5.8 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Transferring Knowledge and Maintaining Motivation

THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Handling People's Retirement
Walking Out the Door	·        Looking forward to your new life of relaxation and leisure
	·        important to stay motivated during your final months at work o   Become a mentor. o   Get organized o   Prepare an "orientation" booklet
Managing the Shrinking Workforce	·        Identify which potential retirees have the knowledge and specialized skills that your company can't live without
	·        Consider flexible work arrangements
	·        Give retiring staff the option to volunteer
	·        Offer team members a chance to switch roles
	·        Capture their wisdom
	·        Celebrate their work.

5.7 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Building a Positive Team

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Helping Your People be Happy and Engaged

Teams that are highly motivated and positive are fun to be part of and able to accomplish far more.  Positivity can make a real difference to people's success and well-being.  Happy individuals are more successful in many areas of their lives.  Positivity is an essential ingredient for success!

Positivity also brings longer-term benefits.  The happier we are, the more creative we are.  Teams often become more positive because they have a positive leader.  Focusing on your own happiness, well-being, and emotional intelligence is the first step in creating a great team.

FIVE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS THAT YOU NEED IN ORDER TO BE HAPPY By Martin Seligman, a leading positive psychologist PERMA Model
Positive emotion
Engagement
Positive Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment /achievement

The office itself is something that has the potential to destroy motivation and positivity.  take steps to create a healthy workplace   for your team.  Other elements, such as life balance, employee recognition, and involvement, also play a big part in your team members' happiness.  Praise   your team members for the good work that they do, and ensure that everyone has a healthy balance of work and time off.

Positivity is a habit.  To cultivate long-term positivity is by reinforce it daily.  This takes focus and self-discipline.

5.6 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Creating a Positive, Balanced Team

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Helping Your People Develop Emotional Intelligence

By focusing on increasing your people's emotional intelligence, you can reap many benefits from improved teamwork.  Emotional Intelligence  , also called EI.  It is partly the ability to recognize and control your own emotions, and understand what those emotions are telling you.  It also means that you can recognize the emotional wants and needs of others and respond appropriately.  EI determines your self-awareness and your people skills.

EI is necessary for:

·        building trust,

·        creating a sense of identity and efficacy,

·        solving problems with others,

·        cooperating, and

·        participating productively.

When emotionally intelligent people work together, they have the ability to

·        sweep aside minor conflicts in order to focus on the team's interests

·        deal well with more serious conflicts

·        grow from any disagreements that may arise

·        perform better and experience more job

Building Emotional Intelligence
Start With Yourself	·        lead by example ·        staying aware of your own thoughts and feelings, and managing them, so that you affect other people positively
Communicate the Benefits	·        communicate the benefits that they can expect
Develop Self-Awareness	·        People who are self-aware understand their own thoughts and emotions, as well as understanding how their actions affect others around them ·        build employees’ self-awareness by asking for their opinions on decisions ·        set aside time to talk about difficult situations or issues ·        encourage your team members to open up and talk about what they're thinking and feeling, the more likely they are to develop self-awareness
Strengthen Communication	·        People with high EI typically have excellent communication skills ·        Develop better communication by teaching people to understand body language ·        knowing how to deal with negative emotions ·        set aside five minutes of each meeting for complaints and frustrations ·        let your team know that their criticisms won't be frowned upon ·        create fun ways to acknowledge and deal with stress or tension ·        Teach everyone on your team to use active listening   skills ·        respect other people when they're speaking
Build Optimism	·        ability to think positively   is an important part of EI ·        positive thinking means acknowledging bad news and rationally deciding how to handle it
Encourage Healthy Conflict	·        engage in conflict in a healthy way ·        everyone's perspective is respected when they communicate their views ·        Make it clear that conflicts should never get personal ·        Set ground rules
Set Specific Learning Goals	·        help each person discover their strengths and weaknesses ·        set clear, specific goals   to help each person work on their weaknesses ·        provide constructive feedback   on each person's progress ·        word of encouragement or a helpful observation will go a long way

5.5 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Training Effectiveness

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

It’s important to measure the level of training effectiveness.  Kirkpatrick's Four-Level Training Evaluation Model can help you objectively analyze the effectiveness and impact of your training.

Kirkpatrick's Four-Level Training Evaluation Model Donald Kirkpatrick, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, first published his Four-Level Training Evaluation Model in 1959, in the US Training and Development Journal (updated in 1975, and again in 1994)
Level 1: Reaction	·        measures how trainees react to the training ·        important to measure reaction ·        about the instructor, the topic, the material, its presentation, and the venue
Level 2: Learning	·        measure what trainees have learned ·        measure the knowledge increased as a result of the training ·        specific learning objectives
Level 3: Behavior	·        evaluate how far trainees have changed their behaviour ·        how trainees apply the information
Level 4: Results	·        analyze the final results of your training ·        includes outcomes that you or your organization have determined to be good for business, good for the employees, or good for the bottom line

5.4 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Engaging People With Team Learning

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Active Training is an approach that involves game playing, role playing and other team activities.  In Active Training, the facilitator gives a short lecture.  Using games, role playing, or another structured activity, the group puts what they've learned into practice.

Creating an Effective Learning Experience

Instructor-led training is any kind of training that occurs in a training room, typically in an office, classroom, or conference room.  This form of training can have one or more instructors; and they teach skills or material to another person or group through lectures, presentations, demonstrations, and discussions.  It’s used to instruct a group.

