Encourage Team Members To Help Each Other To Develop Skills
July 13, 2009
Typically professional service teams contain a huge amount and variety of talent and experience. Often it is utilized in a rather piecemeal fashion. In the good teams, time is put aside on a regular basis so that best practice can be shared. Investment in skill development, in this way, really does bring to life the old clichés ‘Our people are our most important asset’ and ‘Our people are our only asset’. There are a few straightforward ways for you to help your team colleagues to share knowledge and help each other to build skills:
Arrange for team members to pass on new professional or business knowledge that they have acquired during the last two or three months and that is likely to be of value to their colleagues. Basic information can be passed on in writing but in most cases knowledge is best shared, collectively, with colleagues, with opportunities for questions and discussion.
Arrange for those with exceptional skills to demonstrate them to their colleagues. Apart from specific professional and technical skills, examples include making sales presentations at tenders, conducting negotiations, handling difficult clients, conducting selection interviews, chairing meetings and undertaking coaching. Some of these activities might involve some simple practical exercises.
Encourage team colleagues to use each other as sounding boards and coaches.
Encourage team members to shadow colleagues with strong skills in such activities as client relations, networking, negotiating, conducting information-gathering interviews and making presentations. Observing the effective use of skills followed by a discussion and questions is a particularly useful way for people to learn. Whilst it is common enough in the professions for trainees to develop their skills by shadowing skilful performers there is a lot to be said for extending the practice to team colleagues generally.
Invite individuals to research professional or business topics that will be of value to the team as a whole, and arrange for them to present and discuss their findings.
Sharing the results of learning and helping each other to develop skills are not only intrinsically useful and cost effective but they also help to underpin good teamwork generally. They also reinforce the notion of lifelong learning in an increasingly volatile and complicated business world.