Today I am going to touch upon a very important subject while you manage and build your teams.
We cannot take the word “Culture” lightly while managing or leading teams
Culture refers to peoples background, belief system, understanding about life based on their surroundings, nation etc.….
Well Everything – you cannot change somebody overnight and embed your goals on them without even knowing them better (the real truth is you know very little about people when you hire them)
But when it comes to working together, how do we bring everyone together and build a culture of togetherness
Well this is what we are going to talk about today….
Culture & Mindset
You know that understanding the mindset of your people is so critical for you to run your operations seamlessly
Building a team and the culture from day 1 is critical so that we all are on the same page, and able to achieve the results we need to as set by you or your organization
This can totally go wrong if not taken seriously, but there is a huge chance that it will go right if you understand the people sentiments and their belief system from to engage and march towards a larger goal and building Self Organizing teams.
At work, the culture I am referring to is the purpose of “why are we in it together and what are we going to achieve together and how are we going to win together as One team…”
If we solve these initial puzzle the culture of our team stands very strong no matter what happens! Your team will be there thick and thin every moment you need them!
Last year COVID19 hit us very bad, with little time we had to prepare, I started seeing messages, getting calls from my team that they want to support and help during this crazy difficult time, knowing that we are running short of people to run our BPM business
So what should we do to build this culture of togetherness
- Listen to your people
Don’t just hear them, listen carefully. Majority of the times managers just want to talk and share what we know. The rule is : talk 20% and listen 80%
2. Show that you care and interested in them
I mean know your people well, you don’t need to ask personal questions (please don’t make them uncomfortable for god-sake)
- firstly, make them feel comfortable talking to you
- it takes several one 2 one meetings to let them open up to you especially if you are managing different cultural background people
- Understand their interests
For example: Identify their favorite sports or activities they like (nominate one of your team member to plan a event if they are good at, support them with the preparation – don’t just delegate) – my team used to participate in all the cultural events like dancing, singing, marathon, cycling…. whatever company wide initiatives we used to be there
“Not just fun activities – we were the best at our Operational delivery as well…..”
3. Being Honest
- Share your Vision with your team, share your success stories and the path you came from, being sincere and truth will increase your bonding with your team (don’t advise too much either) – Using emotional intelligence to improve project performance
- Honesty is the most important trait here
4. Communication and Your Style of Communicating
- be clear and don’t use any jargons when you talk. Practice and prepare the topics you want to share before you communicate
- Update them clearly and timely – don’t keep them hanging
5. Finally Action
Do what you say and never promise something you cant deliver (people will always notice this)
When you are starting a brand new team or trying to change the culture at your existing teams, there will be a lot of hiccups, concerns but ensuring everybody on the same page will increase the likeliness of success
Conclusion
This is all possible by putting people first, building the culture from top to bottom, and all your key members like the managers, team leaders and other members aligned and talking the same language every single day (I mean the culture here)
In order to do this, your team must accept you as their leader – read my blog post on “a Manager vs a Leader”
So build the culture of togetherness for a strong self managed team….
What kind of culture did you build while leading teams, please leave your comments below
For SME’s/team leaders who are aspiring to become a PMP or an existing manager facing hurdles, my personal recommendation is to study for PMP Certification this course provides you the foundation on
- People – soft skills required to run the projects smoothly
- Process – technical aspects
- Business environment – connection between projects and organizational strategy
personally, this course helped me to improve my operations and my understanding towards the above foundations better.