Part 10 - Team Member Evaluation
This post is based on a lesson excerpt from How to incrementally improve your Team course
This Post includes a Team Member Evaluation Tables download
“Everyone is needed, but no one is necessary.” - Bruce Coslet, Coach, Bengals.
Team Member Evaluation
People can be utterly amazing when given a chance to show you what they are capable of and how they can excel. A little support and motivation, along with honest feedback, goes a long, long way to achieving extraordinary results and improving staff morale. But to obtain these outcomes you need to know your people.
As a manager in an organisation who wants to develop teamwork, you need to have a good understanding of your people. Mentoring them, spending time with them, talking to them, is some of the ways you come to understand what they care for individually and what makes them tick. Doing a formal evaluation of them is an additional way of getting to know them from a management perspective. An evaluation is simply an honest assessment of each team members working style in order that you can determine their strengths and weaknesses, know how to best manage them, determine what professional development they need and lastly, know how best to deploy them.
Being a successful manager means managing a team of enthusiastic professionals against just a good team. It is vital that you realise what people’s expectations of you are. To transition, your team takes patience, understanding and a genuine willingness to learn about your team members.
You will find that people respond exceptionally well to team-building training as long as you truly believe in it.
Ideal Team Member attributes
Rarely will you have the opportunity to create a new team from scratch? The norm is that you inherit an existing team upon which to build or you have a current team that you want to upskill. Team members need to have particular attributes and exhibit specific behaviours if they are to succeed.
Therefore, training needs to instil and develop the necessary attributes. Around 20% of team members will not make the grade, (team members who are not making the grade need to be moved to a different position or be managed out. There is no room for them in your team). But that leaves 80% of team members who will respond favourably to training. They respond positively because the training outcomes recognise their value, provides feedback on performance, is supportive and from which they achieve significant job satisfaction. As their manager, it’s up to you to lead by example, provide the right environment and create the right culture.
Each team member should ideally possess the following:
Skillsets: The team needs to be comprised of team members with multiple and complementary skillsets. They need to possess specific industry knowledge and a set of appropriate skills matching that knowledge. These elements create synergies with other team members and are one of the things that make teams highly productive.
Attitude: a ‘give it a go’ approach to work.
Orientation: tries to be supportive of each other.
Get things done: The best yardstick or measure I can suggest for evaluating your current team members is ‘they get things done. These are the people to who you can give a job, despite how busy they are, and ask for it to be completed by a specific knowledge that the job will be done and that there is no need for follow up.
Possess Gusto: they show great energy, enthusiasm, and enjoyment that is experienced by them taking part in an activity.
Possess Alacrity: they perform all tasks with speed and eagerness.
Outlook: are driven and career-oriented and exude positivity and care about others.
It’s also good to have team members that are:
Extroverts: generally preferred because of their talkative, sociable, action-oriented, enthusiastic, friendly, and outgoing personalities. They are also faster decision-makers, more significant risk-takers and more innovative thinkers.
Introverts: are necessary as well. They tend to be more focused, observant, lower risk-takers who carry out a more detailed analysis of available information than their extrovert partners, and they bring a conservatism and balance to decision making.
Extraordinary: Some people are extraordinary; they have qualities that make a huge impact on their performance and the performance of others.
They Ignore their job descriptions. Well, not completely, but they think and act outside their job description or fixed roles. When they encounter situations that require action, they act irrespective of their role or position. These are the people who get things done.
They are eccentric. Someone with a somewhat unusual personality, someone who is very comfortable in their own skin. They may seem odd at first, but pleasantly so. They tend to be very creative, good debaters and make for excellent team members.
Pull their sleeves up. When the going gets tough, these people have a trait of forgetting about who they are and rapidly becoming a member of the team when required. They recognise when things have become serious and change their behaviour accordingly.
They praise others in public. These people effortlessly praise their fellow team members in the same way, and they do it publicly.
They are self-motivated. These people come to work firstly for its enjoyment, to satisfy their passion and secondly for pay. They are often possessed of an overwhelming need to be successful and work hard to achieve it.
They are process-driven. Great teams are process-driven, some people get it, some don’t. Process brings consistency, increased quality, cost-effectiveness, reduced task and project timeframes, fewer errors, to mention just a few of the benefits. These people are the ones who off their own back work to make the process better.
Team member qualifications
University or College level qualifications are irrelevant in terms of being a member of a Great team. Some of the best people have no formal qualifications.
Senior management potential
Do you see management traits in any of your team members? You are, after all, developing team members to become High-Performance Team members today and managers in the future. Some clues to management potential are people who think about others first, believe they are no better than anyone else, are personable, non-judgemental and hold themselves accountable. Often the best assessment is to observe their interactions with yourself and others and go with your gut.
Team roles
Belbin’s team roles are a way of understanding your team members. The roles are best used as a guide only to each team members preferred working style. It is worthwhile trying to match each team member to a Belbin role just to see how well balanced the team is. The nine-team roles are shown below.
