but in fact you will become a single coherent mechanism.
How to select people for a team?
The stage of recruiting people for a team is very responsible for any manager. But, as you know, “Personnel is everything”. Therefore, we must try to make as few mistakes as possible. Here I can advise the following:
- It is best to invite to the team people with whom you have already had experience of work or various kinds of cooperation. It is very good if you have seen this person at work (and on vacation), you know what competencies he possesses and what deeds he is capable of 🙂
- You should not start a business with close friends and relatives and, accordingly, take them to the team. There are a lot of negative examples. Close personal relationships will hinder business, and joint business will threaten the relationship itself. Better take people with whom you know, whom you respect and who respect you.
- On initial stage you probably won't have a lot of money to hire super specialists with super honoraria. But it is not particularly critical yet. It is important to find good and promising specialists in their fields and give them the opportunity to constantly learn and build competencies. And they will grow with you and the business. If you still need a super-specialist, you can try to motivate him in another way (about motivations below).
- With the growth of business, many managers begin to take care of hiring employees to the HR department and deputies, and at best they themselves look through the resume. But a good leader always controls the process and always conducts personal interviews with all key employees, and even more so with managers. And he reserves the last word. I have met such leaders twice in my life and I think this is a very correct approach.
What kind of people should a business team consist of?
At first, I was confident that the team should consist of people like you (in character, temperament, reaction speed, etc.). Now I have revised my views. This gives only one perceived advantage - such a team is easier to manage. But the real strong team should consist of different people, with different views and beliefs, with different positions, with different temperaments, with different life habits and priorities.
Risk should be complemented by caution, optimism by pessimism, creativity by pragmatism, “slovenliness” by administrative skills. In such a seemingly “motley” team, the very golden, middle, balanced, strong decisions are formed. The main task of the leader here is to act as a moderator and collector of decisions.
But at the same time, team members must respect each other, be “saturated” with the idea and share it, have common values \u200b\u200band, finally, be well motivated.
Each team member must be clearly positioned and solve a clearly defined range of tasks, for example, finance, sales, technical support, marketing and promotion, etc. But at the same time, all team members must always be in a single information field. The team must have a constant synchronization of understanding of current tasks, meanings and short / long-term goals. Everyone should have the same and unambiguous understanding of who we are and where we are going.
How to motivate team members?
Of course, one of the main motivators is a decent wage, i.e. good money, received regularly and with a progression in size. At the stage of starting a business, this is not always feasible. Therefore, it is necessary to build extended motivation. For really smart, active people (in short, people who are most useful to you), in addition to money, there are other significant motivators that can and should be actively used.
1. An interesting thing
If your project is interesting in itself and interesting people have gathered in it, this is a strong motivator. In general, this is very important - that the work is interesting and that you want to go to it.
2. Strong mission
If your project has a strong purpose, mission, that can be motivating in and of itself. Change the world for the better, solve a difficult problem, fix a significant mistake, etc.
3. Potentially large business scale
If your business can potentially go beyond one district or one city and the project can be national or even global, all this is also a great motivator for work.
4. Improving personal competencies
If participation in a project involves obtaining new knowledge, competencies, new opportunities for professional implementation, this is a strong motivator. If a project provides a rare opportunity to acquire or build up unique competencies, it's generally good. This is the baggage that a person will need in life in any case, even if the current business does not go well.
5. Ambition and ambition
If a person can realize his ambitions (for example, a leader), this is a good motivator for many. This also includes the fact that a person must see that his opinion is listened to in the team, his decisions are made by the leader and other participants, that he really affects the business and its development. And you also need to learn to give team members more independence in making decisions, using certain budgets, etc.
6. Free work schedule
If you want to increase the efficiency of the team, create a free work schedule for all its members. People will only work more, more productively and with much greater return on this. It is only necessary to set clear tasks and give the person the opportunity to decide for himself when he will be engaged in their implementation.
7. Mobility
Another effective way to increase team performance and at the same time motivation is to increase its mobility. At the very least, buy good laptops for all team members as soon as possible. Then the work will “move” in space together with the person :). Plus, you will further increase loyalty, as you show additional care.
8. Workplace
Create normal working conditions for people. A normal office with a place for lunch, discussion and relaxation, a comfortable desk, accessories necessary for work, kitchen utensils, etc. All of this greatly influences loyalty and motivation.
9. Joint rest
Do joint informal evenings, celebrate birthdays and events, do not forget about corporate parties in nature and in clubs. All this brings people together and creates additional horizontal connections in the team.
