How To Develop Your Team

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How To Develop Your Team

Why should you develop your team? And what about those teammates who are disengaged? We're going to answer those questions in today's episode. Hello, my name is Ze and I'm Rich. So it's been a while since I've seen you, Z It has been right as Van. Usually when we're doing this recordings, we're ahead of schedule. This time we're kind of like in the Cosmo.

We got to get these episodes every two weeks. I've been gone there, you know, for a week. Enjoyed New York City, got to be, you know, part of the historic West's West Point Academy and that their leadership group for the week with our leaders. And in it since I've been back man has been nonstop action man So yeah.

Did did you miss me? Yeah, I did. I did miss you. And I saw a lot of great footage from your LinkedIn. It was amazing. Saw some physical training. Yeah. And by the way, just to clarify, this wasn't me doing all the fun. I was in the camera watching all of our leaders do all the P.T. and in the Orient urban orienteering.

It's a lot of this, a lot of these exercises and things they did that was good. You know, I think I got a lot of good footage. And also more importantly, though, I got to see our leaders really connect the dots in everything that we've been teaching them around leadership I was put in to put into practice and they just had this light bulbs go up like crazy and they're hungry.

I mean, they came back and they're now talking to their teammates about it. We have our 30 day follow up coming soon, so I can't wait to see what they've applied. That's great. Yeah, that's amazing. You just definitely want to see how they apply it and taking those skills from the training, putting them into action and has the biggest thing, right?

When you go through training or any kind of development, you you get excited, it's fresh. You ready to take on the world and conquer the world. But the question is get to play it right away because you're going to forget it. You're going to fall on old habits and more importantly, right. This is part of, you know, developing trust with not only us as inside in the leadership group, that they trust us, that we're not going to put them in harm's way with the and be like, oh, my gosh, I just got hurt.

You know, hey, we understand everybody has different develop different development levels, not only in their knowledge, but also their physical abilities. So we had to make a couple adjustments and totally fine, but just get active and have to trust us with that. And that that was that was cool. Yeah, that trust. Speaking of trust, that was our last episode.

If you missed that, go back and tune in to that building and maintaining trust. But they had to put a lot of trust in you to make sure that you know, that you didn't overexert them on the physical training or, you know, have them go through, you know, all out military style training. Well, yeah, they had to trust that I was giving them the right information.

I wasn't going to, you know, tell him something. And I decided it was something else because I would have been a disaster. Right. But no, I mean, I think that overall, you know, that is a great example of developing your team and we're developing our team in our leadership with our executive and directors to bring these skill sets and give our teammates leaders worth following.

And the cool thing is that when I was there, I was able to capture some audio and interview a couple of our leaders about their thoughts on today's topic, which is around developing your team. So we're going to be listening to a few of those and then we'll unpack them a little bit of that. That's cool with you.

Yeah, sounds great. Right up in I am. Let's do it. So the first recording we have or I interviewed was Gonzalo Herrera. He is one of our directors of finance and a in Europe specifically, he's in Spain. Eat. You'll hear his accent here in a second. But Gonzalo does a good job. And the first question that I ask is, okay, why should develop your team?

What's developing your team? And I think a lot of people already know the answer to that because, you know, you individually want in, want to be developed and want to develop yourself. But let's listen to his response and we'll talk about it. And I'll even talk about some of the other responses because they're very similar. So let's go ahead and hear it.

Gonzalo Right. Well, the first thing is that I consider you going to be the team is my mission. I do consider is my mission, because it's what really drives me. So in the moment of my career that I am asked what really most me motivates me, drives me is what I leave behind. So yeah, that's my philosophy about about leadership is you have a responsibility, a tremendous responsibility to create leaders.

And when I say tremendous is because I'm dealing with a lot of young hungered talent. And it is the moment where you are creating the foundation of what they will be in the future. To me, I've reflected about this and I feel a huge responsibility in that aspect. All right. So that's Gonzalo right there. Again, super passionate in what I love when he kicked off.

All right. That's that is my mission, right? That is my purpose. That is what I do as a leader. And it was very similar with the other leaders that I talked to. As soon as I talk about development, that that's my job, that's my responsibility. The word responsibility kept coming up. So first thing that stood out to me.

Yeah, I mean, think about that. When we talked about leadership before. Am I a leader? If you are a leader, if you're going to invest in your team? So that's the first thing that stood out to me. And again, it resonated throughout the various conversations I had with several of the leaders. Well, what is what did you get?

