Culture club
Yes they were an 80′s pop group. No that is not what this post is about.
Did you know that your team has a culture? Well it’s true. And whether or not you are aware of it there are certain things about your team and the way it works that are defined by it.
How your team work together, the hours that they keep, the way that interact with their peers, approach deadlines, socialise, interact with management, deal with sickness, understand clients, think of the environment, and any other part of office life are influenced by the culture your team.
Read MoreGive your team room to express themselves
Paul Boag, one of the founders and directors of Headscape, once said; “We specialise in sh*t projects.”
If, like me, you run projects for a normal, every day web agency. If you do not always get the opportunity to be working with the latest cool technology or utilize the next whizz bang idea. If you don’t build sites for rock bands or the latest cool technology start-ups. How do you keep you team excited and enthusiastic about their day jobs? After all, if your team is not interested in the work that they are doing then they will not produce the high standards that you need and that they are capable of. This in turn is demotivating and you end up in a downward spiral.
How do you get your team excited about a project for brown paper bag manufacturers?
Read MoreConfidence is king
Confidence plays an important role in many areas of our lives. You will often here it said of footballer, for example, that they are a confidence player. I know from my own inability to play golf that I become marginally less rubbish if I have confidence in my next shot. Leaders who lead directly and with confidence are people that we want to follow. If you offer somebody direction, with confidence, they will, most likely, blindly follow. And the opposite is also true. Even if you know what you are talking about, if you do not present a confident argument, you will generally be ignored.
The same is true of your team. A team, full of confidence, will be more efficient at finding solutions to your problems. Â If confidence is low, time will be wasted while they decide even if they can solve the issue. The idea that; there is no such thing as a problem without a solution, goes out of the window.
When a team questions their ability to solve a problem. The problem is in danger of not being solved.
Building Confidence.
It is important to be active in building the confidence of your team. This includes being on the look out for things which will damage the confidence of individuals.
- Public praise.
Be vocal about the successes of your team and the individuals within it. Publicise the good activity that is going on all the time. This is especially important if an individual  has been struggling for confidence. Inform other areas in the organisation of your successes. When a project is completed or an important milestone is reached, spread the word. Send an email highlighting the work and the individuals involved. Twitter is also a great tool for this and especially useful in the web world where what you are working on is often in the public domain. When your team does something well, hold it up for all to see. - Do not allow individuals to dominate a team.
A certain way to knock the confidence of an individual is if they are in a team with one or two unapproachable ‘experts’ . When one member of a team is perceived to always have the best solution others will be less willing offer suggestions.  Remember, a quite individual does not equate to an incompetent individual.  It is important to build the confidence of such individuals otherwise you will lose their valuable input. If you identify this situation your can try to build their confidence and their standing within the team.  Ask them specifically for their opinion. Take them aside and seek their assessment of an issue. Public praise can also be a useful tool for individuals as well as teams. If somebody doesn’t have the confidence to contribute then you will lose their contribution. - Do not set people up to fail.
Be realistic with the challenges that you set for your team. If you consistently set an unrealistic target which ends with your team not achieving their goals, then their confidence and eventually their effectiveness will suffer. Break larger tasks into achievable chunks. Give people the opportunity to achieve something small along the way to a larger success. Failure is a demotivating experience. If it happens too often it can become habitual. Make sure that your team has a fighting chance of success. Do not set them up to fail.
A confident team is more productive. They are also more innovative in their solutions because they expect to not only achieve their goals but to excel at what they are doing.  It is important to not go too far and breed arrogance and complacency but a team of confident individuals will make your job a lot easier.
Have you had the experience of being in a team that has lacked confidence? What other ways of building the confidence of the team, or an individual, have you come across?
Read MoreIt’s OK to not know.
“I don’t know” is actually a valid answer to a problem.
“Let me think about that” is not an excuse to waste time.
“I think I should discuss this problem with my peers” doesn’t present you as incapable.
No need to be infallible
We all want to be seen in the best light. We don’t want to be seen to make mistakes. We want to be appreciated for what do. We want acknowledgement for all we put in and what we can achieve. We definitely don’t want to be seen as the weak link. We want to give an impression that we are in control and that we are ready for whatever challenge may come our way. We want people to know that they can trust us; that they can rely on us. We want to inspire confidence that we know what we are doing.
