126: Setting Your Team Up For Success

<p>Beginnings are important in business.  It might be the start of a new calendar year, a new financial year or the launch of a new project or initiative.  Often we get straight into the launch and problems arise.  Those we didn’t anticipate are particularly annoying.  We may not be able to eliminate all the issues associated with initiatives, but we can always do a better job in the pre-launch phase.</p> <p>Here are three handy questions to contemplate in the early planning stage, as you toss around some ideas for the next big thing:</p> <ol> <li>Are your team members ready?</li> </ol> <p>Everyone is usually busy and many feel “I am busy enough already thank you very much!”.  Their attitude to doing more may be negative and resistant.  Just dropping another new project into their laps, may not garner the commitment we need to see the task completed, in the time frame and within the budget.</p> <p>You personally may be highly motivated, mainly because it is your idea and you have a really strong grasp of the WHY behind the initiative.  The rest of the team may just view this as more work, relegated to the same level of importance of all the other things they are already doing.  Our communication skills become important at this point.  We need to be persuasive around the vision we have of a better future for the team and the enterprise.  We need to be clear what we are going to do and not going to do in this project – our mission needs to be defined and separated from the other work already underway. </p> <p>There is a clear objective in your mind but does the team share the same clarity around what we are trying to achieve.  Leader’s presumptions are often the killer of successful outcomes.  The WHY and none of the when, where, what and how needs to be the starting point.  “Of course they know the WHY”, are fatal words that can come back to haunt us when the project tanks and the outcomes are not achieved.</p> <ol start="2"> <li>Are the team members willing to put in the time and effort?</li> </ol> <p>“They get p