Blog

Posted on

Wanted: A Professional With These 6 Skills

All workplace teams will eventually be faced with turnover and the opportunity to replace a team member that is moving on for one reason or another. For the candidates that are looking to be considered for such openings this is the time to showcase the soft skills they possess such as communication, time management and interpersonal skills. Here is a short list of the things employers will be looking for:

  1. Confident – Being a confident team member is a key ingredient when it comes to winning over employers and co-workers. Displaying confidence in person rather than on a resume can be a difficult soft skill to manage. I recently spoke with a hiring committee chairperson and she shared with me that she is often let down when meeting a candidate in person, after discovering that their personality doesn’t live up to the same confidence that they displayed on their resume. She shared that many recent college graduates have difficulty making eye contact,  don’t carry themselves well and don’t speak with authority.
  2. Time Manager – Being a good time manager and having good time management skills are important for newly hired team members because they’re often juggling roles and responsibilities. One of the ways candidates can help potential employers understand how well they manage their time, candidates should be prepared to explain the way they prioritize daily tasks and why they prioritize that way.
  3. Positive Attitude – There aren’t too many people who want to work with a grumpy coworker. To avoid being labeled as a negative team member, don’t criticize and don’t complain. Instead of always pointing out others’ mistakes, look for opportunities to acknowledge things that others are doing well and praise their improvements.
  4. Flexible – One of the keys to success and an enjoyable work experience is that of flexibility. Don’t just say you’re a team player, show it by being flexible with your schedule and responsibilities. Others will see this can-do attitude as an essential part of the workplace and can easily make individuals stand out when it comes to promotions, raises and other opportunities. During an interview candidates might bring attention to the soft skill by describing instances when they’ve been flexible and that flexibility has benefited others and the employer.
  5. Team Player – Being able to contribute to and work with small teams will display an individual’s ability to get along with others and complete tasks. Having the ability to cooperate and compromise with others is a trait that is becoming more sought after by employers and hiring committees. Candidates who would like to be seen as team players should be prepared to mention times when they worked effectively with others on their resume and be willing to describe those scenarios in detail.
  6. Communicator – Technology has advanced to the point where in many cases it has robbed young people of their ability to communicate effectively by allowing them to use abbreviated e-mails and text messages. In a recent interview on FOX Business two hiring managers discuss the importance of being able to communicate without technology by engaging coworkers and others in face-to-face conversations. This is an area that all working professionals, of all ages can continue to improve in.

Overall it would be worthwhile to practice effective verbal communication, being purposefully positive and learning to work in teams. Time invested into fine tuning any of these soft skills is a good investment for candidates.

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Lessons Learned from Leading a Large Online Course

Top 5 List

As an instructional designer, one of my primary responsibilities includes managing the design, development and delivery of online course content for our college’s online courses, most of which enroll more than 200 students in a section. For a class of that size our college hires several Academic Associates – degreed professionals hired to work with up to 30 students and facilitate learning under the leadership of a Lead Instructor. This past year presented me with the opportunity to serve as Lead Instructor for one of our freshman-level online courses, managing a 12-member instructional team to facilitate a high-enrollment course of nearly 300 students. This was by far the most interesting, challenging and learning experience I have had teaching online courses since I began in the late 1990’s, both as an instructor and also as a team leader.

Teaching the course and leading this dynamic instructional team taught me several new things about working online. Having so many students enrolled in a single course, all working in smaller groups of up to 30 with different instructional personnel, highlighted the need for clear and consistent guidelines and applications of policies, such that students would understand them and instructional personnel would know how to carry them out. Our inter-team communication and collaboration was also critical and allowed us to coordinate as a team – discussing key issues, raising and discussing questions, clarifying information, and highlighting changes for the next course offering.

Several key items emerged as essential to the successful course experience. Here are the top 5 things that I learned, in no particular order.

Lay the Groundwork – to lay the groundwork with the instructional team before an online course begins is synonymous with establishing the *rules of the road*. This is a must for all instructional teams and a good practice for individual instructors to think through. Laying the groundwork consisted of creating and sharing a document with the members of the instructional team that would be used to guide the discussion at the pre-course meeting, and refer back to as needed once the course went live.

This document provided general guidelines as to how we would together facilitate the course with as much consistency as possible. For example, how would the instructional team communicate with students, how would we communicate with other members of our instructional team, how would we as an instructional team handle grading and feedback, how would we handle student issues and how would we address modifying course content.

