What it takes to build a Self Managing Team
I have worked with over 100 managers and teams, which includes building around 40 high-performance, self-managing teams. From this work I have learnt that there are common reasons why managers and teams fail, and why both do not develop to their full potential. The reasons are simple in nature and are relatively easy to correct, making you a better manager with a dedicated, loyal, self-managing team.
The majority of training in today’s companies is ineffective due to the purpose, timing, and content of the training being flawed. Training courses that run for just a couple of days or a week, have been proven in several studies to be a waste of time. Pre-and post-training surveys by McKinsey show that most managers thought little had changed as a result of training, even though it had been inspiring at the time. The same surveys also showed that most employees quickly regressed to their pre-training performance.
· Only 12% of employees apply new skills learned in training programs.
· Only 25% of respondents believed that training measurably improved performance.
Training can go wrong in all kinds of ways. But the most important failures occur outside the classroom. By focusing on creating a receptive mind-set for training before it happens and ensuring a supportive environment afterward, you can dramatically improve the business impact of a training program.
Adults learn by doing, people learn best when they have to practice something that has immediate relevance to their role. Incorporating new learning into actual work is the most effective way to retain knowledge. If new information isn’t applied, we quickly forget what we’ve learned. In fact, we will forget as much as 75% of it after just six days.
The learning approach I take to training is to change behaviours, not mindsets. This is because it is easier to 'act your way into new thinking' than to 'think your way into new actions’. This approach is underpinned with the ‘spaced repetition’ method which spreads learning out over time. Studies show that by using this method, people remember about 80% of what they have learned after 60 days, a significant improvement.
Self-managing teams do not spring up overnight, to achieve a genuine self-managing team takes time, but the end result is outstanding and long lasting.
Read the full training program overview here
