Helping your team see the bigger picture
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There are few things that can be more frustrating as a manager than having a team where some members operate in silos, focused on their own project or system without connecting to the whole picture.
Often such team members end up doing work that is under-used because they haven’t considered the knock-on effect of what they’re doing. Or they end up not being busy because they have delivered “their” work, whilst other people in the team are creaking and crumbling under the strain. It can also make it difficult for you if you are trying to introduce change and they are seeing things only from a narrow personal perspective.
So what can you do to help? In no particular order, here are some ideas to try:
- In your next team meeting, ask team members to present information about their role and the key challenges they face, to build wider awareness.
- Make the strategy simpler and easier to understand. Identify 3 or 4 key principles or ‘touchstones’ – then relate every decision and discussion to “How does this fit with X?”
- Think carefully about the “what’s in it for me” factor from their point of view when explaining the need for change.
- Repetition. Sometimes they need to hear your plans again and again before they’ll realise how important they are – relate every decision to a few key principles.
- Look for people in your team who are good at seeing the bigger picture and ask them to help. Get them to talk about what they’re doing and what the bigger picture is with some of their colleagues in everyday conversations.
- Reward those people and the fact that they “get it” by recognising them in the team. Give them some prestige and involve them in your planning activities
- Expose the team regularly to briefings and corporate information either in your meetings, on noticeboards etc – relate this to their work.
- Hold a competitor slot in team meetings every few months. What are the key challenges your company faces against other key people in the marketplace?
- Drip feed change through so that they are exposed to different things all of the time – don’t let them settle into a rut where ‘no change’ becomes the norm. Responsiveness to change is something to be cultivated.
- Make sure you include the ability to see the bigger picture in your next selection process. Can you get them to see it as key for their progression?
- Set tasks for the team to map out how they connect to each other, who they connect to outside of the team, and where the different hand offs are for the work that they do.
- Set an expectation that each team member needs to improve something about how they work at least once per month; make them accountable by giving a date for them to report on this to the team, and review progress at meetings with them.
- If you face off to other teams, regularly ask them into your team meetings so that they can offer feedback, and see if you can get your team to attend their meetings and report back on the core issues the other team is grappling with.
- Quiz your team on what’s going on in other parts of the business.
- Ask your team to spot changes in other teams and the organisation around them, and to bring those to your attention.
- Make it ok to ask questions. Respond positively when you’re challenged.
- Don’t spoon-feed! When you get the monthly results, just hand them out and ask your team what they think, rather than spending half an hour explaining what you think.
There are a lot of options above – pick two or three things and give them a go. Each one you try is a potential new tool in your toolbox.