Establish Weekly Meetings – the idea of a pre-course meeting with all of the members of the Instructional Team seemed like a no-brainer and a must as most of us would be meeting for the first time during this meeting. I made initial contact with the members of the Instructional Team using email and we agreed to use Google Hangouts for our first and subsequent meetings.

In that first meeting, because of the size of our team I decided to bypass individual introductions and get the course management discussion started. Our laying the groundwork document drove the discussion for this first meeting and we talked about the course in general being offered in a different LMS [we were part of a pilot project and asked to provide feedback about our experience using a competing LMS], the final project and the Lesson 1 assignments. We spent nearly 75 minutes in that first meeting and it became very clear…very quickly that we would be meeting weekly.  

The Instructional Team agreed to meet on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 pm. Agendas were created using Google docs and all members of the Instructional Team were able to add items throughout each week. The weekly meetings evolved into a recorded Google Hangout session that was hosted on YouTube and could be viewed by a member of the team that arrived to a meeting late, or viewed by a team member that missed a meeting or reviewed by a team member to better understand an agenda item.

Write Clear Directions – when I first began working as an online Instructor I would spend a significant amount of time composing the syllabus and schedule for a course to make sure course policies and assignment due dates were clear to the students. Those documents were always the priority and I recall not spending quite as much time on assignment directions, rubrics and feedback for students. That all has changed now after seeing what a large online course looks and feels like. As an Instructional Team we quickly realized how important it was going to be to provide clear directions not just for the students, but for us as the Instructional Team as well. Examples of areas where we provided clearer directions include:

  • Policy – when we began we realized that each member of our Instructional Team had a different definition of late work ranging from *5 minutes* to *within the first 24 hours*. If we were to provide consistent grading we needed to DEFINE late work. Here is how we defined late work:
BEFORE AFTER
No late work will be accepted LATE WORK: NO late work will be accepted. Late work is defined as *any graded item that is submitted after the due date – this includes items that are submitted ONE MINUTE past the due date*
  • Rubrics – word count criteria – this criteria is common in rubrics and our course was no different. We found that we needed to present word count ranges in order to prevent students from submitting work significantly below or in some cases beyond the expectation.
Criteria: Word Count
BEFORE AFTER
Minimum word count of 350 words is expected Response must be provided in 300-450 words. Responses with word counts below or above this range will be penalized

We also wanted to address the resources that were being used for student  research. The goal was to push the students to find more credible resources than what they might find doing a simple search on the internet.

Criteria: Resources
BEFORE AFTER
Provide two resources that support your position in the discussion Provide two resources that support your position in the discussion. These resources must come from the university library
  • Assignments – in a smaller [25-30 student] online course there may not be a need to provide clear direction as to the file type that will be accepted. There may be 1-2 students that submit a file that can’t be opened and reviewed. In a large online course those numbers could be much greater. We provided clearer directions by changing this direction:
BEFORE AFTER
Submit your document here Submit your document here:

**ONE file – do NOT submit more than one file.

**The file must be saved and submitted as a .pdf, .docx or .doc

**Submitting more than one file, or a file type other than what is listed here, will result in a zero for the assignment.

Increase Instructor Presence – we all agreed that establishing instructor presence was the key to creating an engaging community of inquiry. The presence of our instructional team would have a direct impact on the small group interactions and the development of thinking skills of the students enrolled in the course. We decided to create interactions with students by using:

  • Interactions that would encourage participation in the course – the goal was to be welcoming and personable from the beginning of the course and provide motivation and encouraging language using the student’s name at every opportunity
  • Interactions that monitor student progress – the goal was to provide timely interactions with students. This meant all students…and especially those that appeared to be behind and not making satisfactory progress towards the objectives
  • Interactions that provide feedback on submitted work – the goal is to provide timely and frequent feedback to help students determine where they need to spend additional time. We made every attempt to sandwich recommendations for improvement between positive comments to avoid leaving the student with the feeling that everything they do is wrong.

Talk with Students – the goal here is to actually “talk” with students. Many times when I ask faculty how they talk with students they reference email, scheduled course announcements, canned feedback based on the course rubrics etc. I too use those methods as they are a must in online courses and our team will continue to use those going forward. During this last Fall semester I found significantly more opportunities to talk with students live and in-person due to the size of the course and some of the issues that arose due to the pilot project we were involved with. I found these opportunities to be well worth the time I invested. In the Spring semester, I randomly selected 2 students each week to speak with. Each conversation started with two questions: What are we doing well as instructors? What can we do to improve?