To achieve this we do not need to be infallible.  We need to be honest; with other people and ourselves.
It can be too easy to try and have an answer for everything.  If you are presented with a problem you want to solve it quickly. Most problems that come up in my world as a web project manager do not have instant answers and I’m typically very suspicious of off the cuff solutions.  When I pose a problem to my team I would expect an answer that is something along the lines of; “Give me some time to consider that” or “I’m not sure, there could be several solutions, let me do some thinking and research”.
Similarly, in an environment of peers, if you don’t know how something works, ask your team mates. Share the knowledge around. It’s sounds obvious but many people are too afraid of what people my think of them if they ask a seemingly obvious question.
Honesty is just fine
Acknowledging areas of weakness or gaps in understanding, far from creating a negative picture you, will actually increase your standing with people around you. Understanding who you are and what you can (and can’t) do is a sign of strength. It will produce self confidence which others will feed off. And if you can pin point the areas where you need to improve then you are in a much stronger position to do something about them. People around you will recognise this and therefore have more confidence in you.
A quick answer that,  further down the road, proves to not the be the best solution, causes problems. It might make you appear to be on top of your game at that moment in time but it will leave people with less confidence in you in future. However, a more considered approach, which yields good results, leaves everybody with greater confidence in your ability. It will breed trust.
Fear can be a big issue; both for team members and team leaders. We are afraid to appear weak, or slow, or unreliable. We are concerned that our boss or our peers will think we do not know what we are doing.
It’s worth remembering that asking questions and saying, “I don’t know”, are not a sign of weakness. In fact, they are a sign of strength.
Read MoreSolutions not problems
It’s very easy to indentify when something is wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small one person task or a large project being undertaken by a whole team of people, finding issues is normally… Â no, I would say, always possible; even easy to do. By spotting a problem you are nothing new. You are not doing anything different you do not stand out in any way. Solutions on the other hand are a rare commodity.
During my spell as the technical team lead at Headscape I tried to install something of a motto into the team. “Everything is possible, there is always a way.” And a few variations on that theme. When a project manager, or a client would approach me with a new piece of functionality or a new project or even just the beginnings of a new idea I tried to always approach it from the point of view that whatever they were asking for was possible to achieve. It was my job / my teams job to find the solution.
Read MoreThe rant line
It’s good to get things off your chest. Inevitably, during the course of a project things will annoy you. A customer will insist on something stupid, a college will make a hash of something which will add to your work load, a member of your team will do something daft and you will have to pick up the pieces, you will release that you had not thought something through or that you have cut a corner to save time and it’s made everything take three times as long as it should.
It happens. But how you deal with these situations will have a big impact on, not only your project, but your general state of mind too.
A wise man once said
There is an old proverb that goes something like this; “don’t let the sun go down on an argument”. This is good advice; not only for the sake of the relationship involve but also because we all know that you generally feel better when the air is cleared. The same principle needs to be applied here.
There may not have been an actual argument or disagreement but somehow somebody has gotten under your skin and you can feel the tension and frustration building. Of course, it is not always appropriate to ‘have it out’ with the person involved. After all, an offended client is likely to only make your situation worse. A disgruntled team member is not really very likely to up their game either. And after all, your boss may just fire you *smile*.
Get it all out
However, you need to do something. If you are getting increasingly frustrated and don’t have a vent then your productivity, creativity, and general happiness will very quickly hit a downward curve.
At Headscape; amongst the Project Managers at least, we have the concept of the rant line. Essentially, when  something has ‘gotten our goat’ we can call one of the other PM’s and rant.  It’s great! It makes you feel so much better.
This is an informal, and somewhat tongue in cheek, arrangement but it is a concept that is worth considering.
Some organisations have a more formal system. The idea of ‘buddies’, or some sort of mentoring or accountability. The system is tweaked to the situation but the idea is the same. A safe place to unload, without fear of reprisals. To be open and honest. To clear the air when there is no other sensible outlet.
If you let such frustrations build up; your project suffers, your team suffers, and ultimately, you suffer. So don’t let things get you down. Call the rant line! *smile*
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