Lead and Manage a Team

2.1 Effective teamwork is essential to the success of any business. As “no man is an island,” the positive effects of productive teamwork can energise an entire organisation, just as the negative effects of a lack of teamwork can cripple an organisation. An essential ingredient to effective teamwork is attracting and keeping the right team members. No matter how hard a group of people try to work together and create an effective team, without the right people for the job, the team will inevitably fail.

There are four essential components to an effective team.

1. Positive Corporate Culture

In order to recruit long-term effective team members, the corporate culture of my organisation must be positive, open, and invigorating. Potential team members will thrive in a challenging and creative work environment. Organisations with high turnover, negative attitudes, distrust, and secrecy will, at best, lose their best people and, at worst, make them a product of the destructive organisational climate. Positive corporate culture comes from the top down.

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Management is largely responsible for the type of culture that an organization develops.

As a manager, I can help foster a good climate in several ways. First, I should always make my expectations of your team members clear. Secondly, when delegating, always empower each team member. Making sure I give the team member the authority to make and carry out decisions that are required. Furthermore, I will always support and back up the decisions made by the team member. If I disagree with their decision, instead of chastising or reprimanding, I will coach the employee and help them to understand my reasoning.

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2. Give Recognition

Recognition is key to an employee’s success. Team members will search out recognition from me. If I do not regularly give out positive recognition for accomplishments, my employees will eventually resort to seeking out negative recognition. I will give my team members positive recognition for their
successes.

3. Positive Feedback

Without feedback, my team members are unable to measure their results. A lack of feedback creates confusion, missed expectations, and disappointment. I must make it a habit to provide feedback on a consistent and regular basis, either in public or private. I must be specific, not just tell my employee’s they are doing a great job, tell them how they are doing a great job. Being specific ensures repeat performance of the action that I desire. I can give both informal and formal feedback. Informal feedback consists of recognition and informal praise or congratulations. Formal feedback consists of planned reports and evaluations that measure outcomes.

4. Provide New Opportunities

Although an employee may be an outstanding member of the team, I must not overlook the fact that they are an individual. In order to keep the most effective team members, I must provide new opportunities and challenges. The alternative could be boredom and eventual mediocrity of my team members.

3.1 A mission statement should set out the vision of the organisation as a whole. This should summarise and guide the values and principles of my work setting and give my teams a ‘bigger picture’ view of their purpose within the organisation. My organisation mission statement is, ‘To enable people with severe disabilities to live an independent life within the community by providing them with the highest quality services that fully meet their chosen lifestyle’

As a manager, I need to influence and inspire my team members to subscribe and commit to the shared vision of the organisation. This shared vision is what binds and gives coherence to everyone’s efforts in the practice setting. Team members should strive to provide care and support that expresses and makes the team’s vision real. This will ensure that quality and productivity are maintained, while also boosting team members’ satisfaction and morale. Strategic planning is the key to assuring that organisations are prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.

It is a useful tool to ensure the team/organisation is not caught off guard and compelled to spend a great deal of time and energy coping with immediate problems, with little time and energy left to anticipate and prepare for the next challenges. Factors that tend to influence the vision and strategic direction of an organisation or team are: The ability of the team/organisation to identify factors that may impact the way it conducts its business e.g. staff skills, resources and needs, and external factors like resourcing, partnerships and award of contracts. The use of surveys to gather information from clients and institutions, and the results used to prioritise the expectations as a basis for setting objectives.

3.4 Strategic leadership provides the vision and direction for the growth and performance of a team. To influence to team practice and successfully deal with change, I need the skills and tools for both strategic formation and implementation to enable me not only to provide sense of direction, but also build ownership and alignment within the team. Building prepared minds on a large scale is critical for a team needing to reset the strategic direction and transform an organisation.

Getting team members to think in the right direction with the ability to learn and adapt at the same time helps to ensure the strategy will deliver what it set out to achieve. To influence practice requires a different way of thinking about how to order the available resources to formulate and strategize. This way of thinking balances a focused analytical perspective with the human dimension of strategy making. These practices, coupled with a commitment of my time to engage in a strategy dialogue will lay the foundation for building a winning team that can define, connect, adjust and adapt strategy quickly and thereby influence practice.

4.1 My organisations and therefore my teams main are objectives are, to provide and maintain a high standard of care to severely disabled clients with varied and complex care needs, allowing them to live independent and fulfilling lives within their own homes. To work either as part of a team or independently, ensuring that at all times their client receives an effective and efficient service that meets their chosen lifestyle, within a safe environment. To establish and maintain an effective means of communication with their client and their family, being courteous, discrete and respectful at all times. To monitor and maintain a safe and secure working environment for both themselves and the client, adhering to agreed standards of Health & Safety.