Yeah, same, same aspect. You know, he's right off the bat. He jumped in, said it was his mission, and almost right after that said it was his responsibility. So you can tell he takes this, you know, it's it's a it's a personal aspect. Right. Being in that leadership role means something to him and what he's doing with that, developing leaders, that's his purpose.

That's that's why he became a leader. Sounds like. Yeah. Again and he knows that he had a spark has a responsibility to him I mentioned right the next generation that's coming in Funny enough we have currently you know right now it's there it's it's summertime so we have a lot of interns that are joining us here at inside and it's been amazing seeing their their passion and their they're hungry.

You mentioned hunger as well, to learn to be engaged, to participate in the trainings that we're giving now, but also in the projects and things that we're working on. So yeah, it's that next wave of talent that's coming in is this this capitalize on that hunger, right? That that that ambition to just be really good at what they do and we it's our responsibility to get them there.

Yeah absolutely And also to to that effect you want to continue to keep that hunger as he mentioned. You know, if these individuals are coming in hungry, it's the leaders responsibility to keep motivating and keep driving them, to keep going to to achieve that that leadership level of, you know, either motivation or wanting to to get to that next step in their career.

Yeah. And again, I love the tying in with the last episode. You know it's they're going to build that trust with you as a leader not only with you as a leader, but also by their trust with your organization that, hey, my my organization is investing in me, right? So the can I just have like there's a leader there investing.

That's great. But what if you move to another team and that leader does not invest? That's going to be a shock, right? They're going to be like, what's going on? Why is it that I was working for this department or this leader? They had conversations with me about my development, where I'm at, how am I doing? What can I do to get there?

What's my next step? All these things right that makes us and skills a skills skill us up. But then I go to a new team and a new leader and they don't do that. Oh, that. That last with that new leader is going to be diminished. Right. But then also think about the organization as a whole, like, hey, there's inconsistencies here, right?

We owe it to our team to be consistent across the board in making sure that we're you know, we're living by our values, by what we but what we preach. Right. So speaking of that time of your journey about your development, I mean, have you had examples where you had leaders that did invest and then some that did it?

Yeah. I mean, you know, coming not not in the inside organization, but, you know, prior organizations that I've worked for, we've, you know, I've, you know, done our well, we call them one on ones here, our connection meetings, you know. Well, we'll go in and you know we'll ask the questions and everything will be or seem that it's on track.

And then when it comes time to, you know, the competency reviews, it's it's sort of a letdown. You know, you don't score as high as you want to or as you were thinking, you know, you have these meetings. It just seems like you're off track or off base. And from there it's like, well, where was the misstep? Where where did we get off base?

Where do we not communicate Now? Moving in INSIGHT, these one on one meetings are amazing because you always know there's always that constant communication. Your leaders always asking you, you know, what is it that I can help you with? Which is extremely important. It's like night and day, right when you go. And it's one of the things that you notice about cultures in organizations, a culture that that is a learning culture, right?

Really takes development to heart. And it's one thing talking about it and one thing is actually doing it right. And this goes back to what we talked about in regarding leadership. Do we see leadership in action? Do we see trust in action and not just talking about And I just think it goes full circle. So again, it's really cool, very consistent.

A lot of us say this is my responsibility, is my mission is what I do. Gonzales. Gonzales I'll even mention that's my legacy, meaning that the way I took it is that he is developing leaders for the future, happy people, the teammates are your teammates to come in and develop them and take his role eventually, right? Getting them ready for that next opportunity and not seeing that as a threat, but as a as an opportunity to to grow and develop the next the next leader and insight, which is awesome.

Yeah. So the next question, what's what's the next question we asked our leaders? So the next question is what are effective methods to developing your team? Yeah. So some of the best practices and things like that and, and we interviewed two, two more directors here. Yes. Deb Murphy And let occur that occur. Yeah. So again, love love these two leaders.

You know, the reason why I reached out to them because there are those are two leaders that possibly reach out to me about developing their team, always doing something with them every year as a whole, but also individually. So let's listen to think first as Deb Murphy, who is a global PMO in charge of our global PMO. And then we're going to listen to Letta, who is a director of product management.

So let's take a look again, conversations, understanding what they want to do, because if it's a team, it isn't passionate about something. We're not going to get your best from them. So you have to understand what do they want to do and then you share with them Honestly what it's going to take for them to to get where they really want to be.

And you help them get there. You help them find the ways to develop that muscle and that skillset. It's it's really time commitment, you know, with so many different things that really, you know, we do day in, day out. I mean, it's a chaos and you got to be very intentional about it. And and, you know, as what we do, we travel a lot.

