1- I am not enough. 2- I want something, but it is not available for me. 3- I am different. When I go for consulting , I often see the same issues in every team. After my ten years of experience in management consulting, I usually hear three main points in one-on-one meetings with people.
Many people believe they are different. If this is true, the problems are the same for everyone, but people understand the situation and magnify the problems differently. Some people see the problems as much bigger than they actually are, and some ignore the problems. The consultant or coach helps to get a realistic view of the problems. Over the years, the presence of organizational trainers and even in the field of personal development has greatly increased.
One of the most important qualities of a consultant is relevant education and professional experience, and above all, the art of good listening, the art of good seeing, and the art of analysis are necessary for a good consultant.
The International Organization for Standardization has provided the public with certain standards for selecting consultants. In my opinion, the most important criterion for selecting a consultant is coordination appropriate to the team, i.e., that the consultant can understand the team's problems and propose new processes by looking at the current situation and evaluating ongoing processes with the team and with the support of the top manager. One of the biggest risks in this phase is the use of methods and processes from other organizations. In most cases, these types of copied processes become mere papers that remain in management's cages, or Word and PDF files that none of the colleagues in the organization read and that are only stored on the computer.
But processes written with the help of team members are much more practical and useful, and leadership methods must necessarily have long texts and literature that are different from the language that employees understand.
One of the implementation methods can be provided to employees and suppliers in the form of videos, photos or flowcharts. My experience in the German automotive industry: If we can use more image files in addition to text files in our management methods and processes, we will have an attractive and agile quality management system. In this agile management system, not only can the employees use the management methods and processes, but they can also comment directly by commenting anonymously and without complexity.
But back to our main point, which is three common points in developing teamwork.
1- The first point is that team members may feel that they do not have enough skills to accomplish the tasks assigned to them. A very good and easy way to change this is for the supervisor to give team members positive feedback when they have done a good and positive job. As adults, we respond quickly to positive feedback. We show that we need to receive positive feedback more often in order to accept it. I think the older we get, the harder it becomes for us to accept positive feedback, and usually we think about why that positive feedback is being done for us. As a child in kindergarten, we didn't really think about why someone was praising us, and we were always happy when our teacher in school gave us a good grade. Negative feedback is noticed very quickly, so you often fight back to get attention, which is one of the strategies to speak in public. One of the arts I always focused on as a quality auditor is how to give people constructive feedback. Quality audit is not about checking the quality of the work, but the auditing of the process. In many cases, we have to be careful that negative and even constructive feedback can be misunderstood by the team, which is why many managers and organizational leaders try to criticize as little as possible to avoid unrest in the team. I don't think this is the right way, and we need to relearn how to talk to each other properly.
2- The common point between the two teams is that people need a function that those resources are not available to them. These resources are different depending on the type of organization. In some cases, it is human resources. Required software or hardware required On average in all teams there is a constant feeling of scarcity. My experience is that this is common to all teams. All teams need something. What it is is not available right now. In some cases, it is possible to have all the facilities, but this feeling was not present in some people. This feeling can be completely positive, it can be a kind of responsibility to advance the goals of the organization. The important thing is to know how widespread this sense of scarcity is among team members and whether this is a true sense and requires manual support. In order to make sure of this, for example, in agile projects, teams have 15-minute daily meetings in which they raise the barriers to achieving the goal directly in the meeting. The advantage of these short and daily meetings is that If facilities are to be allocated to the team, they will be passed on quickly through the process and people will not keep problems in mind. One of the biggest problems among teams is that people do not talk about the problems and obstacles to achieving their goals if we learn to talk to each other and share our problems easily with each other, as well as the top management of the organization.
3-The last point is that people should raise it less directly, but I think about it in my mind. I am different from the others, or my problems are different from the others. How true or false this is is not the subject of my discussion. You can answer in your mind the question of whether you think you are different. If the answer is yes, know that there are other people who are like this.
My name is Reza Abdi and they are very happy to share my experiences in the field of consulting with you through LinkedIn. Certainly, everything that was written in this post was my personal experiences and my personal perception of the issues around me. It has been possible that in the next 5 years or the next few years or maybe next month I will have a different perception of the issues.
As a trainer of agile mindset, if I achieve new results, I will definitely change this kind of thinking and move in a new direction. Changing the attitude towards teamwork like Windows for PC I think it needs to be updated every once in a while to get the best performance. I hope you enjoy working in your work teams and have the best moments with your team members. If you needed consulting services or workshops, or saw the potential for collaboration, be sure to message me on LinkedIn.