I found students were willing to speak openly about what they thought and what was confusing to them. For example, during one phone conversation a student asked me: “should the discussion boards be used like a regular conversation in a regular class?”. Yes, I replied.

Whether you are a seasoned online instructor with years of experience or preparing for your first online course assignment these 5 things will lead to a more enjoyable online experience for the students and the instructional team.

-RG

Posted on

Communication With Colleagues

From what I have experienced having been in different leadership positions along the way I always felt as if motivating the team is one of the most important tasks that I was faced with. From what I have read, those that study leadership and write on the subject are quick to point out that this is also the case for several reasons: boost in production, morale in the workplace and reduced turnover are all benefits of motivation.

Probably the most overlooked way to motivate a team is through communication. And effective communication can empower an entire team as it gives them an increased sense of belonging and responsibility. Employee motivation improves as employees feel more comfortable with their working relationships. Here are a few strategies to improve communication and motivate others to become better.

Schedule – schedule weekly meetings for no other reason than to simply open up the lines of communication. At the most basic level it gives the team the sense that as a leader you care about their opinions and will also value their feedback. The priority here is to open the floor to any questions, comments or concerns.

Loop – consistent and effective communication with your team will not only empower and encourage them to make their own decisions but will also build trust and loyalty. Just be honest and straightforward and don’t try to spin the truth.

Clear directions – many leaders find it difficult to set clear directions and then stand-by those directions. Communication needs to reinforce and provide a strategy with what you’re attempting to do. The best communicators in the workplace find ways to communicate to keep employees on course and make sure that the objectives are being carried out.

Feedback – the majority of leaders fail to give constructive feedback to their teams simply because they fear how the employees will react. To help resolve this, the leader should provide frequent feedback so the small issues don’t grow into much larger ones. From my own experience I have found it helpful when a leader would simply ask “how often would you like to receive feedback?”. In general most employees would say monthly or weekly…very few would respond by saying annually. Nobody wants to be surprised during their annual review.

Personal – share stories of your own personal failures and successes. This is a great way to lift the spirits of anybody on the team that might be in the need of a boost. You will also build a heightened sense of community by doing so.

Interest – if a team member approaches you as the team leader and shares a particular concern…ask what you can do to help address the issue. Ask if they have a solution in mind. This is a great way to show commitment to solving the problems of the employees and helps them feel like a valued member of the team.

Encourage – schedule time to meet with the team and encourage them to brainstorm and offer their input. Everyone should be available to generate ideas and participate in this discussion. Generally, employees want to help solve problems and give them a chance to feel that they’re being heard.

Open – early on in my career a team I was assigned to would encourage open lines of communication to prevent low morale and this prevented any type of toxic work environment. This particular leader always let the employees know that there are open lines of communication and as a result everyone was comfortable and brought forward problems and issues.

Kindness – leaders should never belittle, threaten or embarrass an employee in front of anyone. Rather they should only offer improvement opportunities. It’s just common sense that when an employee feels under attack and caught off guard their motivation is going to suffer. On the flip-side when employees are rewarded or provided an opportunity to grow you can bet they are going to feel empowered!

-RG

Posted on

Be Supportive Of Your Peers

It may seem counterproductive to promote each other’s work. Whether it be a coworker or the work of another business that you compete with. But this is a great way to build strong relationships, interest and loyalty amongst colleagues, customers, clients and users.

All businesses have a great opportunity to form relationships with their customers or soon-to-be customers by establishing themselves within their field of expertise and within the community. All businesses can position themselves as being friendly and supportive by participating in the community and promoting the work of others. The bottom line: this helps strengthen your network.

Interact – take time to chat with others that have created the work that you’ll be sharing and then make sure you chat with your end-users or potential end-users about this.

Don’t be sarcastic – the best practice in this case is to simply say what you have to say in a direct manner and do so with a smile.

Be genuine – by sharing what others are doing and not trying to make a connection back to your own business will be the best move as this will be more likely to attract individuals rather than turning them away. 

Cross boundaries – if there is a business or individual in a completely unrelated field that is doing something that you can relate to within your community, share it. Look for an opportunity to learn from what else is being done.

Don’t promote – you don’t have to be a promotional machine for your direct competitors but it might be a good idea to know what others in your industry are doing to serve your community.

Explain – always make the effort to explain or share a quick note about why you are sharing the work of others. Did it move you in some fashion? Did you think that it was clever? Are there certain design elements that caught your attention?

Overall the message that you want others to receive is that you play nicely with others. It also shows that it’s important for you to exist in a connected and well supported world. That kind of feeling can lead others to do the same and be supportive of your work.