10. Collaborative learning and strategic sessions
Periodically organize strategic sessions with the team, joint trips to conferences, joint training. Firstly, it pulls out of the routine of affairs, secondly, it expands consciousness and competencies, and thirdly, it unites the team.
11. Introduce into the composition of stakeholders
A very powerful motivator is the inclusion of key team members as owners. It is clear that this should be done only with the most important and proven team members. The share may not be large, but after that the person already perceives the matter as his own, the mood and the degree of responsibility change. At the initial stage of business development, this is sometimes the only way to attract a super-specialist to a project.
12. Give a percentage of profit
Key team members can also be well motivated by including in the salary-bonus formula a real percentage of the company's profit, albeit not at all large. But this is a very good motivator, as it potentially enables a person to receive an irregular and constantly growing salary. And he does everything possible to increase his contribution to the joint business and influence the increase in profits. I wish you the best in building strong teams!
Not a single head of the company can do only with his own knowledge, experience and connections. For business development, everyone needs a professional and effective management team.However, everyone in different ways achieves loyalty and effective work from the inner circle. In this article, your peers - successful leaders - talk about how they form their management teams.
What a CEO needs to build an effective management team
- Strive for improvement: encourage the professional growth of each of the team members, expand them and their horizons, develop them and their intuition.
- Be able to choose a direction: set priorities, focus on goals common to the team.
- Be able to act in concert: encourage critical remarks, constructive arguments, be able to find rational grain in any of the points of view.
The management team is effective only when there is a worthy external rival
Alexander Merenkov, General Director of the Severnaya Kazna company, Yekaterinburg
In business, the management team is truly effective only when there is a worthy opponent (or even an enemy).
I believe that top managers constantly need to find someone to fight with, or something to overcome. Then they have the drive that is necessary in their work.
When there is no crisis or other problems in the company or the economy, managers begin to lack adrenaline. And then leaving your team alone is a mistake. In my opinion, it is useful to create difficulties. In good times for business, I talk with each of the top managers about his plans, worries, fears, in order to put before him surmountable obstacles, the presence of which will invigorate and give strength.
For me, the most important principle of functioning of a single cohesive team is to support anyone who is part of it. If one of the top managers stops helping their colleagues, he becomes uninteresting to me as a member of the management team, which means that it is time for him to get off the bus at the nearest stop.
For my part, I try to do everything so that every top manager feels that he belongs to a narrow circle of people who play an extremely important role in our business. I will list some of the required steps.
Discussion of the goals and plans of the enterprise. I never release orders for review and execution. People need to be given the opportunity to propose their own strategy and to think through each option together. To this end, we hold strategic sessions once a year, where we discuss where and how our company should move. And once every three months we summarize the results of the quarter, check plans against the results, and outline further steps.
Regular training in management skills. It is a mistake to think that all top managers know and can do everything. This is not true. Even if a person has achieved some mastery, the acquired skill must be honed, brought to perfection, setting an ever higher bar for himself. Only in this case will employees stop solving problems using stereotyped, long-tried methods and start looking for new options. To form and effectively unite the management team, I turn to traditional means - business training and informal joint events. For example, once a year we go on a week-long hike to the forest or to the mountains (there is no obligation - everyone decides for himself whether to go or not). But every team member must undergo a quarterly training to improve their qualifications.
Positioning yourself as a strong leader. Some believe that you can create a team, and then yourself then bask in the sun by the sea for six months. This is not true. The team must have a leader whose credibility is determined not by the position held, but by professionalism. Therefore, I always try to soberly assess what I am strong in now and what qualities need to be improved. And I always try to do more than my team members; I strive to perform a small miracle at least once a quarter - after all, a good example always inspires. In addition, my rule as a leader is not to make unrealistic promises so that people will always believe me.
Fostering a sense of being chosen. Our team, for example, has its own words, stories, holidays and even attributes and rituals that are understandable only to us. In my opinion, the team should be such that everyone wanted to get into it and a little envious of those who managed to do it. In order to whet interest, you sometimes need to lift the veil of secrecy on what is happening in the team by inviting key people to open meetings.
Encouraging loyalty to the company, not the leader. I never take people to the management team just because they are loyal to me. I need to be sure that all my deputies and key managers will make decisions based on the interests of the team and the company, and not out of a desire to curry favor or out of fear of disagreeing with my opinion. I believe in the quality of loyalty in "battles" when crises and problem situations arise.
