I recently gave a talk (actually it was a webinar - very high tech stuff) on Creating a Dream Team – all the things you as a leader or employer need to do to to make your workforce highly productive.

It wish I could say that 50 minutes was all it took to  say everything that needed to be said.  Unfortunately most of us know that  you could spend 2 days talking about this and still not cover everything. Still – here is the essence of my talk.

Creating a Dream Team

Dream Teams are created when leaders initiate and take ongoing action on numerous fronts. Typically, doing one or two things once or twice won’t get you anywhere – you an integrated and considered approach encompassing multiuple strategies. So what are soem of the key strategies??

1. Recruit the right people into the right roles – and if you’re not sure of your recruitment skills, get some outside help. Research shows that gut feel doesn’t actually cut it.

2. Think of managing performance as something that happens all year around, not once a year when the annual review or salary review becomes due. The cycle of planning, doing and reviewing is continual.

3. Your ability to give (and receive feedback) is a critical success factor. If you’ve ever been on the end of poorly delivered feedback, you’ll know how important this is. I talked about simple models for giving feedback – which I’ll share in future blog posts.

4. Watch our for Performance Killers – some of the big ones are:

• different rules/standards for managers and employees
• a vacuum – no feedback, especially for good performance
• not dealing with performance issues of others
• no plans – either for the team, the business or the individual

5. Balancing your focus – we often spend time talking about what has happened, especially as it relates to what people have done incorrectly in the past. People get energised about the future, so balance your messages between the past (what has happened), the present (what is hapenning now), and the future (what will happen).

6. Developing your team – growth is a huge motivator. So you need to work out whatr each person needs to do to a) grow in their current job, and b) grow into a future role or career that they want. An individual approach works best, using a variety of mediums:

• on the job training
• formal courses
• buddying and mentoring
• project work
• job shadowing etc