Do you know your team members?

This blog is inspired from the fact that we put in a lot of efforts in knowing our customers and possibly don't put the same efforts towards knowing our teams. We believe that we interact with them regularly (in person or otherwise), and therefore, with such frequent level of interaction, we know them already. But hold on a minute. Do we? Let’s take a look.

Mr. Sharma and Mr. Jadhav are two senior members of a company. They both handle similar portfolio for different products, and have similar team size and resources. We asked both of them some common questions and let’s see what they have to say:

Q. Do you think you know your team members well?

Both of them reply confidently that they do know their team members well

Q. Do you know about the immediate family members of your respective teams?

Mr. Sharma smiled and said he knew every single immediate family member of his team by name, and also have a record of birthdays and anniversaries of his team members and their spouses.

Mr. Jadhav didn’t sound as confident. He admitted that he has a fair idea of their immediate family members, which he has come to know through various casual chats with his team members.

Q. Do you know the growth path that each one of your team members want to take?

Mr. Sharma nodded and said that company has defined a very good career path for everyone. All his team members wants to get up the corporate ladder in the company and want to follow his or his Boss’ footsteps.

Mr. Jadhav had a different answer. He said that one of his team members Dinesh, always wanted to be a choreographer. He is already into part time classes and wants to take it up full time. Another team member of his, Priya, wanted to start a business of her own and would do that post sufficient experience. Ramesh and Jeet would like to grow professionally in this group only.

Q. Do you treat every team member differently?

Mr Sharma replied that all his team members are equal to him and therefore, he should not ideally treat them differently at all. Rules and Behavior are same for everyone. He does not like to be called “unfair” or “partial” to some people.

Mr. Jadhav answered that he definitely needs to treat his team members differently. Every individual is different and have different needs, also depending on the stage of life they are at.  For e.g. , Dinesh, has a casual attitude and therefore he makes sure that he explains him the importance of every task assigned to him more than others, so that he does not take it casually. Similarly, Priya is dependable and does not need follow ups. Rather, she hates follow ups and thus, he ensures that he assigns tasks to Priya and forgets until the results show.

Q. How do you react when a Team Member of yours approaches you and says that he wants to learn something new (say a different language) and would need to leave early for a couple of days every week?

Mr Sharma says that no one in his team has approached him on something like that. If they do, he would suggest them to learn something related to work (say Excel), so that it helps in defining a better career path for them. If they still insist, maybe he’ll ask them to take out time from their personal schedule.

Mr. Jadhav said that he would encourage his team members to do the same, as it will give a boost to personal confidence of his team member. He said that he would be ready to accommodate the change, provided the individual is ready to take out some time from his personal schedule also.

            Q. How do you tackle various emotional stages of a team member?

Mr Sharma replied that it is difficult to handle such situations. If one person in the team is newly married and is not able to focus completely on his / her work, it also spoils the momentum of the rest of the team. Therefore, he ensures that the person gets equal responsibility as the rest of his/her team members, so that the rest of the team doesn’t get bogged down. He also ensures some extra follow ups with that person.

Mr. Jadhav replied that everyone goes through various emotional stages in life. Every day is not a bright work day, and as a mentor it is my responsibility to accommodate such changes. I ensure that my team works as a “team” and is able to sail through each others’ emotional stresses. This way, I rest assured that I also get my team’s support, when I need it.

And now, comes the real question. If you had to choose a Boss out of the two gentlemen, whom would you choose? And all those, who choose Mr. Sharma, need to write me a mail separately. Jokes apart, as much as we would like to believe we are like Mr. Jadhav, if we introspect deeply, we would discover we are not.

What we really need to understand from the above is that there is a big difference between Technically Knowing your Team and Really Knowing them. If you believe that you know your team member because you know their birthdays and family members, you know Amitabh Bachchan also. Isn’t it? Ofcourse you know his birthday and his family members and also that his daughter in law is pregnant. But that’s not what knowing is. In one of my previous companies, the owner’s wife wished all the senior team members on our birthdays. While the gesture was good, it did look too automated and fake. Therefore, assuming that you know your team members and are taking care of them only because you follow a certain protocol is wrong.

Another mistake that all of us tend do to with our teams, is assuming that the team members are individuals like ourselves only and they emulate our working styles as well as aspirations. Such coincidences happen. You do get members in your team who see, act, behave just like you. But let’s not confuse these people as better. There are others, who work as diligently, just not in the manner you expected them to. Let’s respect the heterogeneity within the human race and adapt a different perspective towards different individuals.

I believe that you will not achieve work life balance by only taking out time for life. You can do that by merging life into work. And that will come only when your team “owns” and not “takes” the work. A responsible individual at work is also a confident and happy individual at home. Therefore, by making people responsible you make them better individuals. And that is the big difference that we need to bring in our teams.

After all, “Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi”, oops, “Kyunki Boss bhi kabhi Team Member tha”, and so, because we have had the Best Bosses in the World, or Becaue we have not had the Best Bosses in the World,  we need to ensure that our team members do have the Best Bosses in the World!

Do let me know what you think about it.

PS: You can also reach out to me at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.