Instructor-Led Training

Advantages

·        allows you to instruct a larger group at once

·        can use a variety of techniques such as role-playing, and exercises and games

·        learn better with instructor-led training o   share ideas, o   work in groups, and o   debate with their peers

·        useful for bonding, team building, and team problem solving

·        have greater long-term benefits than one-on-one or online training

·        opportunity to train without them being distracted by competing demands

·        useful when you're trying to keep training costs down

Disadvantages

·        hard to provide personalized instruction

·        challenging to accommodate different learning styles

·        slow learners may find it difficult to keep up with the pace of instruction

·        quicker learners may get bored, and may disengage

·        the need to wait for training (

·        the expense of training large numbers of people

5.3 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Understanding Developmental Needs

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Helping Your People Reach Peak Performance

Most managers know that training is essential for team success, but many don't take the time to understand team members' individual needs.  Some training needs will be universal, and will apply to many.  Everyone in the team is unique; they have different skills, different levels of understanding, and different responsibilities and objectives.

To be effective, training and development shouldn't follow a "one size fits all" approach.  Take the time to understand the training that each individual needs, so that the right training can be provided for the right people.

Identifying Developmental Needs
1	Review Team Members' Job Descriptions	Thinking about what work your team members should be doing. Identify the skills that they may need to do things well.
2	Meeting with Team Members	Meet one-on-one with each member of the team. Have an open talk about the kind of training and development that they think they need to work effectively and develop their career. Be up front about your discussion. Use your emotional intelligence, as well as good questioning techniques   and active listening, to communicate with sensitivity and respect. Talk about what they would like to get out of additional training. Find out more about their personal goals.
3	Observing Team Members at Work	Use an approach like Management by Walking Around. Be fair and straightforward. Give them the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and abilities.
4	Gathering Additional Data	Can learn a lot from others who work closely with the person you want to assess. Don’t undermine the person's dignity. Respect the context. Avoid unfocused generalizations. Use information from past appraisals or feedback sessions.
5	Analyzing and Preparing Data	Bring together the most relevant information.
6	Determining Action Steps	Training and development options to consider: ·        on the job training ·        instructor led training ·        online training and e-learning ·        cross training ·        active training ·        mentoring/coaching Take into account people's individual learning styles. Everyone learns differently. Most effective if customize it to accommodate everyone's best learning style. Do a cost benefit analysis.

5.2 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Develop Your People

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Developing Your Team at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

How Well Do You Develop Your People?

How well a team performs often depends on how well you've trained and developed your people.  Individuals need on-going training and development to help them become more effective, and take on bigger and more significant challenges.  They need help learning new skills as the nature of their work changes.  On-going training helps people adjust to changing job requirements.  It also creates a pool of qualified and available people, who are ready to step into new roles as your organization needs them.  Companies often limit training and development to new hires and to people moving into new roles.

FIVE MAIN FACTORS RELATED TO DEVELOPING PEOPLE
Understanding Organizational and Team Needs	·        identify the best development opportunities ·        Hold regular one-on-one meetings with staff to discuss and understand people's developmental needs ·        explore their current performance, and identify areas for improvement ·        create a development plan to fill any skill gaps ·        prepare the team member to meet the challenges ahead ·        have a competency framework   for each person's role ·        conducting a training needs assessment   to identify the training and development that each person needs ·        understand these different patterns of motivation ·        assess individual needs, and provide training and development opportunities accordingly ·        Talk to people to find out what training they want and need ·        work with them to develop a personal training and development plan that helps them get this training, economically and efficiently
Leadership development	·        identify and develop competent managers and supervisors ·        have people trained and ready to fill new leadership positions ·        choose the right people to involve ·        track leadership potential from the very early stages of a person's employment ·        Talent management   initiatives will help you focus on and retain the best people ·        recruit top talent, and create a high performance culture ·        identify strong performers early on ·        reward the best and brightest on your team with appropriate promotion opportunities ·        promote people for their potential to succeed in the leadership role
Training and career development	·        encourage people to learn throughout their careers ·        know that learning is directly connected to successful performance ·        Look for ways to train staff on a daily basis through prompt and effective feedback ·        offer training courses and programs to help people develop the specific skills ·        do it in-house or send people to outside training ·        Communicate this attitude from the start ·        emphasize commitment to on-going professional development ·        Encourage people to come to you with training ideas and career development plans ·        Make career development a strategic objective
Managing knowledge	·        retaining and sharing organizational knowledge is critical to success ·        Managing knowledge is another great way to provide development opportunities ·        wealth of information that isn't easily acquired, except through experience ·        share ideas and expertise with one another ·        identify best practices ·        look for ways to work more efficiently with one another ·        find ways to inspire and innovate ·        Create simple ways of sharing ideas ·        Another powerful way to retain knowledge within your organization is through Succession Planning o   Identify people who can take over key positions ·        other ways including mentoring, preparing an orientation-type book or document, or even conducting on-the-job training ·        use feedback from exit interviews with people who leave the organization to identify training needs, develop people, and improve operations
Coaching and mentoring your people	·        support and encourage their training and growth ·        care that the staff improve their skills and develop a satisfying career ·        As a coach and mentor, the primary role is to help people better understand their positions ·        both the coach and the mentor can benefit from the relationship ·        think about own experiences and share them with others, you're also learning and developing yourself ·        willingness to support other people's development sets a great example for future leaders