We do have a lot of meetings and stuff like that. But again, just like what I said to every single one of my teammates, you are my priority and you really get it. You need to be very intentional about that. Yeah. What Deb jumped into about, you know, keeping that fire and identifying, you know, why teammates might be disengaged, that's extremely key.

And to hone in on that and to, you know, just try to understand to see how can you reignite that? How do we get these teammates engaged? Yeah, it's a lot of times it's as simple as getting to know them, asking them questions, what do they need? What do they want to do, need to develop? It's easier said than done.

I think we all know that. Hey, just have a conversation with your team. How are you doing? What what what are your what are your gaps in your learning? What are your strengths, but what are your areas of opportunity or growth? Then from there, come up with the plan, right? Like work together and figure out, okay, what do we have available for us?

So best practices, number one is make that part of your conversations in your in your one on ones or connection meetings. If you're just focusing on getting right to business, how you know, what's an update status update, give me your sales numbers. You know, KPIs, all this stuff. It's like, okay, I understand you have to get up there and as part of management right at the manage the results, manage my team through those.

But a part of that too, and this is where the leadership kicks in is okay, I see you're struggling in this area. Let's develop you in this area or I see that you're interested in learning more about this and you're looking at a different path or a different opportunity. What are the skills and things they need to get you ready for that opportunity?

I mean, the list goes on, but just make it part of your of your meetings, because I'll tell you right now, if I if you're a fly on the wall and you listen to these conversations with the manager in their team and it's all about business, that means that the team is going to start to be disengaged. I feel like all I'm here is to crunch numbers, do my job, and that's it.

So that's a first number one thing for sure. Stay standing now, and that's where you can identify disengaged teammates, which is a next question. But let us followed up with a good as well. What did you capture from her? Yeah, from her essentially just, you know, making sure that it's along the same line. You know, we're finding these common themes like it's her responsibility, really take time to put it in to your to your teammates, to develop them, to to help them get to that next level.

Yeah. Like she said, it needs to be intentional. Right? Right. It's we get so busy and we do it. If I ever if I hear anybody say, Oh, I have so much time in the world, I, you know, I, I don't know what to do with myself. Sometimes I it's rare to everybody. The first thing that comes out of everybody's my mouth or as like, oh, I'm busy.

I have a lot going on. And it's like, welcome, welcome to the world of business. Why go to the world? Right? But we get so caught up in getting busy and doing things that we don't make it intentional and make that part of the conversation. So make it part of what I need to do as a leader is whatever that is, right?

I'm responsible for meeting numbers, getting things done, and a lot of times I think we are there to put out fires. We'll talk about that. Another episode is firefighting should not be what a leader does all the time and it should be very minimal or start to get condensed. You should be more and more it be more strategic, more intentional, which I love that you brought that up because we have to be intentional when it comes to our teammates development, come up with a strategy, come up with something.

So tip out, that's another tip, right? Number two, where we got to be intentional. First, make it part of your conversations. The next one is be intentional. I think a third one is that when you're having these conversations is a lot of the first thing. Let me ask you this question. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about development and have a development plan for you to develop you or you?

Let's come up with that. What do you what's the first thing comes to mind when you talk about development? What are you going to developer? What does that look like? Well, for me I get excited, but I can understand how people can see that and say, Oh, there's a gap in my skill set. What do I need to close?

How do I need to get better? Yeah, yeah. So you're from the context coming into this, you look at that as a positive context. It's like, Yeah, I'm going to get better upskill. But you're right, if you don't clearly as a leader have this meaning, but like right here. Right. So we're going to talk about your development here real quick.

There's some areas and gaps that that I see that you're struggling in that you need to improve on. So let's come up with a plan and not too serious. Maybe you're like, what did I do wrong? I mean, you know, those type of things. But I will say, Hey, Rich, my job as a leader is to help you grow in and get you in, improve your skill set.

So let's partner together and come up with a plan to help you get there. Right. So what are some areas that that you want to work on? Right. Let's think about your approach. Take a few minutes before you have this conversations. Right. To kind of how am I going to how am I going to propose this or how am I going to say this without coming across, like you said, as, oh my gosh, there's a gap in my in my ability and I'm going to I'm probably going to be in trouble or replaced, I think in the worst case.

Right. Also, maybe what you're thinking, too, is that you go to a course that, you know, invest money in going and getting a certification, and what's the first thing that comes to mind when you have to go to school again and get a certification? What comes to your mind when you think about that? Yeah, I mean, I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this.

I am excited, but it's, you know, it's work. It's a lot of work. It's time. It's, you know, oh, man, this is going to be a ton of work. What is this? What does this entail, essentially? Here's the other question, though. Yes. Yes. You're on the right track. It's going to it's going to take time, effort. It's going to be work.