-RG

Posted on

Life: Make Time For It

Perhaps you’re like me…I’ve often thought that the long hours that small business hours put into their work was proof of the passion that they have for what they do. Recently I read an article in which a survey was conducted of self identified entrepreneurs. The results of the study show that nearly one in five entrepreneurs worked more than 60 hours a week, only one percent of those actually wanted to work that much. Many of those surveyed indicated that they were dreaming of a time when they could cut back and spend more of their time with family, leisure, travel and healthy activities. The authors of this article also shared three things that all entrepreneurs should do if longing for a better lifestyle. [these three things might apply to all working individuals].

Recovery time – it’s not just the amount of sleep that you get. This has to do with planning your days and taking time to organize and reflect about what you’re doing. Things to consider here include planning, prayer, meditation and just quiet time in general. Experts in this area encourage folks to schedule 50 minute meetings as opposed to one hour meetings during their days.

Give up being perfect – everything doesn’t have to be “right” or “perfect” in such a way that you are the only one that can perform…whatever the task at hand might be. Unless you’re a highly trained surgeon and the results of your work are a matter of life and death consider delegating tasks to others. The benefits of this practice are numerous.

What matters – simply decide what matters to you. We must come to the realization that we are not owned by our businesses or our employers. We own our time and that’s the most valuable thing. Breaking away from the daily to-do list can be difficult. Leadership and career coaching consultants recommend taking an extended lunch to talk to a longtime friend and agree not to check smart phones through the whole meal as a good way to get started. Make a goal of getting some exercise daily. A 30 minute walk is a great way to help bring balance to work and life responsibilities that we are faced with.

-RG

Posted on

Good Work Habits: Do They Exist?

Recently I’ve had conversations with several colleagues regarding the idea of good work habits and what exactly that means for an organization. This of course prompted us to reflect on both good and not-so-good work habits that we’ve experienced in the past. Some of the habits we discussed included personal-presentation, organization, productivity, work quality, initiative, consistency and follow up. 

Employees today seem to think that these basic work habits are considered as matters of personal choice and do not always see concrete business reasons for certain requirements or preferences of their managers or supervisors. Oftentimes managers and supervisors will have strong preferences or requirements without having any true business reason, that is their prerogative. At the end of the day EMPLOYERS you are paying the EMPLOYEES…it’s not the other way around. 

In general they are very good reasons for following well-established best practices when it comes to good work habits. Things to consider:

  • If employees are not well or not healthy – there is an increased cost in terms of absenteeism and increased healthcare costs. This also has a negative impact on performance and morale.
  • Unfortunately when employees do not attend to their personal-presentation [grooming] this has a negative impression on those with whom they interact…both internal to the organization and most importantly customers.
  • When employees arrive to work late, take long breaks, leave early for missed deadlines they are adding less value to the organization and oftentimes are keeping others waiting. This too has a negative impact on how the organization is viewed.
  • Employees that don’t take notes, use checklists or have some sense of organization will often lose important details and just lose track of what they are doing. All of this makes it harder for others to collaborate with them.
  • If employees aren’t paying attention to the details they are going to make more mistakes…again diminishing the quality of work and requiring work to be redone.
  • Projects that are left unfinished are almost always the result of employees that cannot be counted on to follow up and then become a distraction as others will have to constantly remind them to keep moving forward.
  • Many problems that go unsolved are the direct result of opportunities that are missed or when employees simply do not take the initiative.

We all agreed that these are very solid business reasons for managers and supervisors to enforce basic work habits on their employees. However not all of them apply to all people in all jobs. As a manager or supervisor you should always ask yourself: what is the business reason for making this a requirement?

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Help Students Find Success In An Online Course

Top 5 List

Many more students are finding their way to online courses than ever before. These students are looking for a convenient way to earn college/university credits from their home. Online coursework requires a tremendous amount of discipline and dedication and unfortunately many students are not prepared for an online learning environment. Students cite having a misconception about the rigor and underestimating the time involved to be successful as the top reasons for struggling in an online learning environment. Students may need help understanding how much time is needed to complete assignments, participate in group work, group discussions, quizzes and other assignments required in the course. It is important for the instructional team to help set the pace and the expectations of the course to help the students to succeed. Here is a Top 5 list of things that instructional teams or individual faculty can do to help students prepare for and succeed in an online course.

