How to Make Sure Your Team Reaches Their Targets and Goals

As a leader, you have many important jobs. In a business setting though, one of the most important of these is simply making sure that your team reaches its targets and goals.

 

You will be put in charge of a group by your managers, and the reason for this is so that you can help them to get the business to where they think it needs to be. This likely means earning a certain amount of profit, taking on a certain number of new clients, or perhaps turning over more work.

 

Whatever the case, you need to decide how to help your team to get there. So how do you do that?

 

Smaller Goals

 

The first step is to break those overarching targets down into smaller and more accomplishable goals. This will help you to see whether or not you are on track to meet the targets at any given point. Have you reached X milestone within the expected timeframe?

 

You should make sure that these milestones are not too tight, and that they leave a little bit of space for error and leeway. It’s not a good idea to try and race toward a deadline as it will create a stressed atmosphere and it will likely lead to you getting behind schedule which can be very difficult to recover from.

 

Assigning Roles

 

Once you have your goals, you need to start assigning roles to members of the team and placing them correctly to do their best work. That means further dividing the work you need to do into small and precise chunks. Think about who is best to tackle each of those chunks, and how best to motivate them to tackle them.

 

Process Kaizen

 

The next thing to think about is efficiency. This is sometimes referred as “process kaizen,” which essentially means honing in on small changes you can make to daily processes, that can save large amounts of time and energy in the long run.

 

For example, if your team of writers are writing their work, editing it, then uploading and formatting it, then you might find that having them edit at the same time as they upload and format can reduce the number of steps and thereby get work done more quickly.

 

Invest in Force Multipliers

 

A force multiplier is anything that you can use in order to get more work done more quickly, without putting in more energy. An example is a forklift – this multiplies the number of palettes that a single person or a team can move exponentially! Computers are also force multipliers, and making sure that everyone’s works to the best of their ability is a huge way to make sure they’re able to work as quickly as possible.

 

Why Getting Staff to Work Together is Vital for Any Business

A business is much more than just the sum of its parts. You can have all of the very best staff, all of the very best tools, and the best ideas and business models – but if it doesn't all come together into one cohesive whole with a strong message, a great drive and single-minded ambition, then it can still fail.

 

One of the most important aspects of this is getting your staff to work together and if they do not, then even if they are each individually incredibly skilled and talented, they still aren't going to produce the best work and will be likely to make mistakes.

 

Getting your staff to work well as a team and as a cohesive unit requires a lot of understanding regarding group dynamics and psychology in general, and it can be a constant struggle. This is where it pays to have a skilled and effective leader in charge, who can help to take charge and lead that team as a unified group.

 

Here’s what that involves.

 

Knowing Your Team

 

One of the most important skills for any manager is emotional intelligence. This is the ability to understand what motivates someone and what affect your language or behavior might have on them (it also describes your ability to understand and control your own emotional response too!).

 

Being an effective manager means knowing which members of the team are likely to get along. It also means recognizing what has gone wrong when those people don’t get on. Not taking sides or pointing the finger, but understanding that sometimes personalities clash, and sometimes people have bad days. Your job is not to punish, but rather to diffuse the situation and prevent it happening again.

 

Reducing Stress

 

One of the most important ways to prevent arguments and even bullying within the workplace is to reduce stress and pressure. If you are trying to squeeze as much productivity as possible out of your team, then you might inadvertently be increasing the likelihood of arguments and other issues breaking out. This is suddenly when it’s a big deal that Jeff likes to take 20-minute cigarette breaks!

 

Let your team work at a more relaxed pace however, and you might find they’re more likely to get on!

 

Avoiding Boredom

 

That said, it’s also important to avoid boredom as this is what can often lead to petty behavior. Make sure that everyone has work to do, but that they are happy doing it with a strong sense of camaraderie. 

 

Why Micromanagement is a HUGE Mistake

When you think of someone who is a bad manager, you will likely find that a few specific words and phrases come to mind to describe that stereotypical individual. One of the most common of these is “micromanager.”

 

What is a micromanager?

 

This is someone who feels the need to take control over every last aspect of a job, and who will often attempt to grapple that control from their workers.

 

They might do this with the best of intentions. Probably, it is the manager who will be in trouble if the team is not meeting targets. Therefore, it makes sense that they should take control. At the same time, they might be trying to help their staff and their team by giving them lots of detailed instructions.

 

But the end result is a frustrated and stifled team, along with sub-par final products.

 

Let’s use web design as an example. If you are a micromanager who has tasked a member of your team with creating a website, then you might be tempted to provide lots of steps and details. You might tell them the size that the logo needs to be, the color, and the position. You might show them multiple examples of what the site should look like, and you might make strict rulings about the tools used to build it. Perhaps you tell them that they should use a certain font, and maybe you send the work back multiple times for corrections and for changes.

