What happens to your team when you are not around ? My experience with different teams in Asia is not so much that people will start to play or muck around. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Rather than getting together and doing all the stuff you maybe do not allow when you are around, most of the time, when the cat is away, the mice will go in hibernation !
That "team" that you often think of as the group of your direct reports will more or less fall back to its components. The HR manager will go and focus on the HR stuff and the marketing person will quietly keep on working on the marketing assignment you handed out. The team ceases to exist.
When an issue comes up where collaboration or joint action is needed, and when you are not around, does your team huddle together, come up with solutions and decide on the best way forward ? Or do they get lost in arguments and turf wars ? Or - and I think this is what happens most often - is the issue put on the 'pending' list until your return. Whichever of these two extremes, it seems that anything but routine work gets done when you are not around.
What is the solution ? You cannot expect a team to grow by itself if you are involved in every decision. Step back ... even when you are around, and refrain from intervening while at the same time asking for progress to be made. In fact, if the mice start playing when you are not around, that would be a pretty good sign. If however they go into a comatose state, you need to reflect on how you can change the way you work to start building a real team !
No comments:
Post a Comment