But does it if you're going to pay for it, you start to go, how much is this going to cost? Oh, right. You know, you said is there especially when they like available budget. Right. Whose budget? What do I have the budget for it? So first of all, if your organization has that, it can allocate funds. Please allocate funds for development for your team and departments depending on what's available and what's not right.

But there are a lot of free options out there, too, right? And that's where you have to be creative, be strategic, be, you know, think outside the box and make it a conversation between the two of you instead of you just deciding what it is. Kind of brainstorm. So when you think about what would be some like, you know, let's say, free alternatives out there for development, what what, what what comes to mind for you?

Yeah, I mean you can reach out and obtain a mentor. You can, you know, ask somebody who's in that position that you're striving for. You can, you know, read books. You know, there are a lot of free resources out there as well. It's not all just on the pad aspect and shameless plug here. INSIGHT. We have amazing leadership program.

So if you didn't know about those, please check those out. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Way to plug that in May. Good job. I'll send you the bill. But either. Yeah, can you just. Can you just came up with, like, a handful already, right? You know. Yeah. Go read a book podcast. Hey, right here is development opportunity. Listen to this part of the students episodes.

Audiobooks read a book. If, if, if, whatever you prefer, or your method learn from a mentor. 100%. One of the one of the plans that we recommend is called the 7020 ten plan. And so 7020 ten is a percentage of time you're going to invest in something. So 70% should be invested in doing what am I going to do?

Actually do? Put my hands in there, feel it, understand it, work through it. That's going to help me build my skill set. So you mentioned like, you know, go with the mentor and stuff, but more importantly, doing the role, like doing a stretch assignment, you know, like this is a stretch assignment or not, you know, know, you may think we're getting paid to be podcasters That insight.

No, we're not. You know, we're working on it. But this is a this is a stretch assignment. This is a passion project where I find those projects out there. We have teammate resource groups, which a lot of organizations have these, you know, teammate resource groups, we call it, we call them here at Insight and be involved with that, you know, be part of the committee, help volunteer, help out.

There's other things. Just be creative. Final stretch but doing right getting your hands in their 20% should be through others. You mentioned mentor, you know, finding a mentorship program, whether it's formal or informal, you know, just reach out. You know, this is how this how this got started, you know, reached out, man. And then here we are today.

We have a table. We have a podcast through what is going on in this world. And 10% should be formal. And that is where yes, reading a book, looking up in, you know, your Internet site or internal our web based trainings. We use principio here, but there's a lot of different platforms out there, right? What where resources are available, internal that I can take advantage of.

And my team, we're responsible for a lot of the leadership training and programs, but also the team development programs that can upskill you. So a lot of great opportunities. That's another tip. Find your resources. What is what do you what is your organization have used them? What don't they have? Let's create them. Right? So there's no excuses. Get it done, leaders.

Get it done. Any any other thoughts on that? Yeah, no, that's those great. I'm taking down notes on the side. So I get to also pump their. I was getting old, so I just go to the last question and the last one is okay, but realistically there are going to be disengaged leaders or leaders, teammates, even leaders. How do we develop them?

Should we develop them? So I asked Jenny Vallis. She's a director of Insight Sales and commercial US are going to get Gonzalo back to close us out with a very important thing. Here we go. I think we'll always have teammates who are disagreeing you, and I don't think that that is a indicator of our success as a team or as a leader, although I do think it is something we should be hyper aware of in order to figure out why.

I'm usually the reason people are disengaged is because they don't feel a connection to their work or they don't feel valued. And those things are sort of related to a certain extent. We all have a lever somewhere, and for some people it is identifying daily that they're contributing to the world. So in that situation, it's important to figure out, you know, how to translate that to their day to day task and activity for other people.

They need to be on the creative end of it. So seeking out ways to engage them creatively, to move the organization or the business forward, obviously the first thing that comes to my mind is that everybody needs a second chance. The other sentiment that comes to my mind is that all of us kind of shine, but maybe we're not in the right moment and in the right place to shine.

So as important as to create a team is to know when to not having to member in your team, I need that this engagement is not recoverable. Of exit. The difficult decision is to decide when is when is the moment for that team not to be part of the team. All right. Well, there you go. Right. So I love this.

Right. Jenny, values went right to it, said, you know, it's going to happen. You know, fortunately, we're dealing with human beings. You know, there's going to be situations and times when we have disengaged teammates and it's not an indicator, it's not 100% indicator that it's your fault. I can be. Yes. Right. You're not giving them the development, the opportunity.