I would like to note that excessive informational secrecy is dangerous for the team. The fact is that the team of top managers is interested in hiding negative information from the General Director. Sitting in the crystal palace built by your deputies is an unforgivable mistake. I myself regularly “go to the people” to know what's going on. I travel to all regional offices, communicate with employees, conduct strategic sessions for local managers, participate in round tables for clients. Sometimes I even work a little in other positions in order to better understand the specifics of this or that activity. In addition, I maintain a blog on the company's website in order to directly express my opinions to employees on various issues.
- Is it possible to create a dream team based on the eastern horoscope
Every member of the management team must believe in the business idea
Alexander Solomatin, Founder and Deputy General Director of the production and construction complex "Solnechny Dom", founder of the company "Motivator", Moscow
I form my management team based on several principles.
The main principle is sincerity. The idea of \u200b\u200ba business should excite everyone who does it. For example, our team could trade beer or do something even more profitable. But then none of us could honestly say what makes the world a better place. And I'm sure we do. The fact that I and my team members share common values \u200b\u200btriples our strength and brings us very close, allowing us to save time and money that other companies spend on all kinds of “team building” events.
By the way, I used to think that the team should encourage friendly relations in every possible way. Now I am of the opposite opinion. I have seen more than once how it is more important for an employee to maintain good relations with a colleague than to defend their point of view for the benefit of the company. And this is fundamentally wrong. In the first place should be concern for the common cause.
The second principle is the profitability of a business idea. Before starting a business, I always need to make sure that consumers have a problem that we will offer a solution to, and this problem is so important that clients will give money for solving it, from which I can pay a decent salary to my team. Only when I have this confidence do I start recruiting a team for a startup. I have not seen effective companies where people would work for the boss - in all successful companies, on the contrary, the boss works for the employees.
The third principle is community of values. At first glance, it may seem that our country has one business culture: sell and get rich. This is not true.
I'm sure people are focusing on money because of a lack of great ideas. In our team, it happens that after a couple of weeks of work, a new person wants not only to receive the agreed salary and bonuses for his work, but also to make the world a better place with us, to be useful.
- How to Build the Perfect Team: What Google Research Teaches
An effective management team can be formed from those people who already work for you
Evgeny Kornev, General Director of the company "Mini-Loan Express", Moscow
Over the past 13 years, I have reformed enterprises in crisis situations several times, as well as launched new directions for companies. Of course, a quicker return is provided by a complete replacement of the top management team in a company in crisis. However, I take a different approach - I form an inner circle of managers from among the employees already working. The fact is that from the point of view of the long-term functioning of the enterprise, it is much more efficient. Of course, this approach does not mean that you cannot attract a single new person to the team - sometimes, on the contrary, it is useful.
It is clear that the team that is inherited from the predecessor often meets the new boss with hostility because it expects reprisals. To set everyone up to work, I follow a few important rules.
1. Set the pace. Having started working with existing employees, you need to set a new, much more intensive pace of work. Those who did not sign up will "fall off" themselves, and you will get rid of the need to fire them on your own initiative. The rest - that is, those who managed to achieve the first positive results and were approved by you - will become, if not your like-minded people, then at least loyal employees.
2. Give time. After the first 100 days of joint work, leaders and specialists from the inner circle must either begin to actively participate in the ongoing reforms, or give way to others. And it is not necessary to fire them (with the exception of saboteurs and intriguers) - you can simply demote them. I often do this: I choose the most active and competent managers (about a month and a half after joining the company) and create freelance management bodies: a budget committee, a technical and economic council, working groups to solve non-standard and unplanned tasks. Another method is personal interviews. These interviews - or, as I call them, hearings - combine the features of a meeting, a discussion of the results of work done, and employee appraisals.
Finally, the inner circle is formed in five to six months. Most of the employees turn into like-minded people.
All other workers can be given more time to get used to the new environment. Opponents of reforms from among non-key employees should be dealt with no earlier than six months later. Again, dissenting people do not always need to be fired: sound criticism will never hurt.
3. Explain the essence of the reforms over and over again. As a rule, the majority of ordinary workers at the beginning of reforms do not believe in the success of their plans and take a passive position (I call such people companions). It is important to conduct "political" work with them: explain, persuade, explain again and persuade again. And this should be done not so much by you personally as by your loyal deputies, heads of services and departments, heads of divisions.
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From the article you will learn why the company needs non-professional employees, why conflicts in the team increase labor productivity, in which situations the team is ineffective.
