Two Tools Team Managers Can Implement To Gain Immediate Results!

I was talking with a client the yesterday about their new Managers and the challenges they face when stepping up into a team management role for the first time.

I shared a few tips that can help new as well as seasoned managers, that doesn't take a huge effort to implement. I thought it might be useful to share a two that you can implement immediately in your team.

1. Three Solutions

We spoke about how suddenly they go from being part of the team to having the team constantly coming to them to run ideas, challenges or problems past them and they find that they have less time to do their own work.

The first thing New Managers notice when taking on a team is that their team are suddenly coming to them with their problems, ideas, challenges and expect a solution or answer immediately, hence they find they have less time to do their role! This needs to be nipped in the bud!

i. Stop the constant interruptions, have regular team meetings where the 'issues/challenges' can be brought up, often they are non-urgent and are often resolved by the time of the meeting. It is important to ensure your team know the difference between what is urgent and you can be interrupted and what can wait.

ii. Change the culture so you are not providing all the answers to their challenges! Whenever a team member has a challenge or issue get them to come to you with at least one solution, though ideally you’d want them to put forward three solutions. This small change will empower your team. Not only will you get solutions to the challenge or problem that has arisen, they may actually be better than what you would have suggested. It also builds your team members confidence so that after a while they will no longer need to run all their solutions past you because you have the confidence that they will choose the correct course of action and they have built the confidence in their own decision making they know they will chose the best course of action for the team/business.

2. OARBED

I love the oarbed model, this is a model I suggest to all people who run teams, implementing this way of working within your business will empower your team to step up, they will take greater responsibility over their actions as team work will flow more smoothly.

O - ownership

A - accountability

R - responsibility

B - blame

E - excuse

D - deny

This model helps people become aware of what they say and how they act. If you notice there is a line under the word responsibility, In an ideal world you will always operate/act above the line. The number of times I've caught myself behaving below the line, for example, if I was late for a meeting the first thing I’d say wold be 'sorry I'm late, the traffic was bad etc' now you are aware of the OARBED model you can probably instantly hear that this is an excuse, yes the traffic may have been bad, but if the meeting was important then I should have left enough time to ensure that if there were any delays I would still have had plenty of time to get to my destination for the correct time.

Or have you heard someone or yourself blame another person for a something going wrong or being delivered late? How would the same situation turn out if you acted above the line? Could you have contacted them earlier to check on the report or helped out in any way to ensure that you got what was needed to move your part forward?

This small change in you and your teams mindset can make a big difference in the way you all act, especially if you share the model with your team and work together to help each other work above the line or as my team would say 'above the belt'.

These are two tools that all team managers can implement immediately to get great results and their time back.

What have you implemented into your team to help make things run smoother? What issues have you experienced within your team?