The Knowledge Bites blog - grow your skills

If you’ve been effectively following the principles outlined so far in this series, then you’ll automatically be making progress in breaking down silos which exist. You can now bring this all together into thinking about the relationships you have across the organisation to improve communication and collaboration. Understanding where your team fits in In order to widen your professional network within the organisation, you need to think about the people you rely on and the people who rely on you. This creates a very simple workflow to use as a basis for building your internal professional network. As you complete this diagram, you need to think about: •    Who your team relies on •    What your team does •    Who relies on your team •    Who the key stakeholders are on each side of the map Once you understand this information, you can think about who would be the most suitable people to have in your internal network. What i...

If you've been following this series of posts, you now have your clear vision for the team. That means that you can now work to make your team gel by developing a team identity around this vision, and the way the individuals in the team would like to operate. A key element of this is the development of a Team Charter – this is a document, created by the team members together, which maps out how the team will operate. It brings a number of advantages: Team members feel “bought in” to the success of the team Greater adherence to “rules” as everyone has had input into their development Mindset that it’s “our” team, rather than “the leader’s team” Team charters are flexible documents which should be reviewed annually, or whenever there’s a major change in the team’s make-up, such as new members joining. The elements of a team charter Whilst there’s no set way to create a team charter, there are some areas which are useful to consider when developing this agreement. These include: Why ...

In a previous blog post, I reminded you of the important skills you have as a leader . Now it’s time to think about the team and the impact you’d like them to have. You need to think about which other parts of the organisation benefit from what your team does. Consider the value you bring. Put yourself in the shoes of these other parts of the organisation, and ask yourself. "In an ideal world, what additional value would these parts of the organisation want to gain from the people I manage?" This should become your over-arching goal for the team. It’s about bringing value to the organisation, either directly, or in collaboration with others in the business. Then, consider what it would mean if you achieved this additional value, for you, for your team, and for the organisation. Your vision statement is a sentence which describes this desired future state, written from the perspective of it being a goal for you: "By [date], we will be [what you’ll be doing] in order to [v...

 In this week's tip, we'll look at how to recognise and overcome self-limiting beliefs as a leader. Before you work on your team vision, it’s important to remind yourself of what you’re capable of, and to remove any self-limiting beliefs. A self-limiting belief is a belief you have about yourself which puts an artificial ceiling on what you can achieve, by draining your own self-confidence in your role. Self-limiting beliefs can come from many places, such as: Past experiences Comments by others Values we inherit The media & social media The way we compare ourselves to others Breaking d...