Make Your Team Feel Secure

We have talked about keeping your team in loop and keeping them up-to-date with what's going on and giving them feedback on their performance. Have you stopped and considered their security?

Security means different things to different people, do you have an answer for the security of your team? Do you know what makes them feel insecure? Perhaps it's time for some subtle questioning here and there to determine the answer to these two questions.

Next time you talk with your team as a whole it is appropriate for you to touch on the subject of security. Is their job secure? Do we have enough on-going work to ensure they are not about to be let go. Do we have enough cash flow to ensure everyone's pay is guaranteed to be in the bank next week. As individuals are they each doing their job to a good standard so there is no pressure to replace them.

For our high performers do they know we have the confidence in their abilities, skills and knowledge that we will allow them to take on special roles which may or may not fail and they can be secure knowing their position is secure.

As leaders of our teams it is vitally important that we make each and every member of our team as secure as we can, because without this worry they can focus on being the best they can.

Leaders enforce quality for success

I have been travelling again working with a company and visited two of their customer reference sites. At one site the customer was very positive and co-operative, working as a team with the main contractor. At the other site the customer was suspicious and constantly calling the company in to explain one choice or another.

At both locations I was lucky enough to witness the companies work and several of the deliverables. What I found was scary, the same company to me looked and acted like two different teams with very different attitudes and styles.

Interestingly at the "happy" site all the workers had a great sense of motivation and spent a lot of time with their customers working through the project plan, consulting when decisions had to made. At this site it was not surprising to find all the guys working late to fine tune the system. On inspection of the work-site the quality of the finished product and its documentation was absolutely flawless.

While at the site where the customer was less than happy, the workers were not acting as a team, they made decisions for their customer without consultation. This lack of consultation then prompted the customer to demand a "white" paper explaining every decision and why the final outcome was adopted. At this site many of the workings had a very flexible approach to work - almost to the point of the team not knowing when members would turn up each day. On inspection of the worksite the finished product was poorly presented and there was no documentation.

So on pondering this I went back and analysed why this situation had developed, both worksites had similarly qualified teams, both sites worked from the same process and equipment policies and manuals. This prompted me to examine the project team leaders, this produced a stark difference. One was a team player who was resolute about providing the highest quality in everything and constantly spending time with the customer to ensure the customer was satisfied with what they were to gain from the project. The other leader was stand-offish and driven by delegation usually by email, he also spent plenty of time with the customer, he appeared to be driven by completion and financial goals.

What did I take away from this week on the road, by focusing on a quality outcome, one leader had developed a co-operative and happy customer. we can learn from this and make it our quest to build and deliver high quality outcomes from our teams.