Managing new team members can be challenging especially if your present team is long established. Ensuring they quickly become accustomed to your culture of collaboration and communication is one way to smooth the transition.
Here are a few fantastic ways to instil a collaboration first mindset into new team members.
Explain the expectations
You may feel that you new team members need time to adjust to their surroundings, but in actuality you will do them a tremendous service simply by openly communicating your expectations and requirements from day one.
This way, they will understand exactly what is needed from them and be clear on what they have to do. This is an easy way of empowering great new team members with all the motivation they need to really hit the ground running. Focus on being clear when you tell them what is needed, and avoid jargon as much as possible. Remain open and honest about the role they will fulfil and detail how this connects to the other members of the team.
Giving a big picture view of their position respective to other people within the organisation provides clarity and structure. It’s also an easy way to let your new hires know who they will be working alongside and which roles or departments intersect with their own. Straight away, this means new members of staff understand who they’ll need to work with.
Be compelling
Cohesive units need compelling reasons to operate as one. These reasons can help each team member to feel like they’re striving for something bigger than themselves, and your own passion will naturally help to fuel theirs.
Success in this area is therefore as much about how you communicate your team goals as it is the goals themselves. If team members are left unsure about why particular actions are expected of them, they have far less reasons to carry out those actions in the workplace.
Make your arguments and messaging as compelling as possible, and remember that this is a fantastic opportunity for you to develop your own skills as a leader while inspiring others.
Play to their strengths
If you have been involved in the hiring process then it is extremely likely you already have some understanding of the key strengths your new team members possess. However, even if you were uninvolved, this is the perfect opportunity to find out where their strengths lie and ensure their role is well placed to provide mutual growth.
You can ask your team members to take a personality test such as the Myers-Briggs test, to understand them and what makes them tick better. This will allow you to make smart decision about how to manage that person and who they’ll work well alongside. Being considerate about pairing personalities makes collaboration a much more natural process.
Be innovative
An innovative workplace is one that it is easy to get excited about and feel connected too. Such locations are almost always places where teams work in harmony together. There are many reasons why innovative companies are fuelled by cooperation and collaboration, but most prominently, it is simply that without a level of trust and synergy, it is almost impossible to really innovate effectively.
To foster innovation within your own organisation, be sure to create an open environment which doesn’t judge its employees for thinking outside the box. Motivate them to strive for big goals and face their obstacles!