Use Weekly Announcements – weekly announcements are a great way for individual faculty or instructional teams to remain active in an online course. At a minimum consider an announcement to open and close each lesson. This allows for clarifying directions, reminders and motivation that will help students see that they have support along the way. Many faculty are turning to audio and video options to help communicate each week. A weekly screen-cast [lesson tour] will help students prepare for the material and be better prepared for the expectations. AND…these weekly screen-casts will help the other members of your instructional team understand the expectations as they prepare to work with their students.

Proactively Answer Questions – instructions must be easy to find and easy to follow. No detail should  be overlooked and step-by-step directions should be provided. Don’t make the assumption that your students or your instructional team will read between the lines to determine what the expectations are. Provide as much detail as possible to help complete the assignment. Consider providing a screen-cast where more detail can be shared about the type of files that will be expected, the naming convention of the files and the size of the files. Think through the questions that students might have when reading through the directions and try to address those questions by crafting well-written directions.

Utilize Peer Groups – collaboration is a new-century skill and should be encouraged as you move through the course. As the peer network starts to take form students will begin to rely on each other [the peer support network] and not rely so heavily on the instructional team. Online students often report feeling isolated and the experience does not have to be that way. Students need to learn to develop their own online support community and the instructional team  can help facilitate this. Students that report feeling like a valued member of their peer community are less likely to disappear and not complete the course.

Rubrics and Examples – in an effort to minimize questions from students [and the instructional team] and reduce course anxiety share examples of assignments from previous offerings of the course…or that you have prepared yourself. For presentations, share templates of what is expected and consider including more detail within the template. Additionally, rubrics should be provided up-front…again in an effort to reduce questions and assignment anxiety. Rubrics should be provided for all assignments and discussions that are graded. Students who have access to a rubric before they begin their work and know how they are being evaluated are more likely to successfully complete their work. Rubrics also work with you and your instructional team to help ease concerns over point deductions and grades that are being awarded.

Differing Instruction – we all learn differently and the online student is no exception to this. Students need to be given different opportunities for learning. Consider using video lectures, audio lectures and different project choices. For example, a final project might be presented as a choice between a formatted paper OR a narrated presentation. Giving the students options that maintain the rigor of the project will lead to an engaging and fulfilling experience.

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Simplify Course Revisions

Top 5 List

It is difficult to see beyond your first course offering when building a new online course or moving an existing face-to-face course online. And if you want there to be a second offering of your course, you’ll want to focus your energies on making the first offering a success. But don’t ignore the fact that you will want to make revisions to the course based on your experience and feedback. Designing online courses always takes much longer than expected and planning for future revisions seems like something that can be dealt with…well, in the future. Here is a Top 5 list of things to consider while building your course to simplify revisions.

One Source Information – if you have important information like assignment directions, discussion group expectations or details about online quizzes, place those items in ONE place and simply link back to it from all of the different locations where students may need to access it. As you move through the course you can remind students [and the other members of your instructional team] where the information is located. This will help minimize confusion in the course and allow for easy updating…as updates will only need to be made in ONE location. 

Another way to use this strategy is with the deliverable due dates in the course. Placing all of the due dates in ONE document/location will eliminate any conflicting information that could lead to a less than pleasant experience for the students…and the instructional team. Google Drive [documents] is a great solution.

Avoid Dates and Times – the goal here is to try to get as much mileage as possible out of your content. Avoid any mentions of dates, times, the weather, the season, the BIG championship game that just took place. Create a course schedule/calendar to refer students to. Consider a simple one-pager that allows for easy revisions. As you make revisions you need not worry about catching all of the places where dates were entered because that will all be contained in ONE location. Revisions can then be made lesson-by-lesson.

Compartmentalize Current Events – group discussions are usually a focal point of online courses and if current events are being discussed consider placing them in their own unique lesson rather than weaving them throughout the course. If your lectures are wrapped around a major current event like an election year you will want to create separate throw-away lectures that can be easily replaced after the event has taken place.

Place Content Into Modules – there are many reasons to place your content into smaller bite-size modules for the students. For example, taking that 30-minute lecture and creating six 5-minute lectures to help students maintain focus while watching and tracking their progress should they get interrupted. The benefit for faculty and the instructional team here is that this strategy makes locating areas to update much easier. Updating just one module might make more sense than trying to re-record an entire longer lecture.

Leverage Your Tools – many Learning Management Systems will have a feature that allows for a copy of your course to be moved from one session to the next. In those, cases you should consider creating a *master* copy of your course. A master copy of your course can be kept behind the scenes and never rolled out to students allowing you to constantly update as you move through your course. As the beginning of each session approaches you can copy out a fresh [pure] offering of your course and know that students will be getting the most up-to-date version. It takes discipline and organization to maintain a master shell with any success….and a talented instructional designer.

