New manager to an under performing team

Submitted by Jeremy Bree
in
Manager Tools Trinity

I am about to change companies to step into a role leading a team that has lost the respect of the company.  As I will be new to the role and some of the existing empolyees have been there for 6+ years, what is the best way to approach this team to get the best performance out of them with out having to exert too much "role power".  I see a big challenge will be to change the "its always been done that way" mentality.

 

If there is a cast on this please point me towards it, I have listened to most from the last 2+ years and have some ideas but would appreciate any suggestions people may have.

Submitted by Rick Mmm on Monday April 19th, 2010 9:27 am

G'day JBREE,
It's easy to counter "we've always done it that way" when the team knows they're underperforming with "then this looks like it might be an opportunity to improve".
The other useful tool you have is that you're a newbie: "Sorry if you feel I'm making waves, but I haven't been here as long as you. Could I get you to go over exactly why we've been doing it that way? Part of my job is making sure we're achieving optimal performance, so help me understand."
Of course, implement the trinity and all that, but you can't play the newb. card in twelve months time!
The only time you'd need to use role power is if they can explain why they're doing something in a particular way and it actually makes sense, but you still want it changed. (In which case I'd argue that your team might be right when they say you know nothing. They might also be wrong, but give it some time before you upset the applecart)
In most cases you should be able to lead these people to discover these things for themselves.
Cheers!
Rick Measham
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Read my blog: Geek Herding - Explorations in the art of leading IT professionals

Submitted by Jeremy Bree on Tuesday April 27th, 2010 1:58 am

I can see that it will take me at least the first 3-4 months to look into and analyse the way the team operates and interacts with the business as a whole.  I will use this time to build my relationships throughout the organisation, and start documenting a number of the processes myself.

Submitted by Jane Cook on Sunday May 2nd, 2010 1:47 am

I've just been through a similar situation myself in the past few months.

I took the advice of "fit in fit in fit in", which was very hard as my boss was telling me that I had to sort out the team & their under performance.
I did take the time to learn the processes they were following and then quite quickly made some changes that helped them save some time each day. I made sure I got their backing and other key people's backing across the company before making any changes. One of the changes saved them at least half an hour a day for each of the three people in the team.
Once that was in place the performance level picked up a bit, because they had more time to concentrate on the core tasks. But there were still a lot of mistakes and lateness with performing tasks.
I then went through the process of setting in place individual and team metrics. They had not been measured like this in the past and therefore people (and they themselves) had been measuring performance on emotional measures. For example someone saying they hadn't done something on time, but there being no set in stone measure of what "on time" meant. Leading to frustration on on both sides.
I measure every week how the team is performing against the targets. Then review each team members performance in their O3. At the start the metrics were often not achieved. After a couple of months of explaining the importance of them and exactly what is needed to hit the targets each week, and changing a few things based on their feedback to me, we have just had 3 weeks in a row of everyone hitting 100% in the team.

I must say that it has been hard to get to where I am now. At the beginning I was under a lot of pressure to make changes quickly to improve things. Now I am glad I took the time to "fit in" and understand the team members and the processes they deal with and the effect on other processes across the company.
Good luck with your new role!
- Solitaire