LinkedIn Question: What to Do When Taking Over a New Team
Mar 22, 2024Season 1Episode 32
Colby Morris
Discover the keys to unlocking your team's potential as Colby Morris guides you through the nuanced dance of leadership on the TLDPodcast. With Tony's probing LinkedIn question in hand, we explore the blend of assessing operational efficiency while diving deep into the psyche of your team. Learn how to ask the right questions that reveal not only who excels at what but also how each individual's aspirations support the collective triumph. This episode isn't about wielding authority; it's about fostering an environment where motivation thrives and personal goals meet team success.
We then shift gears to the craft of asking the right questions of your new team. I'll lay out four pivotal inquiries that shine a light on passion, perception of team dynamics, alignment with career aspirations, and strategic thinking. Engage in my personal tales and insights on building relationships through trust-centric one-on-ones, an indispensable technique for any leader stepping into a new arena. Whether you're an aspiring leader or a seasoned veteran, embrace the opportunity to transform your leadership style and create a team that's not just effective but truly extraordinary.
Discover the keys to unlocking your team's potential as Colby Morris guides you through the nuanced dance of leadership on the TLDPodcast. With Tony's probing LinkedIn question in hand, we explore the blend of assessing operational efficiency while diving deep into the psyche of your team. Learn how to ask the right questions that reveal not only who excels at what but also how each individual's aspirations support the collective triumph. This episode isn't about wielding authority; it's about fostering an environment where motivation thrives and personal goals meet team success.
We then shift gears to the craft of asking the right questions of your new team. I'll lay out four pivotal inquiries that shine a light on passion, perception of team dynamics, alignment with career aspirations, and strategic thinking. Engage in my personal tales and insights on building relationships through trust-centric one-on-ones, an indispensable technique for any leader stepping into a new arena. Whether you're an aspiring leader or a seasoned veteran, embrace the opportunity to transform your leadership style and create a team that's not just effective but truly extraordinary.
Welcome to Things Leaders Do, the podcast that uncovers the secrets of becoming an extraordinary leader. If you're a leader who's constantly seeking growth, inspiration and tangible ways to level up your leadership, then you've come to the right place. Remember, the world needs exceptional leaders, and that leader is you. Now here's your host, colby Morris.
Speaker 2:
Hey leaders, welcome back to the TLDPodcast. This is me, colby, your host for a whole new episode of Things. Leaders, do I want to say thank you for joining me. I am excited about the progress that we've been making, the questions people have been asking, the connections on LinkedIn. It's just been amazing and I want to say thank you. That's the main thing. This podcast is a passion project, to say the least, and it means a lot when those of you who do connect with me and ask these questions on LinkedIn and on Instagram and if you want to connect with me on either one of those, they're in the show notes a link to both of those. So just click on those and you can connect with me on either platform.
Speaker 2:
So today's topic is actually going to come from one of those questions on LinkedIn. This one comes from Tony. So, tony hope I do a decent job of answering this for you based on some of my experience. Tony said his question was this I just took over a new team. I'm not entirely new to management, but I am new to this team. What should I do? First, assess our current operational efficiency or see who is good at what? Well, tony, I really like that you are asking questions, because that's what I'm going to encourage you to do. I'm going to encourage you to continue asking questions, but specifically some questions that will allow you to assess the team. And what do I mean by that? The very first thing you need to do is you need to start with the people. If there's an emergency operational issue that needs to be taken care of, yes, you have to take care of that. You need to jump in, get your hands dirty, fix the operational issues, but if you have the option, start with the people. Why?
Speaker 1:
is that?
Speaker 2:
Well, because the people run the operations. The people are the ones doing the work, so you need to know who's good at what, but you also need to know how your team thinks. Remember, you're completely new to this team. They're new to you, so you have to get to know them and their strengths and their weaknesses. You need to know how they think. You need to do all that, and quickly. What I'm going to do is give you a couple questions that I like to ask in order to kind of see how they think. Their answers will sort of tell me the story of what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:
And I'll kind of know how to approach them, how to develop them, whatever the case may be, based off those answers, okay, so let's get started. The first thing I'm going to look for is goal alignment. Goal alignment this is the question I like to ask. Can you describe a recent project or a task that you worked on that you felt just particularly passionate about? Tell me what was your role and how did you contribute to the team's success? Now, this question is going to help me uncover their motivation, their work ethic and their ability to align their personal goals with the team objectives. So this will tell you quite a bit.
Speaker 2:
I've asked this of one person on my team one time and they basically told me, without just coming right now, that they basically didn't do much of anything. It sounded in their answer like they pretty much just took some notes and pitched in where they could. There was no initiative of any kind. It was just you know, hey, I pitched in. That doesn't help me, but it gave me a good insight as to how they work. That's not someone I would look to if I wanted someone to take the initiative on something. Okay, all right. The second thing I'm going to look for is their observational skills, and there's a little bit more to it than that. But the question I like to ask is this what are your initial impressions of the team and the department dynamics, okay, what are some opportunities for improvement that you've noticed so far? Now, question, as you can probably guess, is kind of two-sided. First, it does provide nor their answer will provide some valuable insight right into their observational skills or their sense of team, of the team cohesion, the team dynamics, okay. It reveals their ability to analyze the current situation and hopefully be able to offer some corrective suggestions for the future, what we're going to do differently, what we need to do differently. But it also gives you that chance, that opportunity to see who they like to blame. Is there a lot of finger pointing going on? Is this person just going to point out the flaws of everyone? Is this person after they finish their answer? Do I want this person on the team? Honestly, are they good for the dynamic? Are they good for the cohesion of the team? Because all they do is tell you all the flaws of everyone on the team? Chances are they're not a great teammate, okay, all right.
