As a team manager, you have the opportunity to manage people with all different levels of experience and expertise. In many cases you have employees that know a lot more than you as the manager. They are technical experts within their field and they know systems, processes, and functions from front to back. It is important to leverage their expertise across your team. The below are ways I have been able to spread the smarts across my team.
Mini training sessions
Whether your team is full of seasoned veterans or fresh from school graduates, it is important to keep them learning. An approached I have used is to have my SMEs set up recurring mini training sessions every week or two to discuss one specific topic for 15-20 minutes. This really helped the team by spreading the knowledge from the SME to everyone. It is also a great tool to encourage constant learning and progression on your team.
Informative emails
If your team works remotely across a state, region, or country, you can have your SMEs send out informative emails to the team to keep them learning and engaged. A team I previously managed was divided by an ocean. However, we still managed to share useful information through recurring emails by my SMEs. This will help keep the whole team up to speed on both old and new information as it gets circulated via email.
Challenging assignments
You should try to keep your SMEs happy by constantly keeping them learning more and giving them challenging assignments. I have my SMEs manage projects and include new employees to give them opportunity to learn from the expert. This helps broaden the skill sets on the team and gives the SME opportunity to teach along the way.
Adam Hasebi – Co-Founder, Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
Managing work-life-balance can be a real challenge for employees and managers. It is all too often your employees get burned out and productivity goes down the toilet, which may even result in high employee turnover. I have managed people in companies that require them to put in at least 53-54 hours per week from work. In many cases employees would work well over 60 hours on a given week. To help improve work-life-balance in this type of environment I implemented the following:
Be flexible with schedules
It’s amazing how talking with your team and finding out that adjusting their schedules by 30 minutes to an hour can make a huge difference. These can be small changes or flexibilities like having the option to come in a few minutes later, leaving earlier on certain days to run errands, taking care of children, or even providing the option to work from home.
Encourage vacation
Over the past few years I have had to use my vacation days for what I like to call “sanity days.” It is exactly what it sounds like: taking days off so I don’t go crazy. Every year I use all my vacation days and do not rollover any days which helps me avoid burnouts from stress and pressure. As a manager, I also encourage my employees to go on vacation to relax and forget about work while they are out of the office. I try to take one to two vacations a year to get away from work and recharge my batteries. When I return to work from vacation, I always feel refreshed and more eager to continue working hard for the company.
Take a break
When work gets really stressful and you’re not feeling balanced, you should go and take a little break. Go for a walk. There have been many occasions when I felt overwhelmed or I noticed people on my team were looking stressed out. So I would tell them to take a walk and cool off for a bit. It’s a well known exercise that can reduce stress, and this is an easy way to help alleviate unwanted pressure in your life and for your team.
Adam Hasebi – Co-Founder, Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
Stress can be extremely detrimental to a person’s health and performance and it is affecting the work our employees do in today’s workplace. Help your team deal with their stress to ensure maximum effectiveness. Here are a few things you can relay to your team members to stymie stress.
Be Aware
Step one is admitting you have a problem. This common phrase used for addictions reigns true for stress as well. Identify that stress is the culprit and then you can begin to deal with it.
Change Behaviors
Most stress stems from your daily routines. Figure out what is at the root of your stress and change it! If traffic really irks you, leave earlier or take another route to work.
Believe it or not, health is closely tied with stress, so make time to exercise more and eat healthier. (See my other blog post on how to keep your team healthy) Also, drink lots of water! Dehydration can cause slower brain activity, drops in energy, and mood swings. If you drink more water, you will think faster, be more focused, and experience greater clarity and creativity, thus eliminating much of your stress.
Help Yourself
Occasionally, you need to remove yourself from the environment causing your stress. Find a quiet, tranquil corner or room with a comfortable chair. Add some soothing music and your favorite scents to really take that edge off. You will be amazed at what five to fifteen minutes will do for your mood.
Finally, organize your life better. Much of our stress today is caused by our manic lifestyle. Create a daily planner and craft to-do lists. I suggest prioritizing these to-do lists based on importance, but experiment with it and see what suits your lifestyle best.
Cameron Dansie – Co-Founder – Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
As a team manager and leader it can be challenging to manage your team’s careers and professional development. Whether you are managing three people or 10 people, trying to create a structure and dedicate enough time to their development can be difficult. The last couple years I have implemented the below plan to better manage my team members and their careers. This plan provides a road map to make constant improvement for your team throughout the year.
Create a plan for career development
I meet with my employees and have them write up individual plans for their own career development. The plan can include short-term and long-term goals typically divided into three to four sections for development such as communication skills, projects, continuing education, subject matter expert (SME), core work, and sales goals. With each section it is important to find ways to quantify the results which enables them to track their progress on a consistent basis.
Recurring meetings to discuss milestones and setbacks to the plan
You should have your team set up recurring meetings on your calendar. If they’re not recurring, they will not happen. I have my team members schedule meetings on a monthly basis for 30 minutes to review their development and make sure we are on the same page. The meetings should be an informal time to discuss the progress being made versus their plan and make any necessary updates to keep it current.
Continue to update and add goals
As your team members make progress throughout the year, have them continue to update their plan and add goals to work towards. As with most plans, the direction of the plan changes overtime. It is important to continue to update the changes and add new goals. By the end of the year each of your employees will have a long list of accomplishments and new skill sets. This has been a great way for me to keep my team motivated and provides a great time to give feedback to build a better team.