Every leader dreams of having a team. But not everyone thinks about what it is. What unites team members? Purpose, correct distribution of roles, understanding of the task, common leader? Why is not every collective a team? I'll tell you how create an effective team.
What is an effective team in business
Let's say you want to open a chain of stores. If you hire a professional who has worked in a large retail, he will tell you exactly what steps you need to take to launch the network. There is no question of a team here. The team will not do what one person can do. If you don’t have such a professional and don’t have the money to hire him, you put together a team. Of course, there may be professionals in it on certain issues, but from the point of view of achieving an overall result, each member of the team is a non-professional.
Best article of the month
If you do everything yourself, employees will not learn to work. Subordinates will not immediately cope with the tasks that you delegate, but without delegation, you are doomed to time trouble.
We published a delegation algorithm in this article that will help you get rid of the routine and stop working around the clock. You will learn who can and cannot be entrusted with the work, how to correctly assign the task to complete it, and how to control the personnel.
It turns out that a team is a group of people who work for a common result in conditions of high uncertainty, when it is not clear what actions to take and at what moment. This definition is self-sufficient, all the others follow from it. It is believed that the team should be eight people, maximum twelve. This is true: if, in conditions of high uncertainty, team members do not have the opportunity to quickly communicate, quickly share information and find out who is going on, they will fail. And if there are a lot of people, the situation will change as long as the team members communicate with each other. Or, for example, they say: team members should be interchangeable. Of course, this is so: in conditions of high uncertainty, team members should replace each other, because they do not know what, to whom, and at what moment should be done.
- l & g t;
When you need to create a team of professionals
There is not so much high uncertainty in a normally functioning organization. It mainly comes from the external environment: suppliers, customers, regulators. Therefore, top managers who are responsible for the organization's interaction with the outside world work in a team. But are teams needed at the middle management level and below?
Sometimes the owner says: "I need a team." I am looking for the reasons for the high uncertainty in the company, I think, why does the owner need a team from the “tops”. It happens that he himself creates all the uncertainty. And the team, it turns out, is needed so that the "tops" and all other employees interpret his vague instructions and hints, understand what he really wants. Therefore, if you want to form a team, think about whether it’s not easier to establish business processes, organize a conveyor first? For example, is it necessary to form a team in the commercial unit? If the division has several sales, each of which has a specific channel or territory, clients, products, services, then the team may not be needed. Everyone does their job, fulfills their plan, and that's enough. The task of the head of the commercial department is only to draw up adequate plans for subordinates and maintain corporate norms of interaction between sales.
The command may be needed when you are up to something new, highly uncertain. You start to explore unfamiliar territory, work out a new channel, launch new products and at the same time determine the overall result for all sales. Why common? Because you understand that the uncertainty is high and therefore it is impossible to say that here you have to sell a lot and there is little. And it may even be impossible to set some indicators in advance for each of the sectors, areas. So you determine the overall result. Plus, let's say you say: “One of the results of work is training, the accumulation of general experience, knowledge of how to work in new conditions. Therefore, guys, let's not every man for himself, but share your experience. " Yes, this is where a team is needed.
How to build an effective team: 6 steps
What should be done to make the team come true? There are six critical factors here: information, trust, conflict resolution, commitment, acceptance and demand for responsibility and focus on the overall result. (picture).The last five are described by Patrick Lencioni in The Five Vices of the Team: Parables of Leadership. Its five factors provide clear, clear guidelines for what to do to build a team. But I, being the only Russian-speaking certified consultant on the methodology of training teams according to Patrick Lencioni, discovered that in the Russian conditions one more important factor is missing - information. In world business, in international organizations, it is implemented by default.
So what are the six steps you need to take to build an effective team of true professionals?
Step 1. Communication
First of all, you, as the one who decided to create a team (CEO, commercial director, business owner), must inform its participants what the overall result is expected from them, what are the limitations when it is achieved, why is it needed at all - the company as a whole , unit, etc., to give them all possible guidelines. Of course, you need to encourage team members to ask you clarifying questions and answer them.
Russian management often suffers from insufficient information. Employees only have to speculate about how management actually envisions the future. For example, I talk to a client, and he says: "It's strange, such plans are good, but no one is implementing, I don't understand why." When I start to figure it out, it turns out that all the plans are only in his head. I ask: "Did you tell them to your employees?" It turns out no, he didn’t.
