The secret to consistency: Building and sustaining a team

July 1, 2022

A manager’s role in a company can vary depending on the type of company they work for and the position they hold. However, in general, managers are responsible for the overall success and growth of the company. They own different chunks of the company’s objectives and are supposed to achieve them. Obviously, they can’t do it themselves. They need people working with them to achieve those objectives. AKA a team. Hence, managers are also responsible for ensuring that employees fulfill their roles and meet company goals.

A team is vital for a manager because it provides a support system for them. A manager can’t do everything alone, which is why having a team of dedicated people helping them achieve their goals is so valuable. Having a team also allows the manager to delegate tasks and responsibilities to the team members, making the job easier and more efficient.

In essence, a manager is as good as their team. To be a good manager, who delivers the company’s objectives consistently, they must have a good team that delivers on their objectives consistently. Finding the right people to join their teams becomes increasingly tricky as businesses grow. It is especially true in today’s competitive market, where skilled professionals are in high demand and are often hard to come by. To bring consistency in their efforts, managers not only have to attract the best talent but also have to retain the talent they have hired and groomed over the years. Constant chopping and changing in the team brings the overall team performance down. Note again, the quality and stability of your team will directly impact your’s and your team’s performance.

So how can managers attract and retain the top talent in their teams? Read more.

One of the key factors to attracting and retaining talent is effectively selling your team to a prospective candidate. It could be an external or internal candidate. To hire for your team, you must consider yourself a salesperson. In essence, if you get someone excited about working in your team, the chances of that person accepting your offer and joining your team would be higher when you make an offer to an exciting candidate. Most good talent would have multiple opportunities in the market. You need to tell them how working for you is better than working for anyone else.

This process should become an integral part of your interview stage. You can allow the candidates to interact with your team and encourage them to find out answers to the following questions.

• What work will they be working on after they join your team?
• What is working for your team better than working for any other team?
• What can they look forward to learning?
• What growth prospects can they expect?
• Who would then be working with? Will others in the team add value to them and vice-versa?

In a nutshell, help them subtly discover “What is in it for them?” You can read more about how to effectively sell your team to a prospective candidate here.

Eventually, people will leave your team for several reasons. You can’t control it. A healthy turnover is healthy for the team for several reasons. One, it doesn’t stagnate people in their careers. Two, it allows for fresh ideas and perspectives to come into the team. Three, as a manager, you will gain from bringing new energy.

There is no fixed quantitative benchmark for what a healthy turnover looks like. It will depend largely on the context of the team. What you can assess is for what reason people are leaving your team. These reasons are healthy if you as a manager can’t control them, e.g., someone wanting to relocate closer to their family, go for higher studies, or change career directions. If people leave for reasons you can control, i.e., the environment in the team, wellbeing, culture, work quality, quality of peers, etc., then you must be worried.

There are situations where you may be able to retain someone after they have expressed their intention to leave the team. If you can understand their concerns and address them effectively, they might be willing to give you a second chance. But whatever the case may be, you need to have a proper checklist to effectively offboard members from your team.

So, what should you do when a team member decides to leave your team? Read more here.

To conclude, the managers are responsible for their teams being highly efficient and competitive in the market. To achieve that, you must have highly talented professionals on your team. You can either attract great talent in the market or retain the incredible talent you already have in your teams.

The week in Social Media

This post from Gary Vaynerchuk talks about the art of giving candid feedback with respect.

This post from Simon Sinek talks about who to hire for your team.