With every new semester or new session there will be some required work to get your online course ready to go again for the next wave of students. If you are working alone or with a team of other professionals using an external tool to help track the changes that should be considered will be the key to your success and the team you are working with. Consider a tool that allows for maximum collaboration.

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Building Community In Your Online Courses

Top 5 List

Online education has allowed users to advance their education and develop new skills from any location. The trouble is that users can still feel isolated and this goes for the facilitator as well. With all of the benefits that come with online education the challenge of creating an online community is still a challenge. One strategy is to simply create more connections between the user and the facilitator. Here is a Top 5 list of things to try to help increase connections between the user and the facilitator.

Discussion Forums – get creative when using discussion forums. For too long online education has used the old *post-once AND reply-twice* approach to discussions. While this may be a quick way to meet a quantitative measure….it really does not do much for creating and encouraging a quality discussion. One suggestion is to create groups of 7-8 students and ask that they first create a Group Charter for their group before jumping right into the coursework. The group creates their own rules and work expectations while getting to know each other.

Encourage Real-Time Connections – connections can be limited student:student and student:faculty when only asynchronous options are considered. Providing an opportunity for synchronous communications will start the momentum of the back-and-forth discussions that will help proactively clear-up any miscommunications. Increasing the opportunities for synchronous communications can help build a greater sense of community in online courses.  There are many different opportunities for this type of communication including virtual office hours, small group meetings [6-8 students], large group meetings [24-28 students] and small study groups [2-4 students]. Google Hangouts is one good option to offer students to get the communication started.

Use a Variety of Tools – there are many tools available that can be used to increase student interaction and get them engaged in their courses. Many institutions are looking to private social networks that allow for student connections to take place from course-to-course as students move through a degree program.  However, if the need is for just ONE course, Skype and Google Hangouts have proven to be effective tools to go above and beyond the pre-programmed messages such as lesson tours, presentations/lectures and announcements.

Develop a Plan – developing a plan around the activities and the tools selected for the course will lead to a successful experience in your course. The tools will only be as effective as they way they are presented and implemented. Consideration must be given to answering the question…how will this tool increase connections and support the outcomes/objectives of the course.

Interact with Non-Task Activities – consider using interactions that are not related to a specific task as a way to make connections. Find a way to connect with students or facilitate students connecting with each other in ways that are not directly related to learning. Connections made this way can foster a supportive learning community. Many LMS offer some functionality that will allow for this type of social networking. If for some reason the LMS doesn’t offer this functionality you may have to create your own private Facebook page or use a tool like Slack. Simply asking your students to come up with a suggestion to enhance networking might be a good option. Chances are good they may already be using a tool that could be shared.

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Be A Great Leader

Top 5 List

Someone asked me the other day what I thought it takes to be a great leader. Having had what I believe to be very good leadership training combined with my experiences in a leadership role….and of course from what I have read on the subject there are a few things that a great leader will need to help form the foundation for a high performing team:

  • Encourage professional workplace relationships – most people go to work with the expectation of a colleague friendly work environment. I’ve often thought that strong social connections outside the workplace are a strong indicator of job satisfaction. The social connections don’t just happen and are rare. Great leaders will help shape and guide culture to create ways to build rapport amongst the team. Great leaders will set the tone and establish just the right balance.
  • Approach employees as individuals – Great leaders will see their employees as more than just that they see them as individuals. Leaders must recognize the unique desires and abilities so they can manage how to bring out the best in each member of the team. The approach to managing individuals that are part of a larger team must be fine-tuned to reach a situation and this will create a culture that is based on performance rather than an entitlement.
  • Adult behavior – the one main ingredient that will drive every aspect of the work culture is that of adult behavior. A “management genius” who builds and leads in a culture that is adult minded will be one that is based on maturity and personal responsibility. 
  • Value the individual – every member of the team, independent from their job title and most recent performance should be showing respect and value by every member of the team. This approach will build long-lasting loyalty and commitment much further than just today’s work.
  • Be the captain – as a leader this is your team, and you are responsible for the work done by the individual members of the team. A great leader will establish respect for managing the work and finding effective ways to ensure that people are listening. The right combination of power, authority and influence to delegate work and provide direction will teach people how you intend to manage them so they know what to expect. There should be NO surprises.

-RG