Inspire your team to greatness (Week 3-4)

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Your focus area for weeks 3 and 4 is to help people be really clear on their role and what great performance in it looks like.

Spend 30-40 minutes creating your plan now, then follow it for the next 2 weeks.

Simple.

Reading time: 5 minutes

Let’s get role clarity!

What to do

Help people get crystal clear on what’s required of them in their role. Help people understand their contribution to the team, to be clear about what’s expected of them and what they need to do to perform well and deliver.

Why do it

To perform well, people need to be clear on what they’re aiming for and how they need to perform to achieve their goals. Too often this is missing and without it, they’re not ready to perform. As a leader, manager or as a colleague, there’s a lot you can do to help. Role clarity is important so that team members:

  • Know where to focus their time and energy
  • Feel in control
  • Understand what part they play on the team and are ready and motivated to do so

How to do it

There are 3 steps to take with this. Read these through, look at the example and then create your own plan.

1) Take stock

What are you currently doing to help people be clear on their role on the team, the strengths they bring, the results they’re aiming for and how they need to perform to get those results? Checking in with what you’re currently doing is a great first step to creating your plan.

2) Take aim

Having thought about what you currently do, you’ll have probably started thinking about the things you could do better or do more. Identify what you should start doing, what to do more of and who you can support better.

3) Your plan of action

Put all this into a two week diary. Plan what you’ll do each day over the next two weeks. And you’ll also want to know how and when you’ll check that you’re helping people get role clarity, and what impact that’s having for them.

Example plan

You’re nearly ready to start helping people be really clear on their role. But to help you along the way, we’ve completed an example of motivating a team that’s been recently underperforming. Read through it, get some ideas from it and then create and complete your own plan.

1. Take stock

Know what role they play on the team and why

  • Team meetings where we run through what everyone is doing.
  • Annual reviews and planning sessions.
  • Quarterly check ins.
  • Informal conversations every now and again where we chat this through.
Be clear on exactly what’s expected of them

  • Targets to deliver on – set each year and reviewed each quarter.
  • Project by project deliverables. Mostly these are specific targets (not always though).
  • Occasional, less formal conversations where we might talk about how they feel they’re progressing against their targets.
Know how they’ll need to perform to deliver on their goals

  • Part of annual and quarterly reviews – we talk about what they need to do and what support they need. Probably not as useful and specific as it could be.
  • In team meetings, we reflect on successes and share learning – which may help people understand more about what performance is needed.
Understand the strengths they bring to the team

  • Part of review and role clarity conversations – feedback is given on what people do well. Probably not enough focus on what unique strengths they bring to the team.

2. Take aim

I could do more to:

  • Get more specific on agreed deliverables on projects.
  • Review and change annual KPIs if roles and conditions change so they’re still relevant.

Spend more time with the team creating very specific team goals and getting total clarity on who is doing what. Make sure everybody is clear on why they’re the best person in the team to do their role. Do this at the start of every project rather than every now and again.
I could start to:

  • Get team members to lead the process more – asking them to take the lead in setting deliverables on a project by project basis
  • Weekly or fortnightly check ins (give people the option of frequency) where they share their objectives, priorities and what they need to do to deliver against that.
  • Strengths sharing. Involve all team members in sharing the strengths and attributes they see in each other that are unique and valuable for the team.
  • Suggest that people connect and support each other to help with their own and other people’s role clarity – daily or weekly conversations to prioritise?
  • Focus on performance far more! Shift the balance from results to performance. Help people understand what great performance looks like – mentally, physically, tactically, etc – and what they need to do to be ready.
Who would benefit most?

Everyone but in particular Sam, John and Emma.

3. Your plan of action

Put all this into a two week diary. Plan what you’ll do each day over the next two weeks. And you’ll also want to know how and when you’ll check that you’re helping people get role clarity, and what impact that’s having for them.

Week 1

  • Monday 9am – Team meeting – role clarity on upcoming IT project
  • Monday to Wednesday – Individual performance meetings – 1 hour meetings to check in on targets and start building a picture of great performance
  • Thursday 4pm – Team meeting to share performance pies and ask for support
  • In Thurs meeting – Offer weekly/fortnightly check ins

Week 2

  • Monday – Weekly check ins (if people want them) to help them set their performance goals for the week
  • Thurs – Team to review project progress and team/individual successes
  • Friday, 4pm – Team learning/planning meeting – 20 min focused session to take learning from this week and plan for next week

I’ll review that I’ve helped and what impact that has had by:

  • Asking people to share that individually – send out email at the end of the fortnight specifically asking them
  • Team discussion to reflect on motivation and performance levels – what’s been of value and what to keep doing

Coaching tips

Get the balance right between instructing and coaching! If you’re a manager or leader, part of your role is helping people understand what the business needs and expects them to do. You also need to think and act like a coach where your role is to help people stay focused on what great looks like by continually asking them about that. If you’re their colleague (rather than manager), you can take a 100% coaching role!

I'm ready to start!

Ok, it’s now time to create your own.
Put your training plan together