Feedback in teams as a tool to increase efficiency

Inspired. I was preparing material on cornflake.ru , and suddenly I made an article of my own.

Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork is one of the key concepts in modern business. Now everyone is implementing “projects”, and they are being implemented with the help of “commands”. The theme of teamwork is rich. And that is why in this material we will not superficially cover all its aspects, but will focus on the concept of building effective feedback within the team.

What is feedback in our case? Opinions, ratings, ratings - all that is usually embedded in this concept. The peculiarity here is that we are talking about opinions, ratings and assessments expressed and put up within the team - when colleagues, team members working to achieve the same goal, evaluate each other's work. The necessary conditions for the application of the described concept in practice:

• project implementation period not less than a month;
• clearly defined responsibilities of each team member.

Why are we talking about projects? Because the project - the work, the implementation of which has a pronounced beginning and end. In most cases, any project that requires considerable effort, lasts at least a month. This statement is true for almost any kind of activity. Houses (good) are not built in a month, it takes more than a month to work out the details of large transactions, a full-fledged advertising campaign is always developed and carried out in a period at least twice as large as one month. The list of examples can be continued. In addition, if the work lasts less than a month, there is a risk of receiving false information. People in the team just do not have time to know each other. Clearly defined responsibilities are generally given for any team whose work is effective. From the point of view of feedback within the team, responsibilities are the basis for peer evaluation by each other. The role of the manager in the team is great. He is a leader whom everyone should equal. In the list of answers of a good manager there is no option "I do not know." Manager-leader confidently leads the team to achieve the goal. At the same time, he pursues his goals, one of which is to get the most out of the team. Feedback within the team is one of the tools that helps the manager to optimize all the work, bring it to the level of maximum efficiency. So, the team is assembled, the task is set, the responsibilities of each participant are registered. The first thing that a manager (the same leader) must do when applying feedback within a team is to notify everyone about it. Anonymity is anonymity, but there should be no secrecy and undercurrents in this process. Each team member should know that his colleagues will evaluate the contribution they make to the common cause. Of course, the tone that this news is presented to the team is very important. The traditional positive attitude is the key to success. It is extremely important to create a positive attitude towards feedback, to eliminate the rejection of mutual evaluations. It is difficult, but possible. The leader, by definition, knows the personal and professional qualities of each team member. They must be considered in the construction of the conversation. If the leader feels that, due to the nature of any team member, a one-on-one conversation will be more effective than a collective discussion, he conducts such a conversation. At the same meeting, it is necessary to announce the process regulations, the feedback scheme. Of course, everything here depends on the specifics of the task to be solved, however, there is one basic setting: the basis of the criteria by which an employee is evaluated is his responsibilities in the context of the project being implemented. Everything else depends on the specifics of the task facing the manager as an optimizer of the workflow. If it is necessary to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an employee’s professional activities, an assessment can be entrusted only to those of his colleagues who are in direct contact with him during the project, whose work is directly related to the work of this employee. For example, in the production of the site task designer maker directly depend on the decisions of the designer. But the content manager - the person filling the site - has no direct working contact with the designer. He is much closer to a programmer who creates and / or configures a CMS (content management system) for specific needs. In turn, the programmer solves work issues with the system administrator, in charge of which is the server hosting the site. If the leader’s task is to find out the principal professional suitability of employees, as well as options for reprofiling some of them, it makes sense to collect information from all team members. Perhaps some person “does not sit in his place”, but has abilities that can be developed and applied with greater benefit for the cause. Interacting with colleagues, he will definitely show such abilities. Returning to the site development example: a middle-up man can turn into a good designer, and a content manager, who tends to learn, “terrorizes” a programmer with questions like “Why does it all work out exactly like that?” programming. The practical implementation of feedback in a team depends on the working conditions. You can use e-mail, a closed area of ​​the corporate network, regular sheets of paper, simple speech. The main thing is to collect information. The frequency of its collection depends on the duration of the project. If all problems are solved within a month, information can be received every three working days. If the period of work is significant, the assessment can be set at the end of the week. Analysis of the information received is the main task of the manager. However, you can not make any decisions immediately after receiving the first data. Any information of this kind is required confirmation. In addition, you should not take sole, strong-willed decisions. The manager, the leader works with people, and he should not forget about it. We need to talk with the worker before making any changes in his working life. Yes, this is a truism, but precisely because of its capital character, it is often forgotten or ignored. Of course, there is an authoritarian management model, but for obvious reasons, it is not widely used. In addition, with a sufficient level of cohesion and internal openness of the team, it makes sense to bring such a conversation to the level of the team. Having received the support of colleagues in a new undertaking, the employee will achieve much greater success. The main result of the feedback within the team is the fine tuning of all processes carried out by the manager. In turn, the result of fine tuning is an increased level of team efficiency. Well, the outcome of the whole enterprise obviously depends on the level of the team’s effectiveness. If you are a manager, after reading this article you can say: “Yes, I already do it all”. Of course. We all do it. Along the way, without a specific goal. But try to bring the feedback in the team to the system, systematically analyze the information received, and you will see much more colors in the picture of your team.