You're not making it part of your conversations, all these things. Yes, 100%. But if you're doing what you need to do as a leader and you're providing these opportunities and things like that, and the leader still get in that, he still gets disengaged, it could be other factors. Right. So, Donna, to you, man, what what what what could that be?

What are some because there's a lot of factors, right? Yeah. And it's sort of just going back to what Jenny was saying about that fulfillment lover. Right. And maybe that's it. You know, you do your job and you're great at it, but it doesn't fulfill you. It doesn't keep you motivated. It's not why you wake up in the morning.

Oh, I love that example because that is so true. But there are moments, you know, even when you find the most passionate person, I mean, I could think of a few in this room. There are going to be moments when I wake up and we're just not feeling that that excitement, that energy, it's going to happen. We're human beings, right?

And there's so many factors. Could be something in your life that's happened, personal or professional, whatever, that we have to understand and go, okay, not everybody. Everybody's going to be firing on all cylinders all the time. There's going to be a little bit disconnection. But as a leader, again, it's our job to stay fully aware and being present in and believe it just constantly seeking out and paying attention.

When a team it's off pattern or off rhythm, you know, it's like, wait a minute, it's is not typical rich to not respond right? Oh, wait a minute. Rich hasn't reached out to me or something's off. And I just start that conversation. Hey, is everything okay? I notice things have been changing a little better. This is what's happening, understanding where that's coming from and if it's something that you can help or within your control help out if it's something external or again, see what they can do to work through that, give them the time and space, and then work through that.

Right. But Gonzalo came in with the next step. You can only do so much for our teammates, right? There's a moment in time where it's just not the right fit or the right time for a teammate. But he said, I love the second chance, so you have to make sure that you do everything you can for that team.

So what were your thoughts when he when you jumped into that? Yeah. So I really like that he led with the empathy. You know, everybody deserves a second chance. That's that's amazing. You know, obviously, you want to connect. You want to see what's going on. You know, maybe something at home is going on and you need to understand that and then, you know, identify that.

Or if not, then maybe, you know, not as he mentioned, not right place, not right time. So yeah, that's your point. Again, I just saying help get rid of them. They're not they're not engaged right now. They're not. But no, it's like we understand the human element. Everybody deserves a second chance. Provide them that. But we can only give them so many opportunities.

Right. And that's where it's funny. I get this asked all the time in our trainings from leaders, when is the right time to then move on to the next phase, which is, you know, now time of performance, develop performance improvement and things like that? Well, again, did you do everything you needed to as a leader? Are you doing what you need to as a leader?

And then once you've given those opportunities, that second chance, maybe a third, depending on the you know, on what they, what they did right then making that next move to the next day and funny enough, you know, I've heard different stories from leaders and I love talking to leaders all the time, managers that there are tons of stories where leaders have said, hey, I had to make that call.

Walk through that plan for eventually it didn't work out and they moved. They moved on to a different role. But then they've had that same teammate, you know, encounters, you know, where they meet them, meet them at a grocery store somewhere else. And they're thinking, oh, my gosh, they're going to be they're going to be mad because I'm the one that let them go or they're not part of the team.

A lot of them have come to them and even said, you know, hey, thank you for that. I just wasn't in the right time in the right place. I needed a different view. Am doing something I really love now and that that sometimes happens. Yeah. So I think that's a good way to wrap up today's session. You know?

Hey, it's like this. Engage him as you start to do everything you can address it, find out what is it that's going on and then see if he can help out with something within your control. And eventually over time, if it's not if it continues, it's time to part ways, time to make the next to the next move.

Then there's another topic for another day. Yeah. So today we talked about why you should develop your team. What are some effective ways to to do that and also how to develop disengaged teammates. Is there anything else I missed? No, I think you do summarize it just well, again, a you know, we gave you some great tips. You know, it's it's it's it's going to take practice.

You know what start implementing the 720 ten plan in your leadership as well put into practice try some of these things out put them into place You know 20% find mentors listen to other schedule calls with you know thought leaders as well and learn from them in that 10% formal training development are going to set you up for success.

Quick little tip, though, I got to give a shout out to Rich. He actually had his first live session on LinkedIn live the other day. Awesome job, my friend. He did some good and I think we're probably going to see more of you here coming soon. Thank you. Thank you. It was it was very fun time. Don't forget to like and subscribe to all of our content and engage with us.

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Leading With Insight How To Develop Your Team

Cohesive teams are the foundation of any successful organization. However, even the most skilled occasionally face the challenge of disengaged teammates. In those situations, how can we foster Hunger and Harmony?