One of the things that I love about project work is that roles and responsibilities shift with each project. On one I can be the Project Manager, responsible for the full delivery, on another a workstream lead, just responsible for the HR elements or just contribute to one element of the HR solution.
For each of those roles, my level of authority and autonomy will be different. My working relationships may change.
Within your organisation, it may not be as fluid but everyone must be clear about the role that they play and how that relates to others in the team. If you can shift roles around or allow team members to lead on discrete projects it will give you insight on their strengths and weaknesses and may highlight a potential superstar in the making.
One of our clients regularly shifts the team leaders for their customer services department around. Each team leader has a team of 10 staff to manage and develop; every staff member is an individual so for a team leader they have 100 personalities and challenges to experience and learn from, the team leaders who adjust and connect with their team quickly are more successful at hitting their targets and progressing to the next level.
It is important to assess the natural styles of your team and give them the opportunity to work on areas of development in a safe space. One of the ways that I find most successful is completing a personality test as a team. There are several to chose from including 16 Personalities (MBTI), Strength Finders, 5 voices and the colour works.
Personally, for Leaders and Managers, I think that 16 Personalities (MBTI) and 5 voices work well but for team cohesion, I like the colour works.
There are four colours red, yellow, green and blue. When you complete your test as a team you will get your two most dominant colours. Knowing your colours and those of your team will give you an insight into the way they think and work, and give you a common language to use.
The first time that I completed the test, I discovered that I was the only blue in a team of yellows. Blues are very detail orientated and like to have all the facts, my other HR colleagues were more spontaneous and engaging. Once we knew that, I knew that I had to be more direct in my questioning to get a detailed response and my team knew that if they wanted my opinion they had to tell me all the facts. It gave us a common language if someone told me I was being too blue – I could give an opinion without thinking that my reputation depended on it.
Try building a common language with your team, so that you can work together to your full potential.
If you need some help with your team dynamic schedule a FREE 20-minute Team Strategy Call, where we will share some actionable tips