TomLaForce.com

Your team has unlimited potential.  It’s your job to help members of your group reach that potential.

If right now the people you lead are struggling.  It’s time to fire them up.  There are many ways to go about accomplishing this.  Instead of waiting for the perfect strategy, I’d suggest moving forward by taking one or more of the following actions.

Find out what they are thinking

If the team members aren’t feeling great about things, you are going to be the last person to find out.  People talk to their co-workers long before they ever talk to the boss.  You need to hear the straight scoop on how people are feeling about the group.  A great way to accomplish this is by using our TeamCheck Assessment process.  It’s a quick and low hassle way to put your finger on the pulse of your group.

Deal with the problems

The assessment process will help you understand which problems are getting in the way of your team’s success.  Once you know this, it is time to take action.  Some of the problems will have quick and easy solutions.  Go ahead and fix those yourself.  The team members will appreciate your willingness to make things better for them.

Other problems won’t have such an obvious fix.  For these, you need to involve your team.  Bring them together to discuss the results of the assessment.  After prioritizing the most important problems, use a team problem-solving approach to addressing them.  Our many years of experience at leading these kinds of meetings can help you quickly get to the root of the problem and prevent the damage that can result from a poorly managed discussion.

Set goals collectively

Once problems have been addressed and the team’s foundation has been repaired, you are ready to give the team something to be fired up about.  This almost always comes in the form of goals that are compelling and achievable.  These goals should be developed collectively.  Meetings focused on goal planning are the type of sessions we are most frequently called on to lead.  We are able to ensure everyone’s ideas are heard and help you interject your ideas without dominating the conversation.

Build skills to support goals.

While goals can help fire up a team, they will only do so if team members see that the organization is willing to support them in their quest for reaching those goals.  Often the most obvious support required is the development of new skills.  We offer a wide variety of workshops that help build strong and effective team members.  There isn’t a team out there that couldn’t benefit from a little work on communication, conflict mangement, meeting management, dealing with change or one of the many other topics we offer.