As the leader, it’s your job to rearrange teams and make sure the right people are working together. There’s nothing worse than having the right people on the bus and ready for the ride, but placing them in the wrong seat. Sadly, this happens far too often – and businesses fall short of their potential.
If people aren’t on the right teams, they will strongly consider leaving your organization. Some people work well together, and others don’t.
Some people make a big deal out of people not liking one another in the workplace, but it’s actually quite common and happens all the time. As a leader, it’s your job to not only help to resolve conflicts but also to move people to the right team.
Get to Know Your Colleagues and Employees!
Yes, there are lots of nuances here. Sometimes people have to work together – for example, their skills, job functions, and duties closely intersect. With that said, as a leader, you have more power and flexibility than you may have initially realized.
First and foremost, get to know your employees. It blows my mind how many leaders don’t do this. You need to walk the floor and be in touch with what’s going on with your colleagues and employees. Here are some ideas to consider:
- Invite someone (or several people) out to lunch. If you have a company expense account, offer to pay for their lunch.
- Grab a coffee with someone, either on company grounds or somewhere nearby. These informal kinds of discussions are often where people are the most open.
- Have a quick chat at their desk, or in a private room. This doesn’t have to be a long discussion – it can be fifteen, ten, even five minutes. The key here is that you don’t want to wait for a conflict to arise to get to know someone – you want to have gotten to know them beforehand.
The reason getting to know your employees is so important is because once you know people’s preferences, strengths, and weaknesses, you can personalize your leadership style to them and help them to succeed in your organization. (You don’t have to be their boss to do this, either.) Once you know who people are, what they’re about, and how they can succeed, you can take the initiative to get them on the right team – and to do so tactfully, in a way that doesn’t ruffle too many feathers.
If you don’t have the authority to do this, go to someone who does. You don’t need a title to be a leader – leadership is about action, not status and title. If the leader you go to won’t do it, go to someone else. Be proactive and make it happen.
Without a doubt, you need to be strategic in the sense of doing this in the right way and at the right time. But don’t live in fear, either. There are people who will give up on an entire job and organization simply because they don’t get along with someone – when all they needed was to be placed on a different team, with a different boss.
Taking someone off of one team and putting them on another is in no way an insult to the original boss. This is where it’s crucial to not have a high ego, as a boss with the right kind of leadership training will view losing a team member as an opportunity to find someone who is a better fit for their team. That’s why we, as leaders, must choose to leave our egos at the door as we step into work each day. Instead of feeling attacked or threatened, with the right perspective, mindset, and attitude, leaders can encourage the potential of their colleagues.
This is not theory. This is practical. When the right people are moved to the right teams, your business will succeed at a higher level and turnover will go down. Things take time and most things are a work in progress, but with the right leadership framework, a business can reorganize their teams in a way that improves the bottom line.
Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, most recently publishing The Power of Authentic Leadership: Activating the 13 Keys to Achieving Prosperity Through Authenticity. He’s also an authentic leadership keynote speaker and Executive Coach to leaders and CEOs, offering individualized coaching. Follow him on Twitter.
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