You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
I find the same issues with clients over and over again. When you start to dig into a problem through group problem solving sessions, the team members come back with these two similar themes EVERY time:
They always think their manager knows things and just aren’t doing anything about it
They lack some basic information or training that they need to be successful
In essence, you don’t know what you don’t know.
To solve for the first knowledge issue: many problems can be so easily solved by just pointing them out and doing something quick about it. Team members need to know that if they see an issue, they need to bring it up to someone who has the capacity to solve it. It could be a broken process, or tech being used with a work around, or about another team member who doesn’t follow a policy. It could be anything. The thing is, the manager likely DOES NOT KNOW about whatever the problem may be. The team member thinks the manager knows everything and just isn’t doing anything about the issue. The solution here is to have a way for team members to easily bring up concerns or problems so that they can be solved. Some managers are afraid to ASK for concerns and issues - guaranteed, however, is that the managers who ask for information and issues are the most successful and well-respected.
To solve for the second knowledge issue: use the GRPR model as a team to evaluate goals, roles, processes and relationships. Does everyone have the same understanding of the department’s goals and their individual goals? Does each member of the team know what their specific role entails and where and how handoffs should occur between roles? Are all the departmental processes documented and followed the same way by everyone? Are there better ways to do something that have not been figured out by everyone? And finally relationships - guess what? relationships are always improved when the preceding goals, roles and processes are established and understood by all.
As always, get in touch if you need help. Jen