Team Building | Ask the Team Doc » accountability

Negative Feedback at Performance Review Comes as a Shock

Denise O'Berry — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:31:12 +0000

I’m a very experienced manager in retail in the UK. In a recent performance review its been pointed out that I’m not a team player. This has come as a shock to me but I do realize that its what other people say I have to consider. I’m currently dealing with many performance issues within my store. I have completed a feedback exercise and am building this into a development plan for myself. I just need some help to turn this perception of me around , whilst at the same time being firm with the non performance issues and certainly not looking like I’m backing in to people. I am a strong leader, I’m working with a team of managers who on the whole have less experience than me. how can I turn my perception around?

The Team Doc Says…

The short answer here is that your actions will help turn around people’s perceptions of you. It’s really hard for people to change the way they behave and I congratulate you for taking action. To ensure you are staying on track with your new behaviors, make sure you take some time at the end of each day to look back and analyze what went well that day and what you could have done better. Don’t be too hard on yourself — we all make mistakes. Just jump back in and work to do better the next time.

I also want to address what happened to you. Feedback should never come as a shock to anyone. I think it’s sad that you had to find this out at your review. That’s a really poor management practice on your supervisor’s part. You could make some efforts to manage this going forward by asking for feedback at regular intervals. Better yet, you could demonstrate the right way to give feedback by practicing it with your own team of managers. Here is a good guide to giving feedback.

And remember, the best feedback is given at the appropriate time and is specific and actionable. I suspect the feedback you got was neither of these.

Good luck and let me know how this works out for you. Anyone else have suggestions to offer? Please leave a comment.

Use Structure to Hold Team Members Accountable

Denise O'Berry — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:27:53 +0000

We have recently been having some problems with things not getting done properly. We don’t know exactly which person to “correct” as everyone does everything. They all schedule appointments some, feed the animals some, etc. So, when we find a pet left without water or an appointment scheduled incorrectly, we don’t know who made the mistake. We’ve tried just speaking of the error to the group with “I don’t know who did this and it really doesn’t matter, but we do want everyone to try to do better…”. But, some become defensive and start pointing fingers….

The Team Doc Says…

You are finding out the hard way that when everyone’s in charge, no one is in charge. And no one can be held accountable under that type of system.

You need to define roles for any given day in your clinic. Assign people to the role for that day and then hold them accountable for those tasks. You may have tasks you need to assign backup for because of the nature of the task, but use caution in assigning more than one person.

You may also need to set up a quality control / quality assurance process for some tasks. This can be as simple as having a check in sheet in specific areas of the clinic. For example, if water needs to be checked in cages on a regular basis, you could create a sheet showing the times it needs to be checked and affix it to the cage. Each time your team member checks it, she can sign it to indicate she did indeed check the water. If it gets missed, guess who’s held accountable? Exactly! And no excuses are allowed.

This is going to take you a bit of time to organize, but it will be worth it in the long run. And it will help your team too. When people are assigned a role, they can take pride in completing it. It helps them shine. And they don’t have to worry about someone pointing a finger at them because it’s assumed they did something wrong.

What about you reader? Have more advice to give? Please leave a comment.

What Team Building Skills Do Today’s Teens Need?

Denise O'Berry — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:20:34 +0000

What team building activities would you suggest for teenagers? I work for the YMCA and am going to pitch a class on Team Building for teenagers. Any suggestions?

The Team Doc Says…

Today’s teens have been raised in a team building environment. From preschool on, they were taught to work together and collaborate to get the best outcome.

Rather than focusing on activities, how about pitching a program?

I don’t think today’s young people understand how team building skills would transfer to the workplace. You could help them make that transition by focusing on the key elements of a team — goals, accountability, communication, diverse skills — around a business scenario.

Make a game out of establishing a business environment and having them create and manage the business using team skills. I’m thinking along the lines of what Junior Achievement does. These skills would be very valuable for them to grow into the future.