Good Morning,
Several weeks ago I told you about a team I worked with where most of the team members were promoted into management positions. Now I’ll share with you how.
First realize that these people are all exceptional. I see my role more like carving a stature, in that I cleared away the unnecessary debris to bring out their greatness. A greatness, by the way, that was already there, and is often in most people, waiting to come out. Yes, most people have this inner greatness.
I could not give these people management roles directly. What I did do was give them projects to manage and tasks to do which were not there job. I offloaded some of my basic functions to the team. This may sound like a lazy approach, and on some levels it is. It allowed me to spend more time helping the team directly.
The bigger picture was that I trusted them enough to have them do work which I was responsible for. I trusted in their abilities to complete projects and share the information they learned with the rest of the team (and I told them how I trusted them often). Every member of the team after they came up to speed from initially joining the team all was given something to do in addition to their normal daily functions. It was my goal to stretch them in their positions to help them become even better.
As they performed their work, we would have weekly or bi-weekly status meetings to see what challenges they were facing and what I could do to help them. Each and every one of them made me proud in how they took on their projects and worked hard to get them done correctly.
Each project entailed interaction with others in the company and in people in other companies. Each project had a timeline, and each project had a documentation piece which would be used by the rest of the company for training. Sometimes the team members asked for extra time for their projects, but mostly they did the work during their slow times during the day.
What happened was the team, the entire team, became leaders. They used their leadership skills on their projects and transferred that knowledge to helping the team and then helping other teams.
When the opportunity came for promotions, these guys were ready and prepared, having already learned and practiced doing basic leadership and management skills.
It’s not rocket science, but its sure a great way to show how valuable people can be and how much they can grow when you trust them and stretch them.
Enjoy!
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