But sometimes the owner deliberately justifies this by a crisis situation. He says: “How can we give some guidelines now? Everything changes quickly, we cannot work out a strategy! " This is often deceit: a strategy can be worked out if not confused with a strategic plan. The main thing is, if you say that everything is changing now and nothing can be predicted, inform the team members about it. Do this at least once a week. Remind you of common guidelines, report on possible changes and important events among the top management of the company and in the external environment. Comment on how the changes are adjusting and affecting the team's focus. Planning meetings and letters can be used to inform about changes and remind of general guidelines. It is enough to spend five minutes on this. Important: you must provide feedback, answer questions from team members.
Step 2. Building trust
There will be no team if there is no trust among employees. And there are two very important aspects here: work and human trust.
Worker confidence. What is Work Trust? When an employee protects the interests of the manager: interests and values \u200b\u200bcoincide. The employee acts for the benefit of the manager. In case of problems, informs the manager about them. A plan for further action is developed jointly. Workplace trust is built through collaborative problem solving.
It is important to remember: there is no command “at all”. You can't take any group of people and call it a team. A group becomes a team when it tries to achieve a specific overall result and solve a specific problem. I have worked with successful organizations in which people have good working relationships, but they do not see each other, do not meet outside of work. What for? They are a team for great results at work, not a team of party-goers. Therefore, it is useless to organize a team and build trust at events like the rope course. When people gather in the forest, jump trees, support each other, overcome imaginary obstacles, a team is created to take rope courses. Such a team is no good for anything else.
How to Build Work Trust? People need to work together to deal with the issues they face in the workplace. Joint problem solving means: people have to express their opinions on what to do, how to act, and then agree on their points of view on what actions should be taken. But each team member has his own reality. And they assess the reality in the organization subjectively. Based on their vision, they offer solutions to problems. Someone says that we need to run, someone - that we need to slow down, someone - that we need to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. People will not agree on what to do until they have discussed the reality in the organization.
The best way to build a team is through a strategic diagnostic session. The team gets together and discusses what is happening in the organization right now, conducts diagnostics at the level of the company's problems. Remember, you have already informed the team about where you are going - now is the time to discuss what might hinder you, where is the gap between what you would like to get and what you have.
Often times, team members are not overly motivated to do what is expected of them. They think: to prosper and survive, you need to do other things. We see some problems in the organization and focus on them, while the team members see others as priority. At the strategic diagnostic session, these moments are adjusted, there is an agreement on where we are, what problems need to be dealt with first. Trust is built up because people listen to each other. This is the first aspect of trust: we understand who makes such decisions and why. We agreed on joint actions and agreed: no one makes decisions and does not act to the detriment of others.
Human trust. What does it mean to trust a person? Both you and any member of the team can talk about weaknesses, problems and ask for help. And failures are bound to happen: the team works in conditions of high uncertainty. The task of the manager is to build business processes in such a way that employees are not afraid to admit problems and ask for help. It is during the strategic diagnostic session that people begin to talk about problems in a comfortable, productive, constructive and effective manner.
Thus, in the first two steps, you ensure the team's awareness and working experience of trusting interaction, the experience of talking about problems. It's time to take the third step.
Step 3. Elaboration of conflicts
Conflicts are good. How does a conflict arise? From the disagreement and emotions around this disagreement. A team member suspects that the actions of his colleague are causing harm, not good. That is, the origins of the conflict are actions or conversations about actions. If team members just don't like each other, that's not a conflict. And when one says to the other: “Fuck you,” a conflict is possible here, because there is already a proposal to go somewhere and do something. Often times, people hide differences and suppress negative emotions out of fear of opposition.
But the team is developing, its members are different people who work in conditions of high uncertainty. Different points vision elicit an emotional response. The discrepancies need to be discussed. It is necessary to reveal possible and existing conflicts and work them out. And this is possible only after a sufficient level of trust has been developed. Without it, people are not ready to talk about problems and conflicts.
When discussing disagreements, it is important not to consider solutions, but to find the cause of the problem. Then, perhaps, the conflict will not arise: a common understanding of the problem will lead to its solution, with which all participants will agree.
So, at this stage, your team is informed, they have experience of trusting working interaction and they are not afraid to open and work out conflicts.
Step 4. Build commitment
How do you get the team to implement what they decide? This is only possible if the team members are involved in the discussion of the decisions made. At the same time, the point of view of each participant must be heard. Otherwise, a person who has not been listened to may slow down the process and even put a spoke in the wheel when implementing a decision already made.
How do you listen to people? First of all, do not interrupt the person while he is talking. Neither a top manager nor an ordinary employee. Since a person is invited to the team, it means that we want to hear his opinion, it means that he is important to us. Therefore, he decides for himself when to stop talking. When a person speaks about a decision he is making, he implements it with greater responsibility and commitment.
