Monthly Archive for June, 2009

  • How Can I Use Small Improvements to Build on a Major Shift in Operations?

  • Since small successes can energize those involved in a change effort, organize the effort so that there are visible positive results early on. When you achieve these successes, celebrate them. Reinforce the positive behaviors that led to the success. Initiating a major change is an uphill battle and employees can become depressed in the midst [...]

  • How Can I Help Employees Cope with Change that Requires New Skills and Practices?

  • Change usually demands the acquisition of new skills and implementation of new practices. Daily routines must be reprogrammed. While this is happening, employees will feel threatened, questioning their competencies (skills, abilities, and knowledge). Under these circumstances, you need to assume the role of coach to help your employees develop the skills they need to survive [...]

  • What do I do if There are People on my Staff Adamantly Opposed to the Change?

  • To overcome resistance to change, you need to understand what prompts the people to resist the change. Here is an action plan you should consider to reduce resistance and increase the likelihood of successful implementation: Provide advance notice. Communicate the why. Role model your own commitment to the change. Listen to what your employees say. [...]

  • I Worry that I Won’t be Able to Handle Objections to a Change in a Staff Meeting. What Can I do to Overcome Objections in that Situation?

  • Be prepared for questions, if not outright resistance. The surest way to overcome anticipated objections is to incorporate them into your announcement. Make your presentation and state any anticipated objections as though they are yours, then disprove each, one by one. You’ll be amazed how many times potential objectors to the idea of a change [...]

  • How do I Get Commitment to a Change from my Staff?

  • Begin with your self. What was your first reaction when you heard about the change? Was it fear or elation? Was it confusion or understanding? Are you looking forward to the change or are you worried about its effect on the status quo? Your employees are likely to feel as you do about the change. [...]

  • How Can I be a Change Leader?

  • Once plans are announced, share them with your staff. Their reaction to the news will be based, in part, on your own reaction to the change. Role model a positive attitude. Don’t stop there, however. Identify the concerns of your team members and attempt to address them if you can. Corporate goals tend to drive [...]

  • How Can I Know when Change is in the Wind so that my Department Can Prepare for it?

  • You need to monitor events within your organization. This way, you will learn about changes that may involve your department. You shouldn’t let yourself be blind to signals of change nor should your staff believe that you are not in the loop on these issues. Your staff has to think that you know what is [...]

  • How Can I Measure my Acceptance of Change?

  • No matter what the change is or when it occurs, people respond to it gradually. The four steps that people go through when dealing with change are: Denial Resistance Exploration Acceptance If you find yourself going through these four stages, you are no less receptive to change than the average person. But being aware of [...]

  • Why Should Team Members be Involved in the Selection Process?

  • As a manager, you have two choices. You can hire someone and let the individual make a place for himself or herself. Or you can involve the team in the decision and thereby shorten the timeframe between the new hire being considered an outsider and being regarded as a team member. The transition won’t only [...]

  • What Can I do to Get My Employees to Think for Themselves?

  • If you really want your employees to take responsibility for decisions they make, you have to teach them how to think critically. Further, you have to convince them that you want them to do so. The first is simpler than the second. To train employees to think critically and come up with their own solutions [...]

  • What Mistakes do Managers Make that Undermine Team Productivity?

  • A sense of teamwork is easily destroyed by a manager who fails to practice what he or she preaches. Such a manager promises to share decision making with staff members but does not do so. Candid and full debate over an issue is abandoned by the manager who talks about team meetings and shared leadership [...]

  • If my Team Develops Action Plans that Could Fail, What Should I do?

  • If a review of the plans suggests there may be some weaknesses, then it may be appropriate to spend some further time revising them. Even then, despite the best efforts of your team, the plans may not succeed. The group may have made assumptions that proved to be untrue. Or they tried to plan too [...]

  • How Can I Engage Employees in this Process?

  • When it comes to pinning down who is responsible for what, you should hold one or more team planning sessions to ensure that team responsibilities have been clarified. The team may even develop a chart that is displayed in the workspace. That chart identifies each responsibility, the name of the person expected to complete the [...]

  • How Can Involvement of the Team in Department Goal Setting and Planning Improve the Likelihood of Achieving the Plans?

  • Where teamwork is practiced, members often participate actively in setting group goals relating either to their operation or the corporation as a whole. Hammering out the goals collectively not only utilizes the wisdom of the entire group but also secures ownership to the group goals. People are more likely to support that to which they [...]

  • How Can I Build Trust from the Team?

  • Mutual trust is a key characteristic of an effective team. The most significant adhesive binding team members together is mutual trust. In light of financial scandals at various corporations, at no time has this been as important. Trust translates into credibility or belief in a person. In everyday conversations, when employees speak of trust in [...]

