In my work with Focus, I speak to a number of company leads, department heads and Heads of. I am asked a number of questions, I tend to bucket each question into a category or a theme.
One recurring theme is “How do I get the most out of my team?”.
The answer is not it depends, it is:
- How well do you know your team?
- What is your team members stage?
How Well Do You Know Your Team?
How well do you know your team should be straight forward,
I will nudge the manager towards: understand the individuals, get to know the individuals better ➡️ understand their motivations ➡️ and, understand how they work together as a team and then as a department.
What Is Your Team Members Stage?
The second is more straight forward however requires getting to know your team and the individuals better first.
Ultimately what stage do your team members crave to be on?
Where are they most comfortable?
& Where do they gain their energy?
Their Stage
Their stage is always different, your extroverted team member will want to stand up in front of the company and present their work or the teams work. They thrive in front of an audience, they gain their energy from other people and importantly the limelight.
Your ambivert will gain their energy differently, they might enjoy the creation process, they like the detail phase, the write-up phase is where they excel, a detailed retrospective to help the rest of the team to take learnings moving forward and enjoy creating a detailed presentation while actively not wanting to present it.
You can have introverts who gain their energy and know their stage is in delivery. Their stage is performing not putting on a performance.
Their stage is where it enables and allows your team members to truly shine.
Your Role As A Leader
Your job as a department head is to understand these personal elements, their energy sources, the praise they like, when and how they like to receive praise and how your team members like to perform and what and where their stage is.
The best Marketing Departments I have worked with, in or led are typically a mix of complex personalities, introverts, ambiverts and extroverts all having their own unique perspectives, personal requirements but importantly they have understood each other’s personalities, their preferences, how and where they like to operate and how they like to perform and importantly what stage and role each play.
Time To Step Up As A Lead
As I mentioned in f*** fear, it is time for you and your team to step up, get to know each other, understand where you can help to make it tick and this will help your team beat performance anxiety, fatigue and start delivering quality work and campaigns.
In the coming weeks, it is essential you and your team come together, find ways to workshop (remote with docs or tools like Miro or Mural), build out your playbooks and getting the most out of your team by truly understanding each team member and rolling into your team.
In 2021, personal and professional development is never going to be more important, as a lead step up and enable your team or department to reach their potential.
If you would two more blog posts to read:
- Marketing Is will help you and your team progress most.
- The 9P’s, Problem, Pick, Plan, Prepare, Predict, Present, Preview, Prove, Proof will help get the most out of your department to roll into your company-wide strategy.