90 Days to a High-Performance Team: A Complete Problem-solving Strategy to Help Your Team Thirve in any Environment - Softcover

DeVany, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0071629408 ISBN 13: 9780071629409

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2009

Synopsis

TRANSFORM YOUR TEAM IN JUST 90 DAYS!
The all-purpose manual every manager should own . . .

Whether you've recently been hired or promoted or just decided to try a fresh approach to managing your team, this step-by-step guide ensures you'll get the strongest performance possible out of your team--in any environment. With strategies presented in manageable daily, weekly, and quarterly timelines, the program covers the full range of workplace issues-from outdated systems and company politics to budget cuts and backstabbing.

In 90 days or less, you can:

• Organize your team into one strong, cohesive, high-functioning unit.
• Streamline processes to reduce redundant work, save money, and ensure that everyone understands their roles.
• Deal with troublemakers, underperformers, department rivals, bosses from hell, and other personality types.
• Improve your team's morale and motivation-and watch productivity soar!

This is not a book of management “philosophy”-it's a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts training guide that addresses the day-to-day reality of managing teams, especially in tough times. Filled with handy checklists, questionnaires, timelines, meeting planners, progress charts, and performance reviews, it has everything you need to build a terrific team in three short months . . . and reap the benefits forever!

About this title

About the Author

Christopher DeVany is founder andpresident of Pinnacle Performance Improvement Worldwide,a firm which focuses on management and organizationdevelopment. DeVany has published numerous articles inthe fields of management, sales, teambuilding, leadership,ethics, and diversity.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

90 Days to a High-Performance Team

A Complete Problem-Solving Strategy to Help Your Team Thrive in Any EnvironmentBy Chris DeVany

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Chris (Christopher R.) DeVany
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-162940-9

Contents

Chapter One

YOU'VE JUST STARTED MANAGING YOUR TEAM ... NOW WHAT?

You've just been hired, been promoted, or decided to take a fresh approach to managing your team. Where should you begin? From among what I refer to as the three Ps—people, processes, and priorities—choose start with your people.

Before You Start: Preplanning the Approach

Assess Your Team Members

You should have an assessment of each team member, written by a third party, ready for review. These can be past performance reviews or informal assessments written by colleagues who have worked extensively with them in the past. However, it's crucial not to let others' views and reviews of anyone on your team bias your perspective. One of the worst mistakes we can make as managers is to not give someone at least two chances to succeed, potentially three, depending on the circumstance or situation. If you can't get a third-party assessment of your team members, it's all the more important to meet with them.

Plan to Meet with Team Members

Before scheduling the team meeting—both as a team and individually—create a plan for what you will say during the meeting that includes:

1. The vision and goals you will present to your team

2. A list of your expectations of team members

3. How you will let team members know, emphatically, that your number one job is to support them (be sure you mean this and will deliver on it, or your credibility will vanish instantaneously)

4. An outline of your priorities for today, this week, this month, this quarter, and this year

5. Your plan for scheduling team members for one-on-one meetings (preferably within the first week), so you can convey individual performance expectations. During the team meeting, you will let them know the following:

* They will be meeting with you one-on-one to review their performance to date.

* At that meeting, each of them will be expected to review their performance to date, so you can understand and appreciate their perspectives.

* You will be developing a Performance Plan in concert with them, focusing on their Top Three Performance Priorities for the next month, quarter, and year.

Create an Agenda for Your First Meeting

On the top of the agenda for your first meeting should be the team's charter. See Table 1.1: Agenda for Validating a Team's Charter for an example of the various elements of the charter and the estimated times for their discussion. This exercise will help you assess the needs and desires of the team, as well as possible obstacles, long- term goals, and suggested strategies for reaching them.

First Day: What Do You Say? What Do You Hear? How Do You Respond? Team Meeting

Now you are ready to schedule your first team meeting. During the meeting, ensure that you've covered all the essentials using Worksheet 1.1: Outcomes for First Team Meeting.

First Week: What Are Your Top Three Priorities?

Priority #1: Reporting Your Team Action Plan to Your Manager and Senior Management

Your first priority as manager in your first week is to convey back to senior management and to your manager (or, in some cases, the board of directors) your Team Action Plan. This is the plan you came up with on the first day using Table 1.1: Agenda for Validating a Team's Charter and Worksheet 1.1: Outcomes for First Team Meeting. If you are conducting triage, it can often be helpful to consult with a trusted managerial peer, off whom you can bounce your ideas and ask for suggestions. Enlisting someone else for advice and support is an excellent prompt toward providing the same advice and support for that colleague going forward, especially if your new position comes as a result of having changed companies or industries. This kind of manager-to-manager communication supports more cohesive team action and results moving forward. For example, when I managed at BayBank (now part of Bank of America), I was constantly consulting my manager-peers for advice, because I was new to parts of the organization and to managing a team within certain functions of the company.