Figure 1. Belbin team roles. The University of Cambridge
· The shaper. Challenging thrives on pressure, has the drive and courage to overcome obstacles. Enjoy directing attention to the setting of priorities and objectives to shape the way team effort is applied.
· The implementer. Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient. Turns ideas into practical solutions and procedures.
· The completer-finisher. Painstaking, conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time. They make sure a sense of urgency is maintained, and that the job in hand is completed effectively and efficiently.
· The co-ordinator. Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals promote decision making, delegates well. They will recognise the team’s strengths and weaknesses, ensure that they play to everyone’s strengths, and make the most of the team’s resources.
· The team worker. Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction. This person supports others by improving communication between members, highlighting and building on others’ strengths, and underpinning any shortcomings.
· The resource investigator. Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities, develops contacts. This person relishes exploring, investigating and reporting on resources, ideas or developments outside the group, and is good at dealing with external forces and negotiation.
· Plant. Creative, imaginative, unorthodox. Solves difficult problems.
· The monitor-evaluator. Sober, strategic, and discerning. Sees all options, judges accurately. They are the analyser of problems and evaluator of ideas and suggestions.
· Specialist. Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply—someone who puts forward ideas of new methods or applications and who looks for possible breakthroughs to problems.
“An effective way to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of a team and helps the team to understand ways in which it could improve performance. Developed by Meredith Belbin in 1981, following nine years of study and has become one of the most accessible and widely used tools to support team building.” The University of Cambridge.
The people you don’t want
The ones you don’t want are simply the opposite of the ones you do.
These are people who are not comfortable with the concept of being a professional. They are usually the cowboys who ignore instructions and process and do as they please. Then there are terrorists; they actively look for situations they can make worse for the pure warped pleasure of it. A word of caution, you need to ask yourself “Do some people behave in a certain way because of the current workplace culture?” If you suspect this might be the case, I suggest you assume that they can change and therefore, be considered as possibilities. Only you can judge. Then there are people who are just plain lazy and disinterested no matter what the culture. Don’t waste your time with these people, use the “Do you want to become a Professional?” approach (discussed below) and performance manage them out as fast as you can.
Unprofessional
Some people are not interested in becoming a professional; they choose not to change their behaviours. There is no room for this attitude in the team. Team members need to decide upfront if they are interested in being developed into professionals. Personal biases and prejudices, for example, cannot be part of a professional persona, nor is their room for personal issues.
Job perks
These people are more interested in the job’s perks than they are in the job. Gen Y can be guilty of this. These people, believing they are highly valuable come to you demanding or strongly suggesting at least that it’s in everyone’s best interest to expand their remuneration package. They want to receive more flexible working hours, paid overtime, a personal use Uber account, to bring their dog to work, want company paid life insurance, and the list goes on. What I like about these people is they declare their real agenda to you, which makes them easily identified as people you don’t want. Great team members are in it for the job, the work, the experience, not just for the perks.
"If you have people in your team who, despite coaching and conversations, still cannot see the positives in their role (no matter how much potential they show or how long they've been in your organization), remove them. It's time to move on. Similarly, employees should avoid negative colleagues." Andrew May. Performance Coach.
Hostage takers
These are staff who due to their many years of service are the only staff members left with specific IT knowledge. They are a highly valuable resource, and they know it. Steps need to be taken in these situations to document what they know (best of luck with that) and to train up other staff. I have encountered many people of this type and, each has firmly believed that they are indispensable and therefore, can do as they please. They ignore management directions, carryout unauthorised work, are often lazy and even go as far as to turn up for work when it suits them.
Give everyone a second chance. Discuss with these people what your expectations are and that specific behaviour of theirs is unprofessional and that there is no room for them in your team. Then document the discussion in an email and copy them and Human Resources as part of a potential ‘Performance Management plan’ to manage them out. Often, they call your bluff, believing you won’t do it.
How to performance manage a team member out
When you do need to remove a team member, it is made easier due to the person concerned often recognising that they are not keeping up with or performing like their colleagues. They are usually having trouble adapting to the changing environment. Very often, it is a relief for these people when they are removed from the current situation as it relieves anxiety and stress.
Do you want to become a professional?
An effective way to manage someone out, is to use the “Do you want to become a professional approach?” This is a most useful technique for managing people out by asking them if they want to become a professional and describing what that entails so they can make an informed decision. If they say yes, give them a second chance, document the discussion and copy them and Human Resources. If it doesn’t work out, you may need to provide them with one final opportunity else you have what you need to terminate their employment.
Professionalism means
Having a professional attitude. Being upwardly supportive. Not participating in secret or negative conversations. Arriving at work on time and staying until the day’s work is complete. Putting in extra time when required.
Demonstrating professional maturity. Producing quality work. Acknowledging mistakes without shifting blame. Owning up to issues and presenting solutions. Being predictive about problems, acting before they occur to avoid them.
