Inspiration Leadership Teams

Rewards and Recognition

February 25, 2008 1 Comment Usman Sheikh read

“No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper rewards.” Booker T Washington

Rewards and recognitions are key motivational factors for teams. In the past, I thought rewards were primarily financial rewards. As I explored this topic more I discovered that different individuals required different types of rewards to keep them motivated. All that some needed was recognition by their boss for their contribution, others needed some affirmation from their team mates while others felt satisfied with their year end bonus. Your job as a team or project leader should be to find out what sort of rewards and recognition your team mates are looking for.

The tricky part with a rewards and recognition (R&R) program is to formulate it in such a way that is both fair and balanced. A badly constructed program could work against the organization and foster complacency and unhealthy competition among team members. When constructing an R&R program I usually involve all the individuals who will be affected by it to contribute their ideas and suggestions. Rather than constructing a standard bonus ladder you should aim to have a more dynamic program which keep things interesting while keeping the goals clearly in focus.

At a startup company, especially at the beginning ,when finances may be tight it becomes essential to structure an R&R program which gives team members necessary rewards and recognition and keeps the motivational level high. Some of the techniques which I have used have been providing training and development budgets, recognition awards and stock options, these have been helpful when working on tight budgets. If budgets are tight you should focus on developing a lot more creative non-monetary rewards. Tailor them according to the personalitiesand motivations of your team members . Learn what motivates your team members today and tailor an R&R program accordingly.

Related article: Rewards and Recognition for teams

Teams

5 Steps to creating winning teams

January 14, 2008 5 Comments Usman Sheikh read

“When it comes to anything that’s social, whether it’s your family, your school, your community, your business or your country, winning is a team sport.” Bill Clinton – 42nd American President

Over the course of this week we have explored the basic fundamental steps which need to be taken to get your dream team into place. It is definitely not the easiest of tasks. However with enough time spent in searching for these, the long term pay off is worth all the effort. The following will be five steps any individual should take when setting up his/her ideal team.

1. Identification of the self: Before we set out to find our teammates we have to first take a good look at ourselves. Who we are and what our core values are . This will help us to identify core strengths as well as vulnerabilities. We will then know to a great extent what sort of people we need to be on the look out for. A key factor of this step is acknowledging, that the law of attraction states that what you get is not determined by what you want. It is determined by who you are. To read more please click here.

2. 8 core characteristics checklist: After you have made an effort to understand who you are, you have to find individuals who share your core values and those of the business. These are individuals who understand the bigger picture and have the ability to execute on a micro level as well. They have a passion for what they do and strive to be the best at it. Once they commit to a goal they work arduously to reach it with honesty, integrity and within ethical and moral boundaries. Use this checklist whenever you are evaluating either joining a team or recruiting members for it. To read more please about the 8 core characteristics please click here.

3. The first critical discussion:This is a step which is usually overlooked or not given enough importance by startup teams. The core question surrounding this meeting is “Who does what?” and “Who gets what?”. These are fundamental questions which need to be answered and talked about extensively before starting operations. If the key points such as commitment levels and amount of capital injection isn’t talked about clearly it results in the team not performing at its potential and usually leads to the beginning of an ugly down cycle for the the team as a whole. To read more about what needs to be discussed in this meeting click here.

4. Performance Management Processes: When teams are new, productivity is usually high. As time goes by there will be a series of highs and lows. These in turn affect productivity and efficiency within the group. If you don’t monitor productivity closely you will end up with polarized teams. These result in factions between the highly productive and the mediocre performers, which in turn causes the entire team’s productivity to decrease and may even result in the team breaking up. In order to keep close tabs on this a team must run regular performance appraisals to monitor the teams progress towards targeted goals and commitments. To read more on performance management processes please click here.

5. Rewards and Recognition Strategy: Team members make a substantial investment when they join startup ventures. They are hoping for a greater payoff for the substantial risk that they are taking. If the team doesn’t manage its rewards and recognition strategy correctly, there will be a loss of morale which directly impacts productivity of the team. We have to ensure that the team collectively decides on attractive rewards and recognition for team members who perform above the average. This will create an environment which is conducive to growth as it pushes everyone in the team that much harder. Correctly managed rewards and recognition strategies are a critical factor which need to be put into place when creating winning teams. To read more about rewards and recognition strategies please click here.

To wrap it all up, first get to know who you are – then look for individuals who excel on the 8 core characteristics checklist – ensure that before starting the project you have clearly recorded who is going to be doing what and what he/she will be getting – track performance extremely closely – reward team members when they excel. Following these simple steps will enable you to get a startup off the ground faster, with greater efficiency and well prepared for the long run.Paying attention to yesterday posts title will translate into. Together Everyone Achieves More = TEAM.I hope everyone has benefited from this week’s topic. If you have any specific queries, questions or suggestions please get in touch.[digg=http://digg.com/business_finance/5_Steps_to_Creating_Winning_Teams]

Teams

Rewards and Recognitions for teams

January 12, 2008 2 Comments Usman Sheikh read

“In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” – Aristotle

Your startup seems to be coming along well. You have put a lot of fundamental building blocks into place and motivation in the work place is high. Along the course of the year you will have performance reviews and will monitor closely your progress in reaching stipulated goals. Through the course of time, high performers will appear as well as those who are not pulling their weight. To tackle this situation, startups have to take a look at their performance reviews as well as their “Rewards & Recognition” plan closely. This is something which is new to me. The need for this sort of planning appeared when I was part of teams and noticed that high performers were not being suitably rewarded compared to those who had mediocre performances. Such plans are always passed over as they cause substantial ruffling of feathers in a team. Over time I have learned that this sort of competition for rewards and recognition is healthy for an organization and a team to push themselves further.

Firstly the work that your team members are doing for the business is an investment. In return for this investment they are hoping for a substantially higher return given the amount of risk associated. Thus in the first critical meeting we have allocated who gets what given that this is a start up enterprise. For example there are 4 team members who get together to start an online business which would be selling used textbooks to university students. The equity in the company is decided to be spread equally. Everyone is delegated tasks and specific goals in areas of management, sales, technical and customer service. Apart from those tasks everyone is always on the lookout for used books sources and channels to sell them through (being part of a startup company is as easy as it seems). At this stage I have found it helpful to allocate:

1. Overall team performance rewards.

2. Individual performance rewards and recognition.

These should be discussed and agreed upon by all team members. I have made the mistake in the past of personally allocating the rewards and recognitions to the teams I was leading. That didn’t work well. You have to get all your team members together and ask them what sort of rewards are important to them and what they think would be appropriate benchmarks and percentages. So make everyone a part of this process and you will churn out a winning rewards and recognition plan by your team mates for your team mates.

Team performance can be set at a target to sell 1000 used text books in the month of Jan. For every additional book sold the entire team will share 5% of the profit according to equity split.

For individual performance those who perform exceedingly well on their delegated tasks as well as surpass their monthly sales quota will receive an additional 20% of the profit from the surplus of the books they sold. Along with that the top performer’s efforts will be celebrated courtesy of the rest of his team members.

I have been amazed at how effective this has been in teams where it has been executed correctly. There are a couple of team configurations which make such rewards and recognitions difficult to deploy. However what this article hopes to get across is that rewards and recognition are essential in creating a culture in your organization which celebrates outstanding performance. It makes those individual who are not pushing themselves hard enough to do so and creates an almost electric environment when things are moving well and fast.