The-Dos-And-Don’ts-Of-Effective-Team-Management

The secret to the success of any organization is solid teamwork. According to statistics, teamwork and collaboration are very important for about 75% of the employees. A company that does not promote collaboration won’t be able to survive in the long run. So how to build a culture of teamwork in your workplace?

This is where team management skills come in. Every manager should have leadership skills to promote team productivity and collaboration. These skills ensure that everyone in the team is on the same page and helps each team member know what’s expected of them in the workplace. This blog will discuss effective team management and give you some practical tips.

What Is Effective Team Management, And Why Is It Important?

Effective team management can easily be described as a manager’s ability to lead a group of people to accomplish a specific value-driven goal. It involves supporting, communicating, and uplifting the morale of your team members so they can complete projects to the best of their abilities. Effective team management leads to successful projects, satisfied employees, and a united team. According to statistics, companies that communicate more effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain the best employees. Effective team management has numerous benefits as it enables better problem-solving skills, increases the potential for innovation in team members, and provides more opportunities for company growth. Excellent management also boosts productivity, decreases employee burnout, and ultimately results in satisfied and happier employees.

Here is a list of reasons why effective team management is essential:

  • It ensures that managers and team members are working towards a common goal.
  • It enables managers to outline their team members’ roles and expectations clearly.
  • It implements team building and promotes a unified approach.
  • It helps implement negotiation and critical thinking skills, which makes it easier to come up with solutions.
  • It encourages open communication between the team members and the manager.

Qualities Of A Good Manager

To implement effective management in your workplace, you need to be a good manager and lead by example. A good manager is expected to foster a fun work environment, ensure efficiency, inspire employees, and delegate tasks. Your job is to support your team and help them succeed. So to become an effective manager, you need to hone your skills and motivate your team to perform their tasks effectively. 

Here is a list of qualities managers should have to lead their teams.

Be Direct And Transparent

Being direct, transparent, and authentic is the best way to lead. As a manager, it is your job to keep your team members updated on the company’s status and new projects being planned. Teammates don’t want to be kept in the dark, and as an effective team manager, your responsibility is to keep them informed about the company and to provide honest feedback on their work that will help them improve. Being direct and open with your team members will help create a friendly environment and promote good communication.

Communicate Effectively

It is crucial to convey your point clearly so that each team member knows what’s expected of them. Hosting meetings and brainstorming sessions can also increase productivity and unity between team members and open lines of effective communication. According to statistics, about 86% of the employees cite ineffective communication as a workplace failure. You can also use communication tools like Slack, Jira, and Basecamp to improve communication between team members.

Goal-Oriented

As a good manager, you can set achievable goals and create strategies to accomplish them with your team members. This strategy empowers employees to determine their goals and gets more work done. Good managers must understand how to form motivational and realistic goals that will also prove challenging for the employees and help keep them motivated.

Empathy And Sensitivity

Emotional intelligence is a must-have skill for managers. It can make all the difference between an engaged employee and a frustrated, exhausted, and burned-out one. As a good manager, you must pick up signs if your team member is suffering from anxiety or going through some inner conflict and approach them for an open and empathic discussion.

A good manager tries to accommodate their teammate’s needs, including allowing flexible hours, understanding mental health breaks, and being mindful of anxiety during goal-setting. This shows the team members that they’re not alone, and their managers and the company care for them.

Dos And Don’ts Of Effective Team Management

Team management is not always going to be easy and takes effort on your part. Excellent individual performance is good, but a cohesive and disciplined team is even better as companies do not rely on personal success.

Here is a list of some effective team management strategies to help you better understand the dos and don’ts of managing a team.

Do Recognize The Value Of Each Team Member

A team’s success relies on the ability of the group to work together. As a manager, it is your job to observe your employees and understand the unique skills different team members have to offer. 

For example, you might have a developer in your team who’s trained in conflict resolution. You can leverage that employee to organize practical workplace team-building activities. Knowing your teammates’ skill sets will help you understand them better, and you can use their other skills to your company’s advantage.

Don’t Micromanage

As a manager, your team’s success reflects your credibility. So it stands to reason that you’d want to be kept updated on your team’s next steps in a project and ensure they’re working to achieve the goal. However, micromanagement can affect your goals negatively as according to recent statistics, about 68% of the people who worked for a micromanager claimed that it decreased their morale. In comparison, 55% said that it affected their productivity poorly.

When you micromanage, it’s a way of showing that you don’t trust your team. So, inform your team of your expectations, let them know you’re open for discussions, and allow them the creative space to build successful projects. You can also arrange weekly 1-1 meetings with your teammates to discuss their projects and offer them your insights on the matter.  This practice will show that you trust and support your team.

Do Practice Teamwork

Teamwork cannot be built overnight, and you might have found team members who will work well together, but it will take time for them to get comfortable with each other. So as a leader, your job is to help them practice teamwork as it will bring new ideas, help solve problems, and increase team morale.

An example of successful teamwork is active listening skills, maintaining eye contact when others are talking, having friendly body language, and responding appropriately to the queries of your fellow teammates. You can also use various team-building programs and activities to motivate your teammates. These programs will test their collaboration and how they respond to their team members when they need to work as a group to complete a task. These activities will help them bond over and result in a stronger team.

Don’t Ignore Conflict.

Conflict is inevitable when working in a group due to the clash of different mindsets and opinions. According to statistics, managers spend about 20-40% of their time dealing with workplace conflicts. These conflicts can result in misunderstandings and challenges for the manager. Don’t ignore these conflicts between your team members as these can reduce efficiency, increase turnover and result in a divided team.

Instead, talk to your teammates and listen to their side of the story without any bias and try to devise a satisfactory solution for all your teammates. For example, as a manager, you can resolve conflicts by asking opposing team members to describe how the other might feel during the conflict. This skill will increase your team’s unity and create an empathic mindset.

Do Reward Teamwork

Many companies have reward programs for employees who do excellent work. Instead of awarding individuals, you can start a program in your organization to reward different teams for seamless projects and brilliant teamwork. This practice is sure to promote teamwork and help unite team members as statistics have revealed that recognizing the qualities and achievements of workgroups increases profits by about 29%.

Don’t Silo Departments

While each department in an organization has its specialty, ensure different teams have multiple opportunities to collaborate as collaboration results in innovative ideas. Try not to silo departments as this mentality causes organizational barriers, decreases efficiency, and hampers team morale. This can result in a bad customer experience, duplicated work, and groupthink where challenges and disagreements are discouraged, and individuals simply follow the leader.

For example, you can bring UI designers and developers together for a software project. The designers will help engineers understand the project from the user’s perspective, resulting in an excellent product. This tip will surely increase your organization’s camaraderie, innovation, and productivity.

Conclusion

So these are some of the tips that will help you implement effective team management in your organization. Our company, Genetech Solutions, believes teamwork is the road to success. We have implemented different ideas over the years to promote teamwork in our workplace, such as thank-you awards to appreciate our colleagues, team lunches, tech talks, and other activities. We constantly try to encourage our employees to work together, which has resulted in numerous successful projects delivered by our company. You can view our case studies here.

We hope you enjoyed this blog and it was helpful for you. Feel free to contact us if you have any queries.

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I am a medical student and an avid fiction reader, with a penchant for travelling. I am currently working as a junior content writer at Genetech Solutions, one of Pakistan’s leading Software houses.