If you’re responsible for leading a team or run your own business, you understand how difficult it can be to get everyone on the same page when it comes to implementing changes or working on a project or toward a common goal. No matter what you’re doing, you’re going to have employees that feel a bit in the dark about their responsibilities and how what you’re doing relates to their job. That is, unless you take the extra step and successfully implement methods to get your team involved with the ultimate goals. Make it a priority to talk with your team and truly make your work collaborative and clear.
Plan together
When you first start working on a new project or goal, have your team sit down with you and sincerely discuss what you’re attempting to do. Tell them what the ultimate end goal is and give a few of your ideas for working toward it. Then, ask for their input. You might be surprised at some of the ideas offered. It’s better to have multiple working on solving an issue and achieving a goal than relying on the head of the team to come up with the game plan.
Write it all down
Once you’ve started planning how you’ll achieve your new goal, write everything down. This advice can even be beneficial in the planning stage, so you can keep track of the ideas thrown around and have a record of what’s been discussed. As you craft your plan, it’s also helpful to write it down and keep it accessible to all members of the team in order to reference later. Make sure your plan is clear and organized in a way that makes it simple to understand.
Stay organized
After creating an organized plan, you want to organize the rest of the project. Keep all of the materials in the same place, either an online storage hub, Dropbox, or Google Drive. Give all team members access and make it clear who’s assigned what task. The more organized your plans, the less risk there is for confusion amongst your team.
Reiterate the goals
Most projects take a significant amount of time, so reiterate goals for your team to keep them focused on the big picture. Keeping the end goal in mind makes the steps to get there clearer and clarifies what you need to do.
Delegate tasks
When making a plan, make sure you delegate tasks to other people and avoid taking too much on yourself or assigning too many tasks to one person. The team needs to work together and help you, and each other, out. It can be difficult to trust others to do the best job, but you’re going to need to find this trust in order to do the best work possible and reach your goals.
Communicate with them
The best way to avoid confusion and mistakes when working with a team on something is to ensure there’s regular communication occurring. Talk to them about the goals, what tasks they need to do, and make it clear they can come to you with questions whenever they need to.