To act in a responsible and professional manner at all times, being respectful of the property and possessions of the client, their family and friends. Completion of necessary paperwork required in line with Company standards to liaise effectively with clients, carers and other professionals as appropriate. Due to the varying complex needs of each client each team will then also have individual team objectives. These include monitoring and documenting the client’s food and fluid intake. Encouraging the client to get out of bed and then encourage participation in activities. Or ensure the client goes out for a walk at least once a day. Encourage and assist the client to complete their physio programme. The team member’s will also have individual objective, like ensuring the medication or consumables are ordered and collected on time.

4.2 Team members would have a mix of skills and interest that were identified during their employment interview, and these skills and knowledge were found to be satisfactory and met the requirements and standard needed to be able to deliver quality services that meet the overall vision and agreed objectives of the organisation.

The suitability of team members would also be further confirmed during the period of probation when they would be given the opportunity to prove the skills, knowledge, interest and ability to meet the required criteria and clinical/care competencies within the probation period, after which they would have been confirmed. The teams agreed objectives will be derived from the organisation’s objectives; therefore team members will be in a position to work to achieve them.

They will be supported during their supervisions to fully understand and how to work towards the agreed objectives. Team members will be fully involved in the initial planning and formulation of the team objectives, as well as the execution, monitoring and reviewing of the objectives when necessary. Feedback from clients and other professionals will be used to determine the level of success in meeting team objectives as well as other monitoring indicators. This will inform the kind and content of staff development programme to be put in place to ensure the team members are well equipped to deliver services and meet agreed objectives and outcomes.

6.1 Monitoring is a form of continuous review which gives a picture of the implementation of planned activities and indicates whether targets are being met. It can be carried out using a combination of various methods, including supervisory visits and both routine and sentinel reporting. Evaluation is a way of analysing progress towards meeting agreed objectives and goals. It should build on, and use, monitoring systems. Evaluation assess what happened as a result of these activities, and answers the questions to what extent did my team achieve what it set out to achieve? What has been learned as a result of assessing the effectiveness of our work? Evaluations rely heavily on information collected in the monitoring system for assessment and analysis of progress towards agreed objectives.

A system for monitoring and evaluation is a constructive management tool that enables a continuous assessment of progress, and helps to make the necessary management decisions. We monitor and evaluate for reasons of accountability, to improve performance and to provide valuable learning lessons. The agreed objectives of the team can be monitored by the use of agreed monitoring indicators. Yearly questionnaires for feedback from those who use our services and the staff are another tool we use for monitoring our services.

Feed-back is required after monitoring and evaluating the performance of a team or team member. This can be done through a report to the individual or by a personal one-one meeting, where the team member will be given the opportunity to comment on the assessment and give feed-back. Where individual’s performance has been achieved and collaborates with team objectives to achieve best possible results and outcomes, the member shall be acknowledged for good work done to boost the morale of team members. This would serve to recognise the hard work of the team.

6.4 The aim of managing performance is to ensure that people can achieve their best and play their part in meeting the goals and objectives of the team in a way that is consistent with my organisations values. So managing under performance is about me as a line manager proactively addressing any instances where this is not happening. Managing under performance is not always easy. However, the effects of not dealing with it can include demotivation of other staff, not achieving the team’s objectives or damage to the reputation of my company. In most cases if under performance is not addressed it becomes more difficult to manage.

It is therefore important to deal effectively with any issues as soon as possible. Before approaching the management of the issue, it is important to first identify what the source of underperformance is. Under performance can usually be attributed to one of the following: Capability, this is generally when a member of staff can't meet the requirements of a role. Perhaps they don't understand what is expected, or they have not got the skills required. They might also be incapable of fulfilling a role due to ill health. Conduct, this is generally when some­one won't do something, for example because they can­not be bothered or don't want to.

The process for performance management in the case of underperformance in my organisation is in the first instance informal and involves, identifying and defining the problem, evidence gathering, such as documentary evidence, physical evidence or a testimony, this could also be hearsay evidence. Some areas of underperformance can be tackled or corrected quickly, whereas some underperformance cannot be resolved as easily and may involve managing the person out of the organisation. Before proceeding into any formal processes I will need to think about the possible causes of the underperformance, have we provided enough training, have I made my expectations clear, is their workload too high etc?

We will need to agree what the issues are and what needs to change, what needs to be put in place to help them do this and what action each of us will take. I will need to ensure they are clear about the gap between their performance and the required performance. That there is an agreed plan outlining what improvement I expect of them and by when, and the support we will provide to help them improve. I will hold regular catch up meetings to discuss and review the issues as that’s the best place to discuss performance issues. I must make sure they understand the seriousness and what might happen if their performance does not improve for example, progression into formal procedures.

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