13. Building great team, talent and culture

A big part of helping your team fast track their careers is building great teams, talent and culture that delivers and transforms the work that organisations do.

It’s always important for me to deliver change, new systems and outcomes, so that’s the framework that I work from.

How do you make change happen when you inherit a team, or you’re not the leader of that team?

Firstly, you get clear on:
- What is the work? That is, what are the tangible tasks that the team is expected to deliver for an organisation?
- What problems does your team solve?
- Who is on your team, and what are their strengths and responsibilities?

Next, I ask ‘what does a great team culture look like, and how can I make sure that culture starts with me?’

I believe the energy that you, as a leader, bring to the team is the energy that drives the team:
- What is your motivation?
- Do you have a sense of urgency (without being frantic) that moves projects along?
- Does your team know that you care and support them? If not, how can you express that?

Then, assess your team:
- Do they have the skills to do the job?
- Are there any team members bringing down the energy of the team?
- Does your team know what’s expected of them, both in terms of hard and soft skills?

I like to get the key stakeholders together to prioritise the major work for the organisation, and to get them to approve and select the most important work for the organisation as a whole. It’s easy to work in silos, and to not consider the whole picture - so by getting them together to decide which of their competing priorities takes precedence means that if it comes up, I can point to the key stakeholders as having signed off that the work we’re doing is the MOST important work for the organisation. 

Clarity on what the team is to deliver needs to come from the top - CEOs and Managing Directors need to set the agenda for what the real work is that needs to happen. 

Once I’ve got that executive team together to identify and prioritise the highest value work based on customer, risk vs. opportunity, and/or cost of delay. Once everyone has agreed on the value they assign to each piece of work that needs to be done, we can work on designing and implementing a plan of action.

What you’ll find is you’ll end up with a bunch of projects that have a high value assigned to one of those aspects (customer, risk, cost of delay), but not others, so what may have seemed vitally important is actually less important than another key focus that will have a run-on effect.
This process works really well as everyone has the opportunity to have a say and to vote on what’s important, and that’s a really important aspect of having everyone ‘buying in’. This stops teams working on pet projects and tasks that aren’t vital, at the expense of more important work. 

Once you’ve prioritised the major work, make the work visible. 

Put goals and metrics on the walls or whiteboard, and I find that revisiting those goals every day gives a consistency that means you’re constantly moving forward. 

I like to work on less, only starting what you can finish, and only starting when you have everything you need to complete the work. Only start when you have the staff, the budget and the approval to go ahead, otherwise you’ll waste a lot of time. This can be a difficult conversation to have with senior leaders, but once you set the standard that you’re not going to start before the work is approved and adequately resourced, you may find that things start moving a lot faster!

It can be helpful to follow the process from ‘go to woah’ - that is, from the moment a task or piece of work comes into the organisation, to the moment the transaction is complete or the project is delivered and feedback received. Really looking at every step in the process to determine what is value add, what is unnecessary and what isn’t working can streamline the process and also give you a better understanding of every aspect of the business. 

It’s important to identify: what is making us money, and what is costing money?

The way you get to know people is by spending time with them. Ask how you can help, what they need in order to get the job done, and observe whether or not they seem to be enjoying their job and their behaviour. You’ll pick up strengths and weaknesses they may not openly advertise.

Getting the whole team together can give you some really valuable insights:
- Does your team enjoy each other’s company?
- Do they pull together to get the job done?
- Can they solve problems together?
- Do they listen to each other?
- Do they know how to give - and receive - constructive feedback?

As a leader, you need to work hard to get the people who don’t speak up to speak up. It’s a matter of creating an environment where everyone has a voice and feels safe to speak up without fear of judgement or being ostracised for having a different opinion.

It’s also important to identify and eradicate behaviour that doesn’t fit in with the values of the organisation.

Work hard to unlock the unwritten rules of an organisation and what they mean. Why do they do what they do? I worked at an organisation where, if I asked someone to do a task, they would wait until the boss was copied into the email trail to begin that task. I had to identify why that was the norm, and it was a real challenge to create cultural change. 

Put yourself in the work - after all, nobody learned how to play a sport by sitting on the sidelines. Leading teams from the front, and relentlessly asking for feedback, is the fastest way to implement change within an organisation.

In a nutshell:
- Help your team shine. 
- Allow them to explore and experiment and try new things. 
- Champion their work to senior management - allow them to present their own work and ideas, to give them a taste of leadership.
- Thank your team. Thank them publicly.
- Asking your team what they want to achieve in their career, and take steps to give them opportunities and challenges that will help them grow.

Want to hear more tips for leading teams? 
You can listen to my episode on building great teams, here.
Subscribe to the Lady Leadership podcast, available wherever you like to listen.