Make Your Team Great!

Tuesday, 02. 2. 2010  –  Category: T2 Communications

A leader’s success is not determined solely by their own actions and achievements, but by the achievements of their team.  Every leader wants to be successful and therefore should consistently evaluate how their team can improve.  There are many ways to make this happen: education, training seminars, performance incentives, etc.  One great place to begin is with and evaluation of the current members of the team in question.

The book, Good to Great by Jim Collins discusses how getting the right people “on the bus” and the wrong people “off of the bus” are essential steps to having a great business.  What he means is that as a leader you will need to determine if you have all of the qualified individuals that you need on your team or your “bus” to fulfill your company’s objectives and really be a great business.  He refers to all of the great company leaders who left legacy businesses in place, and that part of the reason for their success was their ability to implement the right team of individuals.¹

Jim Collins talks about business owners and high ranking executives, but this mentality can boil down to even the smallest teams in the company.  Each team has a purpose to be fulfilled, whether it is sales, production, marketing ideas, call center and customer support, etc.  Identifying the right individuals and recruiting a great team can be a challenge, and the people you choose to be on your team can make your outcome great or it can make your outcome very poor.  Do not sit back and wait for them to come to you.  It is better to go out and find them.  The question that most people ask is “How do you find the right people?”

Start with the people you know.  Who is the best salesperson on your team?  You already know what this person is like and why they are successful, now go out and look for more people just like them to join your sales staff.  What qualities does the perfect customer care representative need to be great?  Think of the best help you’ve ever received and how that person assisted you and made you feel like you were taken care of.  Now, go out and find others like that person and recruit them to your customer service department.  They will probably be people who already have jobs.  For example, if the barista at Starbucks really impresses you with her precision and customer service, give her your card and invite her in for an interview.

As you build your team and gain more insight into a larger pool of individuals with similar, but still different qualities, you will be able to continue to identify more people with the perfect traits to make your team the best possible selection of candidates for the job!  On the flip side of that thinking, is there anyone on the team who works against the common goal?  Does anyone consistently bring negativity to the table?  Maybe that person needs to be relocated or let go.  This cannot be done with drastic measures.  It must be carefully examined and handled with care.

There will be people on your team who want to succeed and who possess all of the qualities to do so: skill, attitude, knowledge, etc.  These are the right people for your team.  There may also be people on your team who want to succeed and have the right attitude, but do not possess the skills or knowledge.  Can those skills be learned?  Can that knowledge be gained on the job?  If the answer is yes, consider investing a little more time into them.  Give them a timeline based on your own experience.  If that person can gain the skills by a certain time, they are probably keepers.  If not, “C’est la vie.”  Finally, there will be people who have the right skills and knowledge, but do not have the right attitude and are not driven by success for themselves or for the team.  These people are on the wrong bus and need to be let off at the next stop.

¹Collins, Jim.  Good To Great.  HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.  2001.

Katie Petre is the Customer Care Manager for T² Communications, a CornerWorld company.

Tags: customer service, expertise, Katie Petre, sales, team building