First Development Steps

Name: First Development Steps
Author: Khin Hnin Soe

Learn to take the first steps toward developing your team.

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 4 lessons.

Course: On-Demand

(upbeat music) What are the first steps you can take to develop your team members? Let's look at how to assess your team, identify star performers, motivate team members facing problems, and form a development plan. The first step to developing your team members is to assess your team's current situation. You can gather all your team members and do a team audit together for two areas, performance and culture. For the team performance, you and your team can refer to the key performance metrics set by your superiors. Look at the current and past performance metrics, consider, which ones were met? Which ones did your team excel at or need improvement in? How is your team progressing for the current year's performance metrics? And how well are the internal processes working for your team? Are they hindering or helping your team? Look for what's redundant and what's lacking. You can play the facilitator role and try to identify your team's culture during the discussion. Is there a sense of team identity? How much does everyone participate in contributing ideas? Are diverse ideas accepted? And does the team resolve conflicting views? Are team members supportive of each other? Do team members communicate openly and clearly with each other? And what kind of support do they need from you? In addition to your observations during the discussion, you can think back to how your team behaved together in the past. You can write down the strengths and areas of improvements in both performance and culture for your team. You can also ask your team members to give you private feedback on what they think about the team's performance and culture. For the individual team members, you can assess whether they have the necessary knowledge and skills to perform their jobs. You can start with the essential performance metrics such as productivity and quality. Being productive means your team members can manage their time well, prioritize tasks correctly, remain focused, and are likely to feel satisfied at the end of the day. As they finish their tasks on time, they can have a better work-life balance. We tend to perceive quality differently. What you consider as a quality standard, may not be the same as your team members standard. So it's important for you to clearly define your quality standard. Other common performance metrics include, communication skills, emotional intelligence, collaboration with others, problem-solving skills, decision-making skills, and the ability to do self-directed learning. These skills have become essential in today's world, where employees must keep up with changing trends, keep their knowledge up to date, communicate, and learn to work in diverse teams. You also need to consider your team members attitudes, things like their work ethic. Do they value integrity? How committed are they to their work? Do they feel accountable for their actions? Are they team players? Are they individualistic? And are they driven to improve themselves? There are a few ways to assess your team members. You can, interview them to see how well they understand what's expected of them. Do on-the-job observations. Ask them to collect data of their work routines and submit it to you. And gather peer feedback from other team members. Along with the updated Situational Leadership Model, you can focus on two areas for each metric, competency and commitment. For each assessment you can, question your own bias, look at the required timeframe for the assessment period, for example, six months or one year. Review your team members results and how they get to the results. And use solid data and evidence of your team members performances to make sure your ratings are fair and objective. By looking at your team's performance and culture, and their knowledge, skills, and attitudes, you'll gain a good understanding of where your team currently stands in relation to its required targets. You could also identify your star performers. Among your team members, there will be those who exceed expectations, make key contributions, show resilience under pressure, help create a positive environment, have a positive influence, and are quick learners. These people are your star performers and can become role models for others in your team. But don't stop there, you can also identify those with the potential to become star performers, by checking whether they embody any of those traits.

Intermediate Provider : Khin Hnin Soe 4 Lessons · 14m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

We’ll explore the building blocks of an organizational strategic plan. These blocks include how the organization must develop its focus, goals, and mission to achieve a competitive advantage in its industry and to chart a path forward. That way, all the organization’s members are aware of how to help meet the established goals.

What You'll Learn

Articulate a vision and set strategic focus areas
Set strategic goals and link them to a vision
Adopt strategic clarity and minimize complexity
Communicate strategic goals to employees
Assess your team and individual members and form a team development plan
Motivate team members facing problems

Key Takeaways

The course explores the building blocks of an organizational strategic plan, including how an organization develops its focus, goals, and mission.
Developing focus, goals, and mission helps an organization achieve a competitive advantage in its industry and chart a path forward.
When strategic goals are well established and communicated, all of the organization's members are aware of how to help meet those goals.
Adopting strategic clarity and minimizing complexity supports linking strategic goals to the organization's vision.
The course covers assessing teams and individual members, motivating team members facing problems, and forming a team development plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course cover?

It explores the building blocks of an organizational strategic plan, including how an organization develops its focus, goals, and mission to achieve a competitive advantage in its industry and chart a path forward.

What skills will I gain from this course?

The course covers skills including team building, team motivation, course development, organizational development, team building workshops, and team processes.

What topics are taught in the lessons?

The lessons cover assessing your team and individual members, motivating team members facing problems (Parts 1 and 2), and forming a team development plan.

How does this course help meet organizational goals?

By learning to articulate a vision, set and link strategic goals to that vision, adopt strategic clarity, and communicate strategic goals to employees, so all members are aware of how to help meet the established goals.

Professional Certifications and Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

Project Management Institute (PMI®)

Professional Development Units (PDUs): 0.25

Certification Program Categories:

Ways of WorkingPower SkillsBusiness Acumen

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