Many teams are actually just a group of people who happen to be working under the same roof. They may have similar jobs, work for the same company and aim for similar results, but are they all pulling in the same direction, meeting the same objectives and aiding each other to create a great working environment?

How can the team measure how effective they are and how can you ensure they are all singing from the same song-sheet, as it were?

You could carry out a team assessment. Or, better still, let them carry out a self-assessment themselves.

Here’s how you can set one up:

1) Plan some time and inform every team member what is going to happen. You could provide lunch or snacks, so they see you feel this is important.

2) Get them to think about two key questions: What’s going well that we should keep and continue with? In what ways does the team need to improve?

3) Then get them to assess the team against 10 criteria:

• Clarity of our goals
• Relaxed climate to work in
• Clarity of team member roles
• Participation in decisions
• Sufficient resources to get jobs done
• Good communication
• Good management support
• Meetings are useful
• Conflicts are smoothly resolved
• External relationships are effective

You can choose others if you feel them appropriate for the team environment.

Allow team members to assess how they feel against each of the criteria. You can devise a scoring system that will help you compare each person’s thoughts (something like 0-10 will suffice)

After marks have been collated, appoint a facilitator whose job is to discuss the results and reach a consensus on action plans

Record the team’s ideas on a flip, so everyone can see them.

Review and prioritise this list before the end of the meeting

Arrange to have the list distributed to all team members.

Decide what follow-up actions are necessary.

Conduct an informal assessment of the meeting.

Decide on future plans for action based on the results of the feedback.

By carrying out an exercise like this, you get every team member to assess how they feel against key criteria. Then, make sure you listen to what is said at this self-assessment and see if you can devise some ‘quick-wins’ so the team can see the exercise was worth getting involved with.

Conducting a self-assessment is something you can carry out annually to check on progress. The team will respond well if they see results coming from it, and you will have achieved a high level of support so that the group of people you are managing maintains its ‘team’ ethos.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

(Image by Digital Art)

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

When I visit clients, the conversation often turns to how their staff could do with further development. That’s music to my ears, as that’s the service I offer!

But a fundamental question I ask of them makes them stop and think. I ask, ‘If developing your people’s skills is so important, what processes do you have in place so that they learn every day?’

I often get sheepish looks, and they say they leave it up to departmental managers to ensure their staff are motivated and develop their skills on the job.

Do you see people-development as an important issue in your company? Is the slogan ‘Our people are our greatest asset’ just a comment that someone once came up with and is now long-forgotten?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about raiding your budget and sending everyone on countless training courses. No, that would be a knee-jerk reaction that wouldn’t pay dividends. Because the real way to develop your people over time, and increase their contribution, motivation, passion and loyalty is to have a process for continuous, on-the-job learning and development.

How can you encourage this type of culture? You could think about including the following:

Adopting a mentoring and coaching culture: Day-to-Day interactions, observational feedback, formal and informal discussions, goal-setting, project-planning and hands-on assistance.

Personal Development Plans: Job-sharing, seminar-attendance, mentoring others, web research, visiting the competition, visiting other branches of your own company, customer focus groups, reading work related magazines and books.

Temporary projects: job-swapping, ad-hoc projects, matrix team membership

Extra support: secondment to other branches or departments, community services, night school courses, team-leadership projects, NVQs, college courses, e-learning qualifications.

These are just a few ideas on how you can make developing your people a way of life at work. By having continuous learning as a cultural backdrop to everything you do, you create a feeling of advancement and usefulness throughout your staff.

So, don’t leave all your people development needs to others…take control and drive it yourself. And leave the bits you can’t do yourself up to us!

Thanks again

Nick Hill

Training Director

MTD Management Training Course

(Image by Keerati)

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

 Of all the skills managers want to have improved, communication pretty much comes up there at the top. Along with negotiating a higher salary, of course! But communication is such a broad subject. I often ask clients, ‘If there was one area of communication you find hard to deal with or improve, what would it be?’

A common answer is, strangely, confrontation with others. I say this is strange because surely a manager has the capacity to deal with difficult situations, and bring them to a natural, successful conclusion? Well, we’re all human, so maybe even managers sometimes feel the need to improve this particular skill.

Here are some tips on how to deal with confrontation, whatever its cause:

1) Make sure you are in full control of your emotional responses. By allowing temper, fear or anger to drive your behaviour, you lose some control over your responses. Your amygdala, which has a key role to play in regulating your temper, could run away with you if you allow emotion to get the better of you. Take a deep breath, to lower your heart rate and blood pressure.

2) If you have time to plan for the confrontation, think in advance what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. This gives you chance to control yourself and decide how you want the discussion to go.

3) Determine what triggers your responses. For example, if the other person uses bad language, do you respond likewise? If they shout, do you tend to reciprocate? Have an idea of how you respond against specific triggers, so you can choose your response, rather than being driven be an automatic reflex.

4) Often, a confrontational person will not be aware of how they are responding, as they are on automatic pilot. Make the person aware of how confrontational they are being. Saying something like ‘let’s talk about this rationally rather than having a shouting match’ or ‘Can we discuss this logically, instead of being aggressive’. Beware of accusing the other person…they may be aggressively defending themselves.