The final decision is always made by the leader. But the employee will not accept his ideas until he expresses his own. At first, you will spend a lot of time on this, but soon the discussions will become constructive and prompt.
Step 5. Accepting and claiming responsibility
So, the team members spoke up and made a joint decision. This solution is part of what each team member suggested. If someone's decision was rejected, the person understands why. As a result, each team member accepts and shares responsibility in accordance with the decision.
A close-knit team has internal control over responsibility. Team members know the direction the team is going in, trust each other, are able to constructively resolve conflicts, are committed and determined to decision, therefore, require each other to fulfill obligations. A good team does not have one "overseer". If I see that in order to do what I’m responsible for, I need another team member to do what he’s responsible for, and he didn’t, I’ll go up to him and say, “Listen, what's the matter? Why aren't you doing what we agreed on? I cannot cope otherwise. " At the same time, I initially trust him, I am not afraid of conflict, so we calmly negotiate. Thus, the team develops internal self-control.
Step 6. Focus on the overall result
And finally, the last step is a focus on the overall result. It is impossible without going through the previous five steps. Therefore, it is useless to demand that people be focused on the overall result, and even more so to motivate employees for it. Motivation doesn't make sense until people know who is responsible for what. And this will not happen until they openly participate in the discussion. And this will not happen as long as they are afraid to enter into conflicts. And this will not happen until they have trust. And this will not happen until the manager has informed the employees where to go. What does focus on the overall result mean? This is a very important thing because the team works in an environment of high uncertainty. And the result that was outlined may change. It is important that team members understand where they are going. Because one team member may find that the team has one thing planned and needs another. For example, we started working in a new region, but the team needs to work not with the region, but with promotion channels. It is necessary for a team member to gather colleagues, to say: let's review where we are going.
Here are six factors, six steps, to help build a team. You need to start not with the result, not with planning the overall result, and not with motivation for the result. All this is born by itself after understanding the direction of movement, real problems of the organization and coordination of actions of team members.
If we talk about successful business, and ask yourself what is the most important component, the answer will not keep you waiting: the right team is the key to the success of any business. As they say, one head is good, but two ... But not always two heads in business will give a good result. Indeed, in this matter, not quantity is important, but quality!
Only by collecting correct commandyou can achieve tangible results in the world of modern business. If we imagine a business as a mechanism, which it is, then in order for it to function successfully, each of its components must cope well with their work. According to this principle, it should be collected business team.
Of course, this is not as easy as it seems at first glance. Most potential companions will be weeded out for the reason that they will not believe in your idea. Your task is to find like-minded people who will believe in your idea, will work on it, jumping over difficulties.
Do not be afraid to gather talented people around you, even if they surpass you in knowledge in some area. It should be so! Remember, you don't have to do everything yourself. For this there is business team... One of the most important skills of an entrepreneur is to gather talented people around him, to rally them with one idea, to create a single mechanism out of them that will work smoothly. This is the only way to start a successful business that will delight you not only with moral satisfaction, but also with material satisfaction.
Keep in mind that statistically most startups are shutting down because of the lack of the right business team. It is even worse when one person is trying to implement a grandiose business project. There is safety in numbers. This rule is also true in business. You simply may not be able to handle the enormous emotional stress that comes at a time when you are not seeing visible results.
Pay attention to the most ambitious and successful business projects of our time. A competently selected team of talented specialists is their main feature.
Let your business team initially have only 2 people. So in the first couples you will be able to push each other, not to let go of the right path. Perhaps more people will join your business team over time. So you can use the main advantage of business teams, which is not available to single entrepreneurs - this is “ brainstorm«.
You should definitely practice the methods " brainstorming“When every member of the team, regardless of status, can express their opinion on various issues. Discuss important issues together! It may turn out that the solutions lie on the surface. With the help of brainstorming, your business team will find the answer much faster than if you were trying to solve the problem yourself.
Be the leader! Creating a friendly working atmosphere in the team is a very important issue. Try to use the full power of the team for the good of your business. Remember that everyone has a right to an opinion. Listen to everything that is said to you. Draw conclusions. Don't be stubborn. It is this flexibility in judgment that can make your business stand out from all the rest.
Work with your business team. If you really believed in the idea and collected the command you want - you are on the right track to create your own successful business!
Good luck with your business.
Respectfully yours, entrepreneur Romanov Andrey.