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Joining a new team can initially seem a daunting prospect, not least if you are the team’s new manager. In addition to tackling the day-to-day challenges of a management role, you are also required to build effective working relationships with team members and earn their trust and respect. Whether the team you are leading is established or newly-formed, following these suggestions will help you to gain team members’ buy-in and encourage everyone to work effectively together.
Get to Know Your Team
It is important to spend some time getting to know your new team members, and developing an understanding of how they like to work. Regular team meetings are a good way of doing this. It can also be effective to hold a one-to-one meeting with each team member when you first join. Aim to find out what they enjoy about their role, how they like to be managed and how they would like to develop. While this should be a largely informal conversation, you may find it helpful to refer back to any notes you make when you hold your first performance review meeting with the team member.
Set and Manage Expectations
As part of your initial team and one-to-one meetings, you should be clear about what you expect from your team members, and what they can expect from you. This will help to build trust, increase engagement, and prevent frustrations from arising in the future. To manage your team expectations more effectively, it is a good idea to take a temperature check when you first join. An effective way of doing this is to circulate a survey around your team. In the survey, you may wish to include questions about team expectations relating to working practices, resources, development opportunities and the team environment.
Deliver a Clear Team Brief
Holding a team meeting on the first day everyone works together is an excellent way to break the ice and set your expectations for the team. It is a good idea to share a little bit about you and your background, before moving onto your vision and objectives for the team. Work with your team to identify a set of immediate next actions that will help you all achieve these objectives. To help you stay on track, it is a good idea to review the team’s collective progress against these actions at your next team meeting.
Create a Team Contract
A team contract is a set of basic principles and standards for working together in a supportive and productive way. As part of your initial team meeting, it is a good idea to brainstorm some ideas for the contract with your team. After the meeting, you should write up the contract and email a copy to each team member. It can also be helpful to save the document on your company’s intranet or shared computer drive, and, if appropriate, pin a copy of the contract to the wall in your team area. This will help to remind everyone of the principles and standards to which you have all agreed to work.
Identify Skills and Strengths in the Team
In any team, each individual team member will have a range of skills and strengths to offer. When you first join your team, it is important to identify what these different skills and strengths are, and to help your team members make the most of them. You may wish to consider incorporating some exercises for understanding one another’s skills and strengths into your team-building event. Alternatively, you may prefer to ask team members to complete a self-assessment, such as the Belbin team test (www.belbin.com) or Gallup’s Strengthsfinder diagnostic (www.strengthsfinder.com).
Draw on Your Team’s Knowledge and Expertise
Spend some time with each team member to find out exactly what is involved in their role. This will help you to gain a better understanding of how the team works, and what each team member is responsible for delivering. If you are joining an established team, your team members are likely to have a wealth of knowledge about working processes and practices. Make sure you make the most of the existing knowledge and expertise in your team and ask team members when you have questions. This will help you get up to speed quickly, and will also help to empower your team.
Communicate Change Clearly
If you have taken on an existing team, you may be keen to make certain changes to the team or the way in which it works. Change can often be unsettling for team members, particularly if they are unsure of what your intentions are, or how the change will affect them. It is vital, therefore, to be clear and upfront with your team members if you plan to make changes. When you do this, you should explain the reasons for the change and the likely impact it will have on the team. It is also important to give employees the opportunity to ask you questions. Depending on the nature of the change, you may wish to do this as part of a team meeting, or in one-to-one conversations with individual team members.
Hold a Team-Building Event
Team-building events can be a great way of bringing individuals together to develop, learn and have fun as a team. These events can be particularly helpful for new teams or teams where new members have joined, as they provide everyone with the chance to interact with one another away from the regular working environment. Depending on the resources you have available, you may wish to arrange for your team-building event to last half a day, a full day or longer. You may also wish to consider sourcing an external facilitator to design and lead the session, as this will allow you to participate in the event with your team.
Get to Know Your Team Away From the Office
Spending time with your team members in a more social setting can help you get to know one another and build rapport. This could involve arranging drinks or a meal with the team after work on a Friday, or a team lunch during the week.
Seek Advice and Support
As you tackle the challenges of managing an established or newly-formed team, you may find it helpful to seek the advice and support others. This could include your own line manager, or a colleague who has experienced a similar situation. In addition to this, you might also find it helpful to engage the services of a coach or mentor to help you identify solutions to some of the challenges you face in your role.
