How do you communicate that culture to new employees who have never worked in that kind of atmosphere?
It can be difficult, because some people are used to being instructed on how to do everything. You tell new employees that previous jobs might have limited them, but that’s not going to happen here. You tell them what you want them to do and that if they show you they can do it, they won’t have to constantly answer to you and will be able to do projects without checking in every step of the way. Obviously, you still review the final product, and if it’s good, the process worked. If it didn’t, either you need to do more training and redirection, or that person is simply not a good fit for your culture.
Once you empower employees, there’s no going back to micromanaging. You can evaluate whether employees are accomplishing what they’re supposed to, are feeling empowered, are acting properly with this power you’ve given them and are communicating with other team members. But you can’t go back.
How do you encourage employees to communicate with one another and work as a team?
You put the focus on results and let people know that you don’t care how they get it done, it just needs to get done. If they want to talk to one another on the phone, meet on a coffee break or go to one another’s desks, that’s fine. I don’t glare at my staff as I walk by if people are talking together.
In some jobs there can be overlap, and it should be up to employees to work that out among themselves. The key to the whole team process is that they shouldn’t have to go through the leader to resolve workload overlaps. They need to work together and come up with a very clear understanding of who is doing what. Team members need to get along and they need to be communicating, and they shouldn’t have to go through a manager to do that.
What else can you do to encourage teamwork?
Create an environment where everyone on the team is equally important. In many companies, some people see their job as more important than other people’s jobs, and they want to throw their power around. It’s not helpful to create a pecking order. Instead, develop teams around the idea that no one is more important than anyone else. The support people are no less important than the managers. Everyone’s role is different, but if someone drops the ball, everyone looks bad. The goal is to work together to achieve the best result that you can. And the way to do that is to give employees all the authority they need to do their jobs and create the expectation that they will work with other team members.
Mark Barber is a shareholder at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC. Reach him at [email protected] or (404) 443-6713.