 

This is micromanagement. 

 

But it’s also a big waste of time – all the time you spend going back and forth with your work is time wasted that could have been spent simply developing a better website.

 

It also wastes the talent of one of your skilled workers. You likely hired this person because they were good at web design – so why wrestle control from them?

 

From their perspective, this is highly frustrating. Chances are that you – not being a web designer – are providing them with a spec that they know will result in a sub-par end product. But what is more, is that it removes all their creative freedom and expression.

 

Creating a great website is creative work that someone should enjoy and should feel proud of. But if all they did was to follow an exact brief to the letter – with zero room for improvisation – then they won’t have any of that feeling at all.

 

The Power of Silence for Leaders

Being a leader means many things, but one of the most important skills for anyone who is in charge of other people, is the ability to command a room and to gain attention. You can be the best leader in the world in terms of your strategizing and your people management – but if you can’t get anyone to listen to you, then you won’t be effective!

One of the greatest tools in your arsenal when it comes to getting over this obstacle and commanding that audience, is to use silence.

 

Many of us think that the best way to gain attention and to look in control, is to shout and make a lot of noise. The truth couldn’t be further from this.

 

Why is that? Because when you shout and make fuss, you look desperate for that attention. Most of us have been conditioned to learn that if someone is desperate for attention, then we probably shouldn’t give it to them!

 

Conversely, someone who is seemingly calm and indifferent to you, will instantly become more intriguing and dynamic. Because they are trying to impress you, the power dynamic shifts and you find yourself trying to impress them.

 

When someone stands up to talk and starts with a moment of silence, this makes them seem extremely confident. That’s because most of us are constantly anxious that even a moment of silence will mean we lose our audience!

 

At the same time, starting a sentence or a speech with silence will ensure that everyone needs to lean in and listen to what you are saying. This will set the tone for what you’re about to say.

 

Watch an actor or a politician who is known for being charismatic. That could be Will Smith, Dwayne Johnson, Obama, etc. What you will find, is that they tell a lot of stories. And when they do this, they leave moments of silence in between their statements in order to create suspense and drama. This is one of the biggest differences between those confident and charismatic speakers, versus someone who comes across as nervous and anxious.

 

How can a story have a dynamic ebb and flow if you try to get it all out in moments?

And when someone uses silence in this way, they come across as supremely confident and in charge of the room.

 

Try using more silence the next time you speak to someone, and see just how powerful this can be!

 

Understanding Convergence and Divergence for Leaders

Convergence and divergence business/sociology term that refers to the way that groups tend to grow to become more and more like the other members of that group. In other words, if you spend time in a group of people with a particular accent and particular habits and views, then most of the time you are likely to find yourself speaking with that accent and adopting some of those habits and views. That's convergence; divergence meanwhile however refers to the way in which those groups grow to become more unlike other groups so that they develop a kind of group identity. This is often how feuds and disagreements start so you need to keep an eye on it.

 

So, what does this have to do with leadership? Simple: if you are leading groups, then you need to recognize the tendency for sub groups to form. This is why many offices will end up becoming somewhat tribal – where the accounting department is made up of one clique for instance, while sales might be another.

 

Convergence is a good thing if you can encourage it as a way to get all of your staff to feel like they're part of the same group and working towards the same cause (as long as they aren't too much of a clique when you get new staff), but it's a bad thing if it means they become narrow-minded and don't take on board other vies and it's certainly bad news if it means that the finance department goes to war with HR. It's your job to prevent this happening and one of the best ways to accomplish this is to make sure you keep rotating and mixing up the teams so that there is constantly new blood and they are constantly woken up to outside views.

 

Another option to prevent convergence from happening to a large extent is to ensure that you engage in group activities for the whole office/team. That might mean days out to team building events, or just the occasional party.

 

Finally, keep in mind that convergence can be a destructive force even when it affects the entire team and seems to bind them together. Diversity is crucially important for any system, as a way to prevent defects from becoming magnified, and to help bring new creative ideas to the workflow.

 

Keep looking for outside influences, and don’t allow your team to become too cliquey.

 

15 Key Characteristics Of Effective Leaders (Infograpic)

Why Do As I Say Not As I Do is a Terrible Approach to Leadership

As a leader, it is your job to lead by example. You set the tone for the team, and you provide your team with the motivation and encouragement they need to work their very best. Your job is to nurture and protect that team, so that they can do their very best work.

 

This is something that is understood by very few managers and bosses. Instead, too many people believe that being a leader or a manager makes them infallible – and gives them a kind of supreme authority over their team.

 

This is why they think it’s okay to utilize a “do as I say, not as I do approach.” 

