Introduction

It’s said that the two most important decisions you ever make are, one, whom you choose to marry — or choose not to marry — and, two, whom you choose to work with. As an adult, you will likely spend more time with your colleagues than with your family, so the teams you join and, ultimately, manage and lead, have much to say about your success and peace of mind.

Outside of the team that is my immediate family, I think about my team at Forisk more than any other. At the office, we rely on each other to meet the needs of our clients so that, in turn, we can meet the needs of our own families. This team, like in baseball or football, has positions, and we need each role filled competently to succeed. We have expectations.

Clarifying Expectations

Managers and employees must have a shared understanding of values and of what success looks like. When you hire someone, you get their standard of performance, so it’s the role of the manager to sit with each person and clarify expectations. The recipe is straightforward.

• First, define success.
• Second, agree on what success looks like when it is delivered.
• Third, confirm how it will be measured and when.

This approach offers a direct path to accountability. Managing can be hard, but, as a manager, you get the performance you deserve. Effective teams share common values and, at Forisk, we prioritize five values to reinforce trust and clarify what we’re trying to achieve together. I review these values quarterly with the entire team and our managers rely on them when issues arise.

Reinforce Expectations

When building teams, having expectations is insufficient; they require support, clarification, and reinforcement. Feedback not only corrects behavior, it motivates the rest of the team. When high-performing individuals see their manager reinforce a standard, they feel you are looking out for them, too.

In business, you need a team with complementary skills aligned around common values and goals. Good managers have the skills of a great coach along with those of one of your best high school teachers.

I truly believe most people want to know what’s expected; they prefer order. Who likes people that cut in line, show up late, randomly change rules, or throw trash on the ground? Without clarity and reinforcement, there is chaos. Good employees appreciate it when managers hold people accountable.

How to Give Feedback

Focus on the actions and not the person. Be direct and polite about how the action was inconsistent with the expectation or our values. With feedback, the goal is to keep the stakes low. That’s why we provide continuous feedback. Don’t wait until it becomes a “special” issue. People need to know how they’re doing.

Underperforming employees can be good at making excuses and managers can be good at delaying or talking themselves out of hard decisions. This is where shared expectations and timely feedback help. Feedback delayed is feedback denied.

If you specify performance issues as they occur and provide the resources and training required, and things still fall apart, you need to make a change. The job either meets expectation, or it doesn’t. And if you perform well, we reward you.

Really listen to your team, really watch the details of the work, and celebrate the successes.  Be able to articulate each person’s role. If you cannot explain what each team member is responsible for, then it is unreasonable to expect team members themselves to articulate what they are responsible for.

Conclusions

Much of what we accomplish with teams comes from having mutually trusting and respectful relationships while providing a sense of stability, clarity, and direction. Leaders communicate a plan and expectations. They provide the resources and training to implement the plan. And they adjust as things change.

More work can be done by a team than by yourself. Ideas and creativity come from interaction, not from “1-800 NEW IDEA”, as a former client once told me. The challenge is keeping a team focused on what it needs to do while also developing the individuals and helping them grow.