A great book for setting goals is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
http://www.thecompoundeffect.com/
Adam Hasebi – Co-Founder, Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
For many managers and leaders, setting high expectations for your team can be a daunting task. In some cases it is difficult to paint a picture your team can easily relate to. I use the following diagrams to give my employees a framework to excel in their careers and explain how to exceed my expectations.
Being an average Joe
Whether through a formalized process such as annual reviews or a more informal ad hoc approach for providing feedback to your team, you can explain to them what it means to be an average Joe. For example, an average Joe is really good at doing the daily core work, being efficient, and getting all of his work done before he leaves for the day. There is nothing wrong with an average Joe, and most companies would be okay with a staff full of average Joes that meet your expectations.
Becoming extraordinary Joe
The way to get your employees to work towards exceeding your expectations is through having them add more functions and responsibilities in addition to their core work. Help them understand why they are adding obligations by clearly communicating what you expect from each of them. Ultimately, this will help them work toward exceeding their commitments and becoming extraordinary instead of an average Joe.
Turning Clark Kent into Superman
The complete picture for each of your employees is different because each employee is going to be in various development stages. As your employees continue to grow and take on additional work, they will make a shift from being an average Joe (Clark Kent) to the Superman you want them to be. It is important to show them that by doing their daily work as shown in the diagram, they can grasp a better picture of what they have to do to become superman. Ideally your top performers will have a diagram that looks like this:
Adam Hasebi – Co-Founder, Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
According to UCLA Health System, healthy diet and regular exercise can help your bottom line by reducing the costs of healthcare coverage. The purpose of this entry is to provide you some simple solutions that keep your team healthy, energetic, and performing to the best of their abilities. I keep myself fit through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after work, but not everyone has the time or money for a hobby like this. The following are various options you can implement into your work environment based on your team’s personality and budget:
Build Your Own Gym
Obviously this isn’t feasible for most, so improvise and purchase a few free weights, fitness bands, an exercise ball, and yoga mats you can stick in a separate room or a corner of the office. Save even more by finding these items on eBay or at a local thrift store. Take Adobe for example. In their new Utah campus, Adobe’s amenities include a NBA size basketball court, rock-climbing wall, and a fully equipped gym.
Buy Gym Memberships
Pay for your team members’ gym memberships. Too expensive? Call your local gym and arrange a corporate discount.
Provide Gym Time
Give your employees an hour or two off per week, clearly communicating it is intended for exercise. If this isn’t possible, encourage them to take a longer lunch break to hit the gym.
Encourage Team Activities
Mix your meetings up by going for a walk or planning a jog. Better yet, head to your local park to play football or Frisbee. Be creative and come up with push-up and sit-up contests or make a game out of taking the stairs. If you have the resources, buy a Ping-Pong table, but make sure you set some guidelines so the games don’t intrude upon work. You could even go to the extent of hiring a Yoga instructor to teach classes during the week.
Use one of the recommendations above, utilize a combination, or create your own. The point of this article is to ignite you to take action and the steps necessary to provide your employees with an active work lifestyle.
I don’t want to rehash the innumerable amount of positive reasons exercise and staying physically active can have on your life, nor do I want to recommend a workout. Find a good fitness blog and experiment on what works best for you. (I suggest
http://zentofitness.com/
and
http://www.jcdfitness.com/
)
Cameron Dansie – Co-Founder, Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.EnvisionProgress.com
It’s that time of year again and companies have wrapped up the 4th quarter and are starting the New Year. Like a lot of other companies, you may have also finished up annual review season and provided feedback to your team and employees. Giving and receiving feedback are critical parts of developing your team and company. As a team manager or small business owner your employee’s development should be high on the list of things to do. The below are a few ways to give effective employee feedback:
Instant Feedback: You should not wait for annual review time to tell your employees how they are doing. As a manager and leader you should give feedback immediately on areas of strength and more importantly areas of weakness (development). Feedback should be instant and in most cases informal.
Informal Feedback: Good feedback is informal and in the moment. Feedback does not have to be written out and formalized to the point where it is not taken in well to the recipient. It really can be as easy as pulling the employee aside and saying “Joe I want to provide you with some feedback.”
Provide Examples on Strengths: You should provide examples to your team when they are using their strengths, like if an employee sends a really good email, has a successful presentation, or finishes a big project. To be even more specific, you pick out one detailed part that really stood out and discuss how well it was articulated or presented. It is all too common for managers to just say “good job” and leave it at that. They really should spend the time to think through explicitly what made it a good paper, presentation, or project.
Provide Examples on Development: Areas for development can be tricky and depending on the recipient it can be not well received. So the use of specific examples can provide a clearer picture into how employees can improve in areas for development. For example you should provide feedback on their communication skills and how they can speak more clearly during team meetings or how to more effectively present their message. By offering examples it can help resonate and over time your team will see improvement.
There are several ways to improve your employees and giving instant informal feedback with specific examples are essential tools in bettering the development of your team and employees.
Adam Hasebi Co-Founder – Envision Progress
For more effective ways to manage your teams development visit www.envisionprogress.com (Site will be up soon!)