5) Show understanding and empathy if necessary. Saying something like ‘This obviously is very important to you’ or ‘This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’ creates some form of equal rapport and enables you to calm any over-the-top emotions that may be driving their responses.

6). See the confrontation for exactly what it is. In other words, identify the motives of the other person. Are they angry for a good reason, or is it trivial? Even if it appears so to you, it might be touching the other’s hot button. The purpose of their argument might be to manipulate you, so be aware of that.

7) Plan for a collaborative response. It may not be possible for you both to ‘win’, but you may be able to deal with it in a way that makes future collaboration between you still work. Find the best way forward, and you have a chance of dealing with the solution rather than dwelling on the problem.

Not easy, of course, dealing with a confrontational situation, but by following some of the above ideas, you may create options that you hadn’t have thought of before.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

So, you’ve made all the plans on how to deal with that difficult situation. You know exactly what you are going to say to that person. You are confident that you’ve considered all the options and you’ve covered all the bases when it comes to their reaction.

And then they go and do something you hadn’t planned for.

Just great!

Challenging reactions sometimes do occur, and if you get caught up in those reactions, you may not end up with the desired result you had planned for. One such reaction you may encounter is when the person becomes defensive and thinks you are actually attacking them.

Trying to get your point across when they are being defensive is difficult. How do they show defensiveness? Interrupting you, counter-attacks, blame, loud voice and defensive body language are all signs of this method of dealing with difficult situations.

What can you do when faced with this style of reaction?

1) Try to avoid debating the issue. This fuels any disagreement that may exist, because the other person will always try to justify their position from their standpoint. You sound defensive as well. If you try to out-debate or out-argue them, tempers may flare and you get nowhere near a solution.

2) Don’t avoid the issue. If you give up the moment the other person goes defensive, it perpetuates their behavioural style and you end up in a worse position than before you started. You will never get agreement and the other person will accentuate this behaviour every time in the future, because they see it working.

3) Show you understand their position. Through active listening, you gain a clear understanding of their point of view, a position the other person would have wanted in the first place. Reflectively paraphrase your understanding of the message they have given you. As Steven Covey says in his ’7 Habits’ book, you don’t have to agree with them, you just have to understand them.

4) Respond to clarify, not to counter-attack. Ensure at this point you clarify the meaning of what the other has said. You’re not countering here, you are simply trying to make sure you are totally clear on the meaning of what they have said.

5) Clarify your position. After you have listened and ensured you are clear on their position, you can describe your position, without making it appear blaming or judgemental. Stick to facts, not opinions. They can dispute opinions but facts can be backed up.

6) Be positive in your intentions. Recognise their defensiveness is often a sign of either a lack of personal responsibility or some form of insecurity on their behalf. By being positive in what your expectations are, you allow the other to see how being positive themselves may help them achieve a desirable outcome.

7) Work on a compatible solution together. You are trying to work out a resolution to the conflict, so move ahead as quickly as possible to attempting to work out a solution. Focus on what you can do, rather on what you can’t, on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong. Take the other person forward with you to achieve that outcome you are both working towards.

Think through why the person is being defensive in the first place. That should enable you to determine the appropriate steps that will lessen the need for them to defend their position all the time.

Many thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

It’s often said these days that we have never had as much information as we have today, and never communicated less than we do today.

There’s some element of truth in that. How many times do you find yourself immersed in information, yet unable to get someone to carry out a simple task for you?

When it comes to email, we often use it when talking and listening would have suited the situation better. Email is one-way communication, and rarely live. You can’t put the message across in the same way as you would if you face-to-face with the person, there’s no body language and you can’t hear the tone that the message was intended to convey.

In order to keep working relationships constructive and productivity high, here are some situations where you should think twice before using email for communication:

* Giving constructive feedback on performance issues. Positive feedback for good performance may be welcomed by the person receiving the email, but it has less impact than if done face-to-face. If you give negative feedback, it is often interpreted by the receiver much worse than the intention might have been. There isn’t the opportunity for the receiver to justify their side of the argument, they can’t clarify anything that was written and they can’t start working out solutions. Besides that, the person might wonder why you didn’t have the confidence to speak to your face about it.

All feedback about performance is better given verbally, eye-to-eye.

* After previous emails have gone without response. There could be many reasons for this lack of response, and if you continue, you may get a very irritated receiver. This is the ideal time to pick up the phone or go and see the person. It might take some effort to get hold of the person, but it will be worth the effort.

* When the issue is sensitive. If the subject is touchy or has emotion associated with it, it’s probably best not to get too bogged down with the written word, because you can’t hear the other person’s reaction and what they are thinking. This one-way form of communication increases the chances of misunderstanding.

* When you have conflict or concerns. An email is probably one of the best ways to aggravate a conflict. If you have a strong opinion and voice it via email, what would you expect as a response? Even if the other person is apologetic, wouldn’t it be better dealt with in person? The interpretation the other person gives it may well be different to what you intended.

If you find you are constantly drafting and redrafting an email, maybe you shouldn’t send it. If the issue involves a lot of emotion or feeling, maybe that is telling you it will only be sorted by facing up to the issue an doing something about it face-to-face or over the phone.

Thanks again

Nick Hill

Training Director

MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”