Building your dream team
Article Date: Mar 23 2005
Dispersing responsibility, dispelling fear, divesting yourself of weaklings and deepening trust are the keys to building the perfect management team.
Last year, Charlie Hoult had to build a management team from scratch, recruiting for IT, finance, HR and marketing divisions, after merging his business, Wilson Harvey, with brand communications group Loewy. Having made mistakes in the past, Hoult, as chief executive of the business, was determined to make a better fist of the fight this time around.
From the outset he was keen to get gifted people in every position, although he was equally determined not to deploy the laissez-faire, ