How to Build a Proactive Team in 7 Zero-Cost Steps
Building a strong proactive team is vital to business success. Unfortunately, the lack of systems all too often prevents streamlined processes. This lack of framework then creates a very reactive approach to handling day-to-day difficult situations.
Effective leaders know that helping their team develop the soft skills to be more proactive versus reactive, will empower people for career growth rather than career burnout.
The interesting thing is that you can transition a team from reactive to proactive with zero money. How is that? It’s all about mindset.
So quit throwing money at the problem and read on.
A Peek Inside Reactive vs Proactive Teams
Reactive teams live develop a reactive mindset that starts to crave the chaos of handling daily fires and overdue assignments. These reactive behaviors create workplace stress. That stress then often causes poor communication and unacceptable behaviors. This type of chaos often causes good people to leave. It also creates a decline in work productivity, and can affect quality of products and services.
On the other end of the spectrum, a proactive team engages in strategic thinking, effective communication, and results in a happier team. Teams who utilize problem-solving skills and thoughtful questions to engage in proactive thinking are better equipped to develop a plan and execute efficiently. They use project management skills to organize and effectively delegate new projects. They use processes and clear workflows to forever establish “WHO Shall do WHAT by WHEN”. This mantra gives each team member confidence that they are doing the tasks the right way.
Effective people who engage in proactive behavior often find greater career success. This then encourages a healthy work-life balance as there is less wasted mental energy in day-to-day operations.
The great news is that any business can start engaging in building a proactive versus reactive team with zero money. Increases in team communication, delegation, and to project management skills can transform a team. This lays the foundation for maximum performance and a healthy professional life.
7 Ways to Create a Proactive Team
1. Share Why It Matters to Be Proactive
Successful leaders know that a key first step is always to explain WHY this is important, not just to the company, but to each individual person on the team. Listeners will always pay attention to what’s in it for them. By identifying the benefits, and how a proactive work environment will result in personal growth and career growth, each team member can self-identify the career opportunities.
These discussions should often reference the company’s mission and vision as well as the core values that drive the company.
In Vivid Vision, author Cameron Herold encourages owners to get clear on where they are going within 3 years. He then encourages owners to convey that vision as succinctly as possible to their team. This allows others to get on board to your mission and help move forward.
Sharing what you are developing and why proactivity is a key element to the company allows you to open up the lines of communication with your team so they can understand how they fit into this future vision of what you are building.
2. Set Expectations on Personal Development
Transitioning a team to one that engages in greater organizational skills and proactive attitudes takes a transition in their personal mental state.
Employers must be careful in their approach, but in our experience, most people want to have less stress and feel more productive each day and are willing to start the journey of transformation by investing intentionality into what they do. Tap into these internal desires and share that you are invested in helping them in this journey and great strides can be made very quickly.
3. Empower and Delegate
Proactive teams are not wallflowers who wait for someone to micromanage every activity. If we want to transform the team into more proactive behavior, we need to verbally and physically show our team that we believe in them and their capabilities. It means helping them develop a proactive mindset so they take a more active role in owning the project and moving it forward.
Empower your team by sharing you have the confidence that they can do a great job. Then Develop Strong Delegation Skills and give them the framework to thrive.
In addition, if documented procedures for how to do the task are not yet in existence, this is a great time to empower the team to create checklists and document the procedures so that they’ll be forever clarity on “WHO Shall do WHAT by WHEN.”
4. Provide Resources & Use Technology
Basic project management skills encourage the use of planning and the use of resources. These resources may be other team members, outside vendors, or technology. By allowing our teams to innovate and find other ways to simplify the process and or get things done faster, we are allowing them to find success and to grow on a professional level.
Many people won’t immediately know if they have permission to utilize outside resources. If you want problem solving or outside the box thinking, it is imperative we allow them to innovate and find better ways. Encourage them to develop their problem-solving skills on their own. Encourage them to engage in thoughtful questions and proactive thinking. This applies both to developing new processes and using technology to get the project done faster.
Give your team space to write their own script and you’ll be amazed at the incredible outputs. You will also see a positive mental attitude develop in your team!
5. Fail Your Way to Success
Every good project manager knows that a key to success is allowing the team to fail forward. If we don’t try something, we never know if it works. In any given week, successful entrepreneurs are constantly making decisions many of which do not flesh out to be the right, but that doesn’t stop them from making decisions daily. Ensure that your team understands that you support them in trying new ideas and that we will grow as a company by each and every failure as it gets as closer to learning what works
Prioritize and focus on sprints.
6. Prioritize and Focus on Small Sprints
A key to developing a proactive team is to let them make forward progress to celebrate those wins. Progress on a three month or six month project is hard to see on a day to day basis.
By setting two weeks sprints, we are able to get things accomplished and celebrate those wins. This bolsters the enthusiasm and the recognition of forward progress. Both are essential to developing proactive people.
Again, basic project management skills allow teams to develop timelines for essential components and to take proactive measures to secure those milestones with confidence. Small sprints are a great tool of project management and you can start encouraging this action today.
7. Thanks for the Feedback
While many teams will start a discussion about wanting to become a more proactive team, they lose momentum, and the conversation thread gets lost.
One of the most powerful and effective tools that leaders can use is the art of giving feedback and accepting feedback in return.
In order to develop strong self-managers on our team, we must engage feedback to affirm the great work they are doing and give constructive criticisms and feedback on elements that need more refinement.
A team should not shy away from feedback and coaching. It is a necessary element to getting better and refining the processes. Unfortunately, all too often reactive people see feedback as negative behavior and fail to take any personal responsibility for the actions that may have had a role in a poor outcome.
Developing Your Proactive Team
Transforming a team from reactive to proactive takes work. The biggest transition that can start immediately is in the approach a leader takes to develop a proactive attitude. By being intentional with the elements above, a leader can grow the high-value skills of developing proactive people and if necessary shed the reactive people who refuse to change. Steps such as these will give you a proactive approach to change, and your team will start transforming immediately.
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