  • As a New Supervisor, How do I Build Rapport with the Informal Group with in the Department?

  • Even where teamwork is pervasive, informal work groups can survive. Their existence can make it harder for you to build the trust and openness that is a part of teamwork. You can ignore the existence of the informal group, but that will only make the role of leader of the group a more difficult task, [...]

  • How Can Taking my Employees Away from the Work Environment Enable me to Build a Sense of Teamwork?

  • Getting away from the office—the two- or three-day management retreat for teambuilding—is becoming increasingly popular because: Team retreats enable the team to get away from the pressures of daily operations to focus fully on its concerns as a group in a more relaxed, leisurely, and collegial atmosphere. This includes time to identify team problems and [...]

  • How do I Choose Members of a Cross-Functional Team?

  • The group’s mission plays a major factor in team selection. Will it solely provide feedback to others? Will it have a specific project to complete? Will you need a small project team of experts or will you require a larger group, with a broad range of backgrounds represented, for brainstorming? Answers to these questions will [...]

  • What are the Four Stages of Cross-Functional Teams?

  • The four stages of cross-functional teams are: Forming Storming Norming Performing Some management gurus say there is even a fifth stage, mourning. Tell Me More The first stage is forming, during which you need to finalize the team’s mission and work with team members to get agreement about what is acceptable team behavior. While there [...]

  • Why is it Important to Have Diversity with in my Team?

  • A diverse group provides a greater mix of viewpoints or perceptions and strengthens the team’s overall processes of ideation and creativity. It doesn’t matter team members’ seniority, age, sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, or physical status. Pulling these individuals together gives the team the chance to capitalize on the unique strengths of the individual members [...]

  • What are my Responsibilities as Team Leader?

  • As a team manager, your major responsibility is to model the behaviors and attitudes that you want to see within the team. For one, you need to share information with your team, just as you expect members to exchange information with one another. If you share information with just a few members of the team, [...]

  • If I Build a Strong Team, Am I Abdicating Power or Control?

  • When you build a sense of teamwork, you are not abdicating power or control. While teamwork works best in a climate of participation or, better yet, shared leadership (think "empowerment), it isn’t mandatory. This is a decision that you make as team leader, and this is a role that you can retain or share, as [...]

  • How Can I Make New Hires Members of the Team From Their First Day on the Job?

  • Right from the start, condition new team members to believe that they’re joining an elite group—that your team is made up of winners, and that they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t winners too. To help the new hire feel a part of the team, you might assign an experienced employee who is a strong [...]

  • How Can Pulling Employees Together Into a Team Maintain Productivity During Tough Economic Times?

  • Pulling survivors together into a team can overcome morale problems that occur as a consequence of downsizing. But it isn’t easy. You have to communicate a reality to the remaining employees: They have a vested interest in the future success of the organization. This, by itself, isn’t sufficient. Each member will also have personal goals. [...]

  • How do I Handle a Talented Loner or Non-Team Player on my Team?

  • You must either create a niche that this non-mainstreamer can fill successfully and productively or encourage the individual to modify his or her behavior for the sake of the other members of the team. To change the individual’s non-team behavior, you might play up peer pressure. Although loners may march to the sound of a [...]

  • What do Successful Work Teams Have in Common?

  • Productive teams usually share many characteristics. They have a common purpose each member is committed to. They stay involved until the objective is completed. They care about each other. And, in keeping with this, they are concerned about how their actions and attitudes affect each other. They listen to each other and respect all points [...]

  • Why Should I Build a Sense of Teamwork Among my Staff Members?

  • When you have built a team, you have put together a group of people who are highly committed and consider themselves mutually accountable to achieve results. They each have clearly defined roles. They have measurable goals and a visible purpose around which to unite. And they have a leader—you. This is true teamwork. When people [...]

  • If I Have to Lay People off to Save Money, How do I Choose Which Ones to Let go When None are Problem Performers?

  • In truth, termination for cost-cutting reasons should have nothing to do with job performance, although many managers use it as an excuse to rid themselves of poor performers—particularly when they haven’t the level of documentation to terminate the worker due to sub-par performance. If you must let people go, and you have no other alternative, [...]

  • What do I Say to the Rest of my Work Group About Termination of an Employee in the Group?

  • Those who remain will notice the empty cubicle—don’t think you can get away with saying nothing. Rather than getting them to forget the event more quickly, failure to explain will fuel gossip at the printer or increase fear that another ax might fall—and they might be the victim. The same thing is likely to happen [...]

  • What if I Don’t Feel Right About Terminating an Employee?

  • Some managers agonize about the big "T." But if you have set objectives and the employee has done little to achieve those objectives or made only halfhearted efforts toward reaching them, then you need not feel guilty about having to use the three-word phrase, "You are fired." Tell Me More If you have fears about [...]