Moving employees beyond simply achieving basic goals is an art that only select IT leaders can master. Here are seven performance-boosting technologies that top IT professionals rely on.
Every IT leader wants to lead a team known for their talent, productivity, and imagination, but few truly have the capabilities needed to elevate their employees to exceptional levels.
A key difference between middle managers and super IT leaders is fear, as many managers simply aren't willing or able to take risks, missing out on opportunities to drive high performance for their employees.
Evan Callender, Practice Director of Managed Services at multinational West Monroe, said, "One of the big barriers for IT teams to achieve high performance is fear – whether [leaders] are afraid of failing, messing up, making mistakes, or causing downtime. "Management and technical consulting firms. IT leaders who want to energize their teams should not shy away from challenges, but should be prepared to "fail fast, anticipate failure, and Xi," he says.
Do you have the right resources to propel your IT team to new heights?Here are seven tips to get you started.
1.Priority Xi.
Successful teams work smart. That's why Kush Saxena, Mastercard's chief technology officer, advises that it's crucial to foster a culture of continuous learning Xi. As technology is constantly evolving, the most important technical skill today is the ability to learn Xi and upskill regularly.
As a technology leader, you have to encourage that [concept], whether it's taking time each week to get your development team Xi their technical skills or organizing a hackathon for employees to get them away from their day-to-day work to find new ways to solve tough problems," he said.
It's also important to recognize that a significant amount of Xi takes place informally among team members. "Create a culture of mentoring and reward high-performing employees who take the time to elevate their colleagues and teams," he said.
Tom Packert, a consultant at Wyntalent, an IT talent acquisition firm, says improving team performance requires motivation and competence. Documentation, tools, and training are required. "Each department should have its own team [web] page and knowledge base," he advises.
2.Freedom is provided with a fence.
Team members should be empowered to reach their full potential, a commitment that often requires a new approach to leadership.
As a management team, we are committed to shifting our leadership style from the traditional top-down command-and-control [model] to a more inclusive servant leadership style," said Andrew Palmer, Senior Vice President, U.S., CIO, Liberty Mutual Insurance. The company wanted its leaders to embody a growth mindset and showcase their style in multiple dimensions in order to empower their teams. "We hire smart people who we believe will create the best solutions to deliver customer value," he said.
One way to judge whether a permissive management approach is truly leading a team to elite performance is to look at employees' responses to accountability and their desire to Xi learn new things. "If team members resist responsibility and ownership, they're less likely to perform at their best," Callender explains. High-performing people often want to showcase their skills and are keen to take on new challenges. "When you see that happening, you know you're capable of taking your team to the next level," he noted.
3.Don't neglect the soft skills of your employees.
Work with employees to develop essential job skills outside of IT. "We've found that coaching technical teams in soft skills (communication, presentation, and emotional intelligence) creates excellent ROI and improves performance across the board because it builds cohesion both inside and outside the IT team," advises Vince Repaci, a senior coach with expertise. Development and career coaching company Lovr Atlantic.
More and more businesses are now asking their IT leaders to take on the task of building and maintaining a culture of customer service excellence.
It's important to evaluate the hard technical skills of each member of the team, but it's even more important to assess their desire to embrace customer-first service excellence, [and] their willingness to understand the business drivers behind the requirements, says Rich Temple, vice president and CIO at Deborah Heart Center in Brown Mills, New Jersey.
Ask yourself: Are team members going the extra mile for customers?Do they show enthusiasm for the tasks assigned to them?"I know that when I see that enthusiasm, I get excited because I think it's contagious to the team," he said.
4.Monitor and measure performance.
Superstar IT teams, by their very nature, are capable of producing excellent performance metrics. Unfortunately, there isn't a single magical statistic that can be tracked to provide a complete and meaningful picture of employee performance.
We live in a world full of tickets, lines, story points, and project milestones," Callender observed. All of this information should be linked to an accurate time report to understand what time is being spent and what tasks are being generated or processed. "Being able to track productivity and achieve accountability will quickly separate those on the team who are doing well from those who aren't," he explains.
Saxena notes that while benchmarking teams against performance indicators (quantitative and qualitative) will help pinpoint performance gaps, it's important to be objective when researching results. "Don't rush to conclusions about whether your team is performing well or not," he warns. This is not a binary situation. "Think of improvement as a continuous scope: If you take the right steps, you'll find plenty of opportunities for your team to improve and work in sync. ”
5.Encourage free and open thinking.
Jacinta Jimenez, head coach at professional coaching firm BetterUp, recommends creating a team culture that focuses on psychological safety. "We've all been to meetings [hoping to] express important opinions or ideas, but ultimately hesitate because we feel too vulnerable," she explains. This feeling is essentially the opposite of psychological security. "When there is a team culture that encourages interpersonal risk-taking, there is room for new ideas to take shape, people feel seen and heard, and potential mistakes or risks surface more quickly. ”
At Liberty Mutual, we believe that people perform best when they work in an environment where they feel safe," Palmer said. He added, "We strive to create a relaxed but professional work environment that is both buzzing and exciting about the startup culture and balanced with the strengths of a stable Fortune 100 company. "We value flexible work arrangements and family-friendly benefits, which are key advantages in winning the best tech talent. ”
It's also important to think of team members as unique individuals with unique talents and weaknesses. "As a result, you may need to make adjustments to your processes or training to optimize individual performance and ultimately reach your team's full potential," notes Chris Fielding, CIO at Sungard **ailability Services, an IT production and recovery services provider. Fielding also emphasized that team members should always be provided with a clear set of goals to focus on. "Then you can review the areas that you're lacking to identify the talent opportunities that you need to address," she said.
6.Be an inspirer.
Passionate and committed to being an agent of change for the team and the organization as a whole. "Hold a team meeting, articulate your vision, and hear from the team on how they think best to achieve the vision," Temple advises. Let the team know how valuable they are to the organization and prove it in any way they can. "If you're really excited about what you want to do, as long as you're genuine, it will affect your team," he added.
However, Packett warns that long-term employees may find it difficult to embrace change due to inefficient processes. "The change that is imposed on people without proper training and support can lead to some bad behavior," he warned.
7.Encourage your experts to hone their craft.
Developers, engineers, and other IT professionals are often lifelong Xi in nature. "They want to use the latest technology and continuously improve their problem-solving skills," Palmer observes. "Whether building something new or refactoring legacy applications, we encourage our engineers to take advantage of modern, cloud-based technologies, which helps them grow professionally. ”
To support this goal, Liberty Mutual hosts regular lab sessions where developers can experiment with new technologies, and hosts an annual Engineering Excellence Day focused on helping team members build new skills.
This article is from *** CIO Information (non-profit organization;Information Officer Information;Information Officer Recruitment Part-time Information;Assist IT practitioners to better engage in career development).