Speaker 2:
Next question I'm going to look at this one and call it career development. I'm going to check on their career development. I'm just going to ask them where do you see yourself? Where do you see yourself professionally in the next few years? How do you think this role that you're in right now will help you achieve your long-term career goals? Now, obviously, this question helps me gauge their career aspirations, their ambition, even their alignment with our organization's growth opportunities. What does that mean? Well, I like to be a person who has a very active, very dynamic, very living succession plan. I want to make sure my teams are being developed so that the right people are getting developed to step into the next role.
Speaker 2:
You've heard me say this on a few of my podcasts. Sometimes my Michael and Jordan's just need to stay Michael and Jordan's. They don't necessarily need to be the coach. If you remember, mike was not a great coach, but man could he play. Sometimes I need to just let those people stay there.
Speaker 2:
If they have zero ambition to be a leader, to be in management, I'm not going to force that on them. That's not part of their career goal, or at least it's not right now. It may come to them later, but sometimes people just really like to be good at what they're doing. I've tried to force them into this. If I try to force them into leadership, into management and it's not what they want I'll tell you what happens. Now I'm going to hold them to a higher standard because they're in a higher position when they didn't want to begin with, and one that a lot of organizations don't train them enough to go into. So this is what happens the person gets promoted. They haven't been trained, they don't really really want this or know how to do it, but yet they're held to this higher standard. And then what happens? Well, now you guys are holding them accountable. And then what happens? You end up managing them out. So you just lost your best player on the team. They're not even the organization where they're going to go to some other team and be amazing and they're going to flourish because they're in the role that they needed to be in. Don't be that person Sometimes. Just let your Michael Jordan be Michael Jordan.
Speaker 2:
All right, this last one is one of my favorites. I'll tell you why. It really gets into how, or I guess you could say what their vision is and their initiatives. Okay, the question is this Imagine you have complete autonomy over a new project in our department. Kind of tell me your dream project and how you'd approach it from the very beginning, from the initial stages.
Speaker 2:
Okay, again, this question is going to tell me a lot about their vision and their initiative. It's going to reveal their, their passion points, okay, their ability to to think strategically and their potential to to be able to work independently. It's going to tell me if they want to be part of the team, if they want to be just a person who's working solo, if they're an introvert. If they're an extrovert, it's going to tell me a lot about them, okay, but what I'm really looking for there is that strategic mindset. Can they really see a plan from start to finish and what it would take to get there? Or is this more of a task based person who needs just the task given to them so that they can get that done? Okay, if they're not a strategic thinker, I don't want to put them in a position to be able to think strategically. I'm going to develop them to start thinking strategically. I'm going to give them tools and and create a problem solver out of them, maybe against their will, but that's going to be part of their development plan. Okay, but I'm not going to put them in that area of responsibility right off the right off the bat? Okay, because that sets them up for failure. All right, so let's go through that real quick.
Speaker 2:
There's four questions we're checking for goal alignment. The first one can you describe a recent project or a task you worked on that you felt particularly passionate about? Second one what are your initial impressions of the team and the department dynamics? Where do you see yourself professionally in the next few years? And the last one, the question about complete autonomy over a new project in our department. So, if you'll focus on the people, you're going to figure out where your pain points are. You're going to figure out where the breakdown is Now.
Speaker 2:
Last part of this is, as a new leader on that team, you need to schedule your one-on-ones with every single person weekly for at least the next four weeks. You need to meet with all of your team members one-on-one for the next four weeks and you need to do it weekly and you need to have your one-on-one questions. You can ask these questions. You can ask one a week if you want, but you're really trying to get the buy-in of your team. You're trying to learn your team. You're trying to get their trust in you, because you need that trust in order to build a relationship. Why do you need a relationship? Because a relationship is the basis of influence, and influence is leadership. You don't have their permission to lead until they trust you and have a relationship with you. Okay, until then, you're just the boss, you're just the new guy. You have to gain their trust.
Speaker 2:
All right, everyone, I appreciate your time. I thank you for joining me. I hope you are finding value from this. If you are, I would love it if you would share what you're listening to, if you would do a screenshot, post it on your Facebook or even your LinkedIn. That would be amazing. If you do that, just post up there with your thoughts of what you may have learned today. That would be incredible. I would appreciate that. If you haven't Subscribe or rate or review the show, that would help me tremendously. We've been out this you've seen here. This is episode 32. So 32 weeks in a row really trying to grow and help as many leaders as we possibly can. So if you're a leader, you're taking on a new team, make sure you ask these questions, because it's going to make you better at learning how to read people and you need to learn how to read people, because those are one of the things that leaders do.
