Management Teambuilding: Getting Your Management Team Unstuck

Management TeambuildingManagement Teambuilding

At some point in time, most management teams find themselves stuck. By stuck I mean they are finding it difficult as a team to marshal enough energy to develop and/or execute their strategies. Some members may also feel isolated and approaching burnout. Some others may even be panicking and pushing harder on the gas pedal, and by doing so only exacerbate the problem.

Here are some tips for getting your team unstuck:

  • Reduce the risk of moving forward. Stop trying to develop a strategy for changing the world. It’s fine to follow the advice of Collins and Porras in creating Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (or BHAGs), but sometimes you need to gain or regain some smaller traction in order to move forward. Set a short range goal that everyone on your team can get involved with – by doing so, you increase the level of trust within the team and create a winning mindset.
  • Take a counterintuitive approach to strategy development and execution.  Instead of taking a cascading Mission > Vision > Values > Strategies > Goals > Measure/Targets > Key Initiatives approach, which is essentially top down, take a bottom up approach and aim at creating a groundswell of interest, excitement and action that is focused on your organization’s core purpose. This bottom up approach is centered on creating many small wins that generate a sense of collaboration, excitement and momentum.
  • Deal with any personality conflicts on your team. I’ve written about this in the past, but it bears repeating. I use the DiSC model to explain in simple terms how differences in personality can cause rifts on a team. Whatever model you use, keep in mind that resolving personality conflicts is a lot easier when you use a common,  non-judgemental approach, such as DiSC.

Those are my top three tips. While there are many ways to tackle this type of problem, the key is to get started.

 

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