Have you ever worked for an organization with a highly effective team? By ‘highly effective’ I mean that everyone knew their roles. They worked well together. Their talents and skill sets were complementary to each other. The team had found the sweet spot to be successful, and it showed in the numbers at the end of each quarter.
Eventually, even the best of teams change. Someone gets promoted. Another person moves away or retires. Another person changes departments. The team doesn’t last forever. So, what do you do to recreate that experience?
In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we share these six building blocks for creating a strong team from JP Moery, president and founder of The Moery Company—and it begins with a strong culture.
1. Hold a daily pep rally. Moery says that he begins every morning with a team meeting where they have a discussion about the fundamentals of the business for up to 30 minutes. He calls them pep rallies, and rotates the responsibility of hosting them among the team members. During the meeting, teammates share on specific business performance areas such as administration, communications, sales and consulting. This is a daily opportunity to address any critical issues and allows feedback.
2. Hold weekly one-on-one meetings with each direct report. During this time, address ‘top-of-mind’ matters, such as the status of a project or campaign and those items that require more work. It’s also an opportunity to give direction and feedback.
3. Schedule monthly staff meetings. This is the time to address overall company performance and issues related to the overall health of the business. When building a high-performing team, it’s critical to keep them informed of the big picture—especially the financials—and how they contribute to the larger success of the organization. Be transparent about the numbers. With this knowledge, the team understands why certain business decisions are being made.
4. Use quarterly reviews as a ‘check in.’ Each quarter, take time to give each staffer feedback on how they are performing in terms of their annual goals. This discussion focuses on progress made on annual goals reached and strategies to help meet those objectives. Ideally, this is a conversation that builds on the weekly one-on-one meetings.
5. Conduct an annual review with each employee. If you are disciplined about daily, weekly and monthly check-ins, then if there are any issues to address with the employee, there should be no surprises. Essentially, this discussion reviews goals reached, strategies to help meet objectives that may have fallen short and establishes goals for the following year. Salary enhancements and bonuses are also part of the discussion.
6. Host an annual strategic planning session. This gathering entails a strategic review of the company. Review and reinforce your vision, mission and values. Identify what is most important for the company to achieve, and what are two or three items most important to the staff.
Try these six critical steps to build and keep a superstar team that’s informed, engaged and performing at a high level.
Source: JP Moery is the president and founder of The Moery Company. He has 25 years of experience in the association industry, and is a trusted resource in the nation’s greatest associations. Moery previously served as senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he developed and launched a program that added more than 250,000 companies to the Chamber’s membership.
