You've Inherited a Team, Now What?

Your First Step in Team Inheritance:  Composition

Congratulations you’ve just been hired or promoted and put in charge of a team. Ultimately you want your team members to exhibit high performing behaviors such as sharing information freely, solving problems creatively, identifying and dealing with conflict swiftly, supporting one another, and presenting a united front to the outside world once decisions have been made.  In order to achieve this a new leader begins by checking the composition of the team.  This process begins by sizing up people one-on-one.

Early one-on-one meetings are a valuable tool for assessing the members of your team. Depending upon on your style, these meetings can be informal, formal reviews or a combination of both, but you should approach them in a standard way.

Here’s a guide for getting the most from these meetings:

1. Prepare.  Review available personnel history, performance data, and appraisals. Familiarize yourself with each person’s skill set so that you can assess how he functions on the team observe how he interacts with the team. Do relations appear cordial and productive?  Tense and competitive?  Explain to everyone that you will use the meetings to assess the whole team and individuals.
2. Create an interview template.  Ask people the same questions and see how their insights vary.  What are the strengths and weaknesses of current strategies?  What are the biggest opportunities and challenges short-term? In the medium term?  What resources should be leveraged immediately?  How can the team work better together?  If you were in my position what would you set as priorities?
3. Look for verbal and nonverbal clues.  Notice what information is shared and what isn’t.  Do they volunteer to share or is it like”pulling teeth?”  Do they take responsibility for problems,make excuses or point fingers at others?  Pay attention to topics that elicit strong emotions.  Those hot buttons provide clues about what motivates people and what kinds of changes would energize the team.
4. Summarize and share what you learn.  After you have interviewed everyone,appraise the team of your findings.  This will demonstrate that you are coming unto speed quickly.  If your message includes differences of opinions or raises uncomfortable issues, you’ll be able to observe the team under a it of stress.  Watching how people respond will give insight on team culture and power dynamics.

The assessment process not only includes one-on-one meetings with team members but also input from key stakeholders, such as clients, suppliers and colleagues outside the team.  Once the data is collected and processed you can make your own decisions about whether you have the right people to achieve your goals.