HOW doesnt mean that you simply rephrase the message but how well you understand teams expectations and utilize them in the right way to get the maximum outcome for the organization. I strongly believe that when you are able to find the right balance between what people want from one side and what they have to do to make them successful into organization the better outcome you get for the organization and you team. This is not an easy task as you need to be aware of many details and actually keep very close link with team members, i.e. to understand crisp and clear their concerns, their expectations, their desires and what drives your team members.
4.1 Understanding of your team
This is critical part. I believe this stage is even more important than the first meeting with the team. When you first time faces your team members and introduce yourself you have just little time to demonstrate who you are. When you spend time talking to team members you have much more opportunities to show both positive and negative sides of your character and your management style. So, take time to be prepared for this stage.
First of all you need to allocate enough time for meeting with each member of you team. It doesnt mean having 15 minutes chat during the lunch into canteen. Make sure you allocate at least 1 hour with everyone and book a room for this discussion. Put together specific agenda for each meeting and make sure you clearly articulate the purpose of this talk. Capture key items you want to cover. If any item into your agenda requires additional information make sure you have this information in place.
The idea of such meetings should be to understand concerns, individual expectations, and learn as much as possible about team members. You will need to listen to people rather than talk. This is not an easy task but you have to learn.
Its extremely difficult to start this discussion as you have no idea what each individual has in mind and if they have own agenda for this meeting. At the same time you should try to manage the flow. You need to break the ice when you start this conversation. I dont like a situation when you are treated as a boss. In such case you will not be able to learn too much. You team members should feel that you are on their side, they should trust you to share details. Perhaps it is not easy to achieve in the first 23 meetings but step by step you should encourage people to do that.
I had many situations when I was not successful in this exercise. Perhaps I should refer to one of my worst experience here:
We started to work together with one of my peers and after some time I was offered a management role in the same team. My colleague had a lot of concerns and he was very open about that. We sat together in a room and I asked him to share feedback about me as a manager as well as to share his thoughts on future of the team. He was very straight forward by saying that he didnt see me as a manager at all. Even more he gave the whole list of reasons why. My first reaction was just awful. I understood that he had opinion that I couldnt change in short term. He was one of the brightest persons I had ever known and one of the best experts in our team that made his voice very powerful. I spent approximately 2 years to change his perception and change myself to be recognized by him as a good manager.
Dont give up! Even in a situation like this. You should always remember that other people may have different experience with different managers. Sometimes the bar is very high and you as a new manager may not fit into someones perception about good or bad manager. The key point here continue to listen to those who criticize you. You will find a lot of useful comments. At the beginning of your path as a new manager you will have to change a lot into your approach to work and people.
4.2 How do you behave in the office?
I like my job. I dont remember a day for last 10 years when I dont want to go to work in the morning. I spend a big part of my life here and this team is a part of my world already. I would like to allocate some time to chat about behavior. This is really critical part. Many of us dont think how much it impacts our relationships with the team. Let me share a couple of examples from my personal experience:
Once my wok desk was in a separate office space relatively far away from the team. That was calm and quite space and I liked that. After 3 months time I realized that I missed some link with my team. I spent the same amount of time by having official meetings with the team including staff meetings, 1:1 chats etc. At the same time I missed huge part of informal talks. I decided to move back to sit close to my team.
After that case I didnt try to seat separately any more if possible. The key point here is about being the part of this community. You should understand what is going on in your team, what they are discussing, what they feel about work, tasks, projects etc. Be careful and dont take another extreme when you behave as a spy. You should contribute into their discussions, into their chats and be inherent part of this team.
Ask people how they are! You need to know whats going on with them outside of work hours. This is extremely crucial. Put yourself into their shoes. If you have problems in your family or whatever else how do you find your level of motivation when you come to the office. May be you can abstract your mind from these problems but I have not met such people too much. I clearly understand that sometimes I cant help them but I have to support them and take care of them. I would call this personal touch. Below you can find a few great (from my point of view) examples of managers who applied such approaches in a very smart way:
1. First example comes from one of the companies where the manager has about 100 people in staff. He allocates about 2 hours twice a week to go around and simply chat with different people in his team. This is not officially scheduled meeting. In most cases he takes some tea and walk around asking people what happens, what they think about latest news etc. Sometimes he shares some jokes or talk about funny stories. He dedicates time to this chats. The bottom line for this example this manager wants to do that! He doesnt have this in his scope he takes care of people who works for him. And he is interested what is going on around.
2. Second example is about a manager who bought doughnuts and delivered them to each cubical with tea on Friday every week. 12 mins chat with many people in the office helps him to keep in touch with the team.
3. The final example is about the manager who invited team members for short walk around the office after lunch just to have informal chat about work.
You dont really need to replicate the same in your team. Probably you will find something unique for your situation. Anyway you should find some options applicable for your case.
I also try to work on that. This is in my agenda. I would avoid doing some special attempts to develop such relationships but having strong believe in that I simply try to follow simple rules:
А. Do not be afraid to show that you are human being. This is much better than artificial management model with clear instructions what others need to do.
What I mean here you have life outside of work, you have hobbies, you can laugh so you have the whole bunch of feelings. This is normal! When you share with your team members that you like watching comedies or you like dogs you behave naturally. You dont raise the wall between you and your colleagues but rather you build bridges with everyone in the team.