WORKSHEET 1.1 Outcomes for First Team Meeting

1. Team members understand the charter, mission, and scope of the team.

2. The team develops norms for team behavior and team processes:

* How to schedule meetings; who has authority to schedule others; use of electronic scheduling or calendaring systems

* How often voice mail and e-mail are to be answered

* Etiquette for face-to-face meetings, audio conferences, and video conferences

* How agendas for team meetings will be developed and distributed

* How minutes will be taken and distributed (timing and method)

* Who will facilitate meetings?

3. Team members understand their accountabilities and those of other team members.

* Accountabilities of all team members are reviewed and agreed upon.

4. The team develops a plan for the use of technology, including:

* Agreement on major type of work (parallel, sequential, or pooled sequential)

* Technology needed given the type of work

* How to exchange information and documents

* Hardware and software needs of team members (e-mail, fax, telephone, video, and so on)

* How information and documents will be stored (team Web site, shared files, or other)

* When to mark e-mail messages and other documents "urgent," "important," or the like

* Acquisition of new technology (for example, groupware, electronic meeting systems)

* Training and orientation for team members in technology

* Review of compatibility issues (MAC or PC, word-processing applications, Internet providers)

5. The team develops an external communication plan:

* Which stakeholders, partners, champions, and others will get what information and when?

* Which team members will coordinate with those individuals and answer questions?

6. The team determines how it will review progress:

* Frequency of team meetings

* Preliminary agenda for review sessions

* Who will be required to attend

* How meetings will be held (audio conference, video conference, and so on)

7. Team-building activities are conducted, and team norms are reviewed.

Priority #2: Meeting with Your Team

During your first week managing your team, your second priority is meeting with your team, using the guidelines presented in the first part of this chapter.

Priority #3: Meeting with Team Members One-on-One

After conducting the team meeting, you will meet with people one-on-one. If for some reason you can't meet with everyone one-on-one in your first week, be sure to schedule these meetings as soon as humanly possible. Here are some suggestions for how to get the most out of your one-on-one meetings.

1. Before meeting, let your team members know that they should come prepared to address and defend their performance to date.

2. Follow the meeting schedule you've chosen.

3. During the meetings, address the following:

* Review their performance to date, as you understand it.

* Listen and take notes as they offer their perspective on their performance to date.

* Explore ways to agree on what their Performance Plan should be, going forward, using Worksheet 1.2: Performance Plan Template.

* Identify the action steps (performance steps) they should follow.

* Indicate to them, right on their Performance Plan, what steps you will be taking as a manager to support their success.

WORKSHEET 1.2 Performance Plan Template

Outcomes

Team members understand what is expected of them. Job responsibilities include:

Responsibility #1:

Responsibility #2:

Responsibility #3:

Planning for Performance

Toward each responsibility, expected performance steps include:

Responsibility #1:

Performance Steps and Time Line for Accomplishing:

1.

2.

3.

Responsibility #2:

Performance Steps and Time Line for Accomplishing:

1.

2.

3.

Responsibility #3:

Performance Steps and Time Line for Accomplishing:

1.

2.

3.

Manager's Support

Toward each series of performance steps, the manager will provide the following support:

First Month: Success Against the Top Three Priorities–Next Steps

Against each of our Top Three Priorities, let's focus on what we can do during that very important first month.

1. Managing Your Success. You need to be as efficient as possible in managing your day, your time, and your weekly schedule, so you can succeed and be a model for your team. You may find that some suggested strategies don't work for you personally, and, as you settle into your role, you will develop your own system. But as a jumping-off point, here are some steps that have worked for me:

* Managing Your Day. Before starting the day, identify your Top Three Priorities for today. What do I need to accomplish? What do I want to accomplish?

* Managing Your Time. In addition to identifying your daily Top Three Priorities, group similar tasks together for completion at the same time. Help others manage their time more effectively by guiding them around what has worked for you.

* Managing Your Week. At 9:00 on Monday morning, picture Friday afternoon. What did you accomplish this past week that gave you great satisfaction? Now make sure you schedule these accomplishments as tasks for this week.

* Managing Your Month. Just as you did for each day and each week, list your goals and priorities. Accomplish them in bite-size daily and weekly gulps; if you have a large project you're working on, break it down into manageable pieces.

Managing Your Time

As a quick exercise in big-picture thinking, I sometimes ask my clients, "If you had an extra three hours in your week, what would you do with them?" Exercise 1.1: Managing Your Time accomplishes two things. First, it identifies at least one important task you consistently put off, and allows you to consider where among your goals and priorities you might be able to fit it. Otherwise, it may never get done! And second, it reminds you of all the fun things you could do if you were so well-organized that you could get your work done more efficiently and leave the office earlier. That's inspiration!

