management mantras

As a manager, it's your responsibility to cultivate and promote team work, organize team outing at least once in a quarter. You must go out and organize some team games. Avoid discussions on the routine work and if possible organize such events at a place far away from your work area.

You create strong bonding within your team, when you occasionally also include their family members. This type of an event may be planned once in six months, and have some fun games for the family. This will provide an opportunity to understand each other's family, remember ‘to be successful', there has to be a strong support of family.

We do discuss and plan trainings, but only at the time of appraisal which is mostly once a year. This is not enough. We need to discuss and plan trainings for the team based on organizational and individual needs. The training requirement needs to be discussed on a regular basis. It is also important that we ensure future assignments are in line with the trainings provided to individuals.

Let us accept the fact that change is the law of nature. We must, on a regular basis, try and rotate responsibilities among team members. This will not only rejuvenate the team but also bring out the best from each team member.

There is a saying “Aim for the moon, even if you miss you will be among stars”, set tough goals for the team but remember don't make it impossible. Another key point is to set goal as per the individual's potential, this is a gradual process and the bar has to be raised every time you get to your set goal.

Positive environment plays a key role for the team to perform; a high performer can also fail if the right environment is not given. When we talk of environment, there are 3 key factors, ‘freedom to express your opinions without fear', ‘motivate and reward successes' and last but not the least ‘empower your team to take decisions'.

Keep at least 30 minutes of your time aside to just focus on where things may go wrong. Be proactive and not always reactive to the situation, as we say prevention is better than cure. Learn from past mistakes and take all precautions to avoid re-occurrence.

Promote 'out of the box' thinking, show a little bit of flexibility on the written process and guidelines, many times you may discover a much better way. This is all about improvisation. Younger minds bring great ideas and they do wonders.

As we do brand building, we need to nurture each one of our team member to bring out their best. Try to discover the core strength in each individual and let them be aware of their core strength. This will help them in future to create their own USP (unique selling point).

We must celebrate each and every success however small it may be. It may be just a small get together with team , arrange an appreciation card and write small paragraph about success, and do not forget to mention the name of key contributors.