Managing time and workspace. Maintaining a diary for appointments and deadlines, regularly checking to stay on schedule with meetings and tasks. Using smart email management techniques. Organising your workspace so that it’s clean and that files are organised.
Practising leadership skills. Making presentations, being a business liaison contact, joining a professional society. Being up to date with industry changes by attending seminars and reading professional publications.
Communicating professionally. Being aware of body language, eye contact and your handshake. Speaking clearly and matching the tone and speed of your voice to match the other persons. Practising active listening.
You can decide on your definition of professionalism and use that to manage someone out.
No matter how sound the reasoning, terminating a person’s employment is an unpleasant experience. Always write a bullet point script in advance and stick to it. This makes the conversation easier to execute and keeps you on point and not distracted from the duty you need to perform. Don’t let yourself get distracted from the script, no matter what is being said to you, stick to the script always. Remember it’s not a negotiation. Always have a Human Resource or another third-party present to witness the discussion.
I have encountered many managers who frankly should never have been given a management title. I met an Applications Development manager once who spent his entire time sitting in his office; his only communication with the staff was issuing decrees via email and publicly, via email, identifying individuals for blame for any problems that occurred. To see him you had to make an appointment.
Recruitment
“First class managers recruit first-class people. Second class managers recruit third class people”. Manfred de Kries
Look for people who are better, more skilled or more knowledgeable than yourself. Change your interview approach, interviews are supposed to be a two-way affair, but unfortunately, most job interviews become a one-sided interrogation. Ask the important job description questions and then have a casual conversation with the candidate. The best practice is to have the best team members do the recruitment, let the most talented find the talent. Ask team members to have an open conversation with the candidate. You can learn a lot just by just chatting about the job, the company, the work, their expectations and aspirations.
Ask the routine questions that you need to cover off.
Do they have a happy outlook and look genuinely excited to be there?
Does their demeanour yell “I will give it a go”?
Ask them what the worst mistake is they ever made.
Ask that if you don’t employ them, what are you going to miss out on?
Ask them what the consequences of a failed commitment are?
Ask them to ask you a question you have never heard before.
Say something obscure and see if they question you about it.
Ask them what their plan is to become a professional?
Ask them what they think of the job description?
When doing a reference check, there’s one key question to ask: “would you employ this person again?”
Recruiting Gen Y’s
Generation Y - born 1982–2000: Gen Y work needs are exceptionally compatible with what a Great team offers. Look for particularly bright people who can see the career benefits of being a member of a highly trained Team. Here are three different perspectives on Gen Y.
“Teamwork is high on the agenda of generation Y. “Working as a team is high on the agenda, and regular team meetings and collaboration with colleagues is preferred. Generation Y wants to be involved and included. They expect openness and transparency from management and colleagues and seek a team playing mentality within an organisation. They are tech-savvy. A whopping 85 per cent of SME owners report they are happy with their Gen-Y employees’ technology skills.”- Ryan Gibson. Understanding Y.
“Poor spelling and grammar and a failure to understand what constitutes appropriate corporate behaviour are the biggest bugbears, with almost 70 per cent of surveyed employers reporting dissatisfaction with their Gen-Y employees’ performance in those areas. The communication skills of Gen-Y staff disappointed 48 per cent of SME owners. With all these shortfalls, why would anyone hire a Gen-Y? For most employers, there is one obvious answer - they have no choice.” “Once they’re on staff, it is important to constantly communicate with, train and “indulge” Gen-Y staff to build relationships and get them enthused about being at work. They’re brilliant at grasping things. We have a lot of production spreadsheets, and they can get on the computer and understand them after only a few hours of training.” - Mike Preston. SmartCompany.
“Gen-Y can be brats. Don’t let them be. Some of them have grown up with indulgent baby boomer parents, and they’re very demanding”. I consciously try to identify and avoid the Gen-Y brats at the interview stage by questioning candidates on their attitudes, family background, friends, their wardrobe and even their pets. If a brat does slip through the net, however, there is only one solution - get rid of them. I don’t care about their skills or what they’ve studied – it doesn’t matter if they’ve got straight As. It’s all about getting a sense of who they are and if they’re a good person.” “Gen-Ys are a perfect fit for a business that is growing out of its skin and where job descriptions can change daily. They have huge amounts of drive and enthusiasm and get very excited about where the company is going, they want to know the vision, and they’ll go where you take them.” - Jo Nagle. Let’s Launch.
Team Member Evaluation Tables
Download and complete the Team Member Evaluation Tables which will give you an insight into each team members characteristics, team roles, strengths and weaknesses and management support needs.
Download the Tables here.
Next, do the following
Consider what the evaluations are telling you about yourself and each team member.
How should you be managing each team member?
What areas do they need to improve in?
Do some require more direction, more following up, more autonomy, more help?
Standardise titles and pay grades across the team and plan out career progression paths.
Update the Department/Team organization chart.
If you have determined at this stage that someone is unsuitable, then without delay either redeploy them or performance manage them out.
Repeat this set of steps after three months.