How to Improve Team Performance
Becoming a manager means a lot of responsibility. Not only are you responsible for your own decisions and your own performance, but you’re also responsible for the members of your team. Your style of management and your actions reflect on their work. On the one hand, it means that their performance to a large extent depends on your ability to motivate, control, teach, and to be a leader. On the other hand, it also means that if you want to improve your team’s performance, you can do it.
If your team demonstrates low performance, the chances are that it’s unmotivated. They might not feel like a team and they may not share common goals. When facing such a problem, many managers try to organize more meetings, but having meetings and talking about problems doesn’t always help.
I recommend that you start by doing some research. Take a look at successful teams and determine what they have in common. There are some qualities that make high performing teams stand out. Your goal as a manager is to find out what your team does differently and to make the necessary adjustments, helping them to move in the right direction. We also suggest that you get some feedback from them and ensure their commitment. When you’re a manager, you have to set expectations and make sure that these expectations are realistic.
If you’re a new manager, you may struggle to understand what is the best approach. Here are some actionable tips that you can use right now to improve your team’s performance.
Determine training needs
First of all, you should determine the development needs of your team. Talk to them, asking questions about their job responsibilities. Watch them work and determine the gaps in their skills and knowledge. You should understand what role each member of your team plays to set the right goals and the right direction for development.
Collecting specific information about the roles of the members of your team will also help them understand the necessity of professional growth. If your company doesn’t have a well-developed culture of performance management, employees might not be used to constant improvement and appraisal, so you have to create the right environment.
Set a system of performance measurement
Once you’ve determined the gaps in knowledge and skills, you can set the goals. However, you won’t be able to lead your team towards achieving these goals if you don’t have a clear system of measurement. You need data to be able to enhance the performance of your team effectively. Otherwise, you won’t be able to understand what they do right and what needs to be improved.
A good approach is to use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). This method became popular thanks to companies like Google and Intel. In a word, this approach allows you to plan your yearly or quarterly goals in an aggressive manner and then compare your actual achievements against the forecast. You can use OKRs not only for the entire team but also for individual employees. Besides, this method works well with all kinds of teams, from IT to marketing or sales.
We recommend that you also use a project charter, describing the objectives of a particular project and the possible ways of achieving these goals. Project charters are used during the whole lifecycle of the project. They should include all the necessary details about the project, including its organization, potential challenges, and the information about its budget.
Provide incentives
When you have your quarterly or yearly OKRs, you can use various kinds of incentives. Providing incentives is great for your team’s motivation because your employees can know what to expect if they achieve the necessary goals and do their best to meet the company’s objectives. If you want to improve your team’s performance, you should make them work harder, and providing a reward is the best approach.
The aggressive nature of OKRs means that if your team works hard enough, it might achieve about 70%-80% of the results that you’ve planned. You should keep this in mind when assessing the performance and it should also serve as the basis for your incentives. For instance, if your team achieves 70% of the planned results, you can organize fun team building activities. In this case, you will kill two birds with one stone, making your team stronger and providing a reward for a good job.
However, there is also a more personal approach. You can also reward each particular employee, offering bonuses to those who have demonstrated the best performance during a quarter. No matter what approach you choose, incentives can make a huge difference when it comes to increasing productivity.
Foster open communication
To make sure that your team will meet the necessary goals, you should be able to communicate the expectations in a clear manner. Be specific and explain how much time you expect everyone to dedicate to a certain task. You can meet with employees one-on-one, communicate your expectations, and listen to their feedback. It’s important to make sure that communication works both ways so you must be ready to provide the necessary support and assistance.
Your communication with employees should be ongoing and honest. If you’re asking your employees to focus on a certain task, you should also be ready to help them get the necessary resources and allocate their time. Another good practice is to hold quarterly meetings so that your team can discuss the main goals that were set a few months ago. Are these goals still relevant? What are the new obstacles? What has changed?
Use team building activities
Team building activities are not only fun but also very useful when it comes to improving teamwork. The main thing is to select these activities carefully, making sure that they meet your objectives. Before you choose an activity for your team, think of its strengths and weaknesses. Determine the main challenges your team struggles with, and make sure that employees will not only have fun but also get valuable experience.
For instance, if the main problem of your team is communication, you might want to choose activities that improve the key communication skills, like verbalization, comprehension, and empathy. Team building games are a great tool that will help your team reconnect when they are tired and exhausted, enabling them to renew their energy.
Games give you a creative way to make your employees feel like a team. For example, employees can play sports. You can create a logo for the team and become a coach. Your team can also play Show and Tell, Blind Drawing, Classify This, or any other game.
Review frequently
Many managers are used to making annual reviews. However, the modern workplace is too dynamic to limit yourself to annual reviews only. We suggest that you meet with your team as often as possible. Many successful companies practice weekly team meetings and combine them with quarterly or monthly individual reviews.
Such a schedule will help you stay up to date about what your team is working on and learn about any issues before it’s too late. Besides, meetings give you another opportunity to measure your team’s success. However, meetings shouldn’t distract your employees from work.
The most common mistake managers make is holding meetings too often or choosing the wrong time. There’s no need to have meetings if there’s nothing that’s actually worth talking about. 65% of senior managers note that meetings prevent them from completing their own work, and 71% consider frequent meetings inefficient. Therefore, make sure that every meeting has a clear purpose.
Celebrate their wins
It’s impossible to keep your employees inspired and motivated if you don’t celebrate their wins. Obviously, they need recognition for their big accomplishments. However, we recommend that you also learn to celebrate their small wins, as well. When meeting with your team, don’t focus on problems only. Instead, dedicate some time to the employees’ accomplishments and let them know that you appreciate their efforts and dedication.
You can also give the team members little gifts. An “employee of the month” mug or a book can be a good way to show your appreciation. This approach can even work with remote employees because if they receive something from you, they’ll feel closer to the team and company.
Final Thoughts
When you become a manager, you get a lot of responsibility. However, you also get more opportunities to make a real impact on the performance of your team. If you want to improve your team’s performance, this task will require a lot of commitment. However, this goal will be easy to achieve if you learn to motivate your employees in the right way, set realistic expectations, and create a clear system that will allow you to measure their performance effectively. We hope that our tips will help you improve your team’s performance and build a stronger team that is determined to succeed.
Authored by Gregory V. Chapman
Gregory is passionate about researching new technologies in both mobile, web, and WordPress. Also, he works on writing service review websites Online Writers Rating and Best Writers Online. Gregory is in love with stories and facts, so he’s always trying to get the best of both worlds.