2. Managing Your Team's Success. Take your monthly team goals and break them down into daily and weekly goals and tasks. This gives your team the same opportunity to succeed as you give yourself. Be sure you are providing the promised support. Regularly ask yourself: "How effectively am I supporting my team's success?"

EXERCISE 1.1 Managing Your Time

What I would do with an extra three hours each week:

3. Managing Your Team Members' Success. Coach people. Be approachable. Listen to them. Provide them with constructive feedback and support. This is not rocket science—unless, of course, you are a rocket scientist!

Enough said. Focus on what you are doing against these Top Three Priorities during your first month.

First 90 Days: Top Three Mantra; Managing Results; Raising the Bar

By now, you're becoming familiar with the "Top Three Mantra," one of my favorite and most helpful concepts. It dictates that you should be speaking, thinking, and acting continually on your Top Three Priorities. For example, as I'm getting ready to leave the house, my amused wife will often see me walking around saying, "Jacket, keys, plastic; jacket, keys, plastic...." What I am doing is constantly stating my Top Three Priorities for leaving the house—the items I must have to ensure my successful departure, complete and reasonably intact. At work, colleagues can often catch me saying under my breath phrases such as, "Call, file, meeting ..." or "Print, review, call...." What this means is that I am managing a specific task and/or series of tasks so I can complete the tasks, projects, meetings, or conference-call preparation successfully. When we write down our priorities and then engage in this kind of consistent "self-talk," we keep ourselves productive. For example, though my dog Fenway is at my side while I am writing this, I just petted him and supported his efforts at lying down so I could stay focused on "writing, listening, writing ...," one of my mantras for writing successfully.

At work, for help staying focused on your Top Three Priorities as accomplished quarterly, consider the following:

1. Managing Your Success. Follow these focused steps:

* Write down your quarterly goals.

* Schedule how you plan to accomplish your quarterly goals in bite-size daily, weekly, and monthly increments as necessary. How will you measure that, after one month, you are at least one-third of the way toward each and every one of your quarterly goals?

* Execute your quarterly plan.

* Review your quarterly plan at least once a month to ensure satisfactory progress (I usually do this the last Monday of each month).

2. Managing Your Team's Success. Try these steps on for size:

* Write down your team's quarterly goals.

* Communicate these goals to your team just before the new quarter starts.

* Direct your team to schedule accomplishing the team's quarterly goals in bite-size daily, weekly, and monthly increments as necessary. Explain how you will measure that, after one month, your team is at least one-third of the way toward each and every one of its quarterly goals.

* Execute your team's quarterly plan.

* Review your quarterly plan at least once a month with your team to ensure satisfactory progress (consider using the last Monday of each month for this purpose).

3. Managing Your Team Members' Success. Follow the same steps that should now be embedded in your brain:

WORKSHEET 1.3 Outcomes for Quarterly Team Meetings

1. The team reviews norms for team behavior and team processes, validates, and updates them. Reviews of etiquette for audio conferences, video conferences, face-to-face meetings, and so on.

2. The progress of the team's work to date is reviewed.

3. Accountabilities are clarified, if necessary.

4. The team reviews technological issues and problems, exchanges information and documents, hardware and software needs of team members, information and document storage and access, e-mail and voice mail problems and additional technology needs, training, and orientation.

5. The team reviews progress regarding the external communication plan and verifies that information is getting to other team members, stakeholders, and champions?

6. The team assesses its work to date:

* Progress of technical work, overlap/redundancy of roles and accountabilities

* Availability of team members

* Availability of information and documents

* Access to technology

* Access to stakeholders and other important team members

7. Additional team-building or trust-building activities are conducted, as appropriate.

8. The team reviews its current meeting effectiveness and plans for the next meeting.

* Write down your team members' quarterly goals.

* Communicate these goals to your team members just before the new quarter starts.

* Direct your team members to schedule accomplishing their quarterly goals in bite-size daily, weekly, and monthly increments as necessary. How will they know and measure that, after one month, they are at least one-third of the way toward each and every one of their quarterly goals?

* Execute your team members' quarterly plan.

* Review your team members' quarterly plan at least once a month to ensure satisfactory progress (consider having each team member submit a Quarterly Goals Progress Report to you the last Monday of each month).

To help you plan and execute a successful quarterly team meeting, make use of Worksheet 1.3: Outcomes for Quarterly Team Meetings.

Implementing a New Habit

We've all heard this many times, starting with the excellent research conducted years ago by Alcoholics Anonymous and supported countless times by business leaders: It takes twenty-one straight days—or, in business terms, three consecutive weeks' working days—of consistent practice to establish a new habit. Armed with the wisdom of many others' experience, take a break and write down the next new habit you want to adopt right here. (It may feel strange, but it's really okay—as long as you own this copy of the book!)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from 90 Days to a High-Performance Teamby Chris DeVany Copyright © 2010 by Chris (Christopher R.) DeVany. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071629408
• ISBN 13: 9780071629409
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224