 

But to do this, is to fail to understand the intricate psychology of leadership. Someone who works for you does not view you as being a perfect leader. Nor do they believe that they signed away their free will and rights when they agreed to work for your organization.

 

While you might higher up in the hierarchy, that does not make you a more important person.

 

And so, when you tell someone to do something while failing to do it yourself, this then causes ripples of dissatisfaction through your team. They will ask why they should bother to do work that their leader can’t seemingly be bothered to do themselves. They will resent you for this, and they will therefore begin to complete their work to a lower standard, with a lower amount of job satisfaction.

 

Instead of a “what I say goes” approach, which lacks emotional intelligence, a good leader should create a spirit of camaraderie – you’re all in it together!

 

While aspects of any job will suck, knowing that everyone else – even your manager – is also doing the same thing, can help you to get through it with a smile.

 

Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course there are, every parent will know that occasionally they have to tell their children that no, they can’t have that glass of wine. And that it’s only okay for Mummy and Daddy to speak to strangers.

 

This is far LESS common in a workplace setting. But when situations like this do arise, the key is to explain why the situation is different for you on this occasion, and to try and make it up to your team when you can.

 

3 Best Editing Tools For Captivating Videos

Shooting a video can be a great way to show your creativity and make something that will really capture the attention of the audience. Before you can complete that video though, you need to make sure that you choose an editing software that is simple to use and has a lot of power. 

 

As you begin your research, you are going to find lots of options available. But which one will provide you with the captivating videos that you would like? The three best editing tools you can use for captivating videos include:

 

Adobe Premiere Pro

 

The Adobe Premiere Pro is a great option for even the most demanding users out there. It has a professional-level video editing program that can turn even a simple video into a masterpiece. There are a lot of things to love when you choose this one including:

 

1.    An interface that is clear and flexible. 

2.    Lots of tools for organizing

3.    Responsive speed

4.    Unlimited angles for your camera

5.    A great stabilization tool so things do not bounce around. 

 

This is a great option for those who have some experience with creating videos and editing. If you are new to the game, this one may be a little bit advanced to use. 

 

Apple Final Cut Pro

 

Apple has some great video editing software that you can use, and the Final Cut Pro is one that you should choose. It brings a lot of power to the game and has a lot of AI powered tools to help make video editing a bit easier. Some of the benefits for this one includes:

 

1.    A magnetic trackless timeline

2.    Fast performance

3.    Can support more than one camera

4.    Lots of organizational tools for you to get the work done. 

 

This one does lack a bit with the stabilization compared to the other options, which may make the videos wobbly and shaky. 

 

CyberLink PowerDirector

 

This is a great video editing tool that has a fast and full-featured library that can offer the technology you need, even when you are not a professional in the field. Some of the benefits of this editing choice includes:

 

1.    Fast rendering and a clear interface

2.    Multi-cam editing

3.    Allows for 3D and 4K capability

4.    Motion tracking

5.    Lots of effects

 

The biggest problem with this one is that it is going to have so many options that the interface will feel a bit overwhelming. The weak color matching leaves much to desire as well. 

 

Choosing one of these great options will ensure that you are able to get the right videos created that look the way you want. 

 

3 Online Courses To Improve Public Speaking

When you are ready to improve your public speaking skills, then taking a course in public speaking may be one of the best decisions that you can make. This will help you learn some of the techniques that you need and will give you some practice so that your skills will get better. Some of the best online courses that you can take include:

Storytelling and Influencing: Communicate with Impact

 

This is a course through Coursera that will provide students with 13 hours of public speaking practice. The lessons are going to tackle how to give a great speech from a business perspective, though it can be effective for those who just want to do better with public speaking. In the class, students will learn how to do persuasion, how to tell a story, how to connect with others, and even how to handle some of the negative feedback. 

Intro to Public Speaking – Give a 5 Minute Talk Without Dying

 

This is a short class of just 47 minutes, making it perfect if you want to learn some tips but not spend forever learning the secrets or coming back week after week. While you will not be an expert after it is done, you will gain some new skills that will be amazing. The goal is to help the student learn some of the basic parts of public speaking like practicing the speech, creating an outline, brainstorming the right topics, and building a stage presence that is sure to wow the audience. 

Dynamic Public Speaking Certification

 

This course is a bit longer, but the student will get a certification when they are done. It requires three hours of week to complete within seven months. There are also four courses that are covered within it including an introduction to public speaking, speaking to inform, speaking to persuade, and speaking to inspire. You will be able to progress through the course with writing, practicing, and recording speeches while getting feedback on what is working and what you can improve on. 

 

There are so many benefits to public speaking and it is worth your time to hone these skills and get better at it. With practice and the right course to help you along, you will be able to enhance your skills and speak in any public situation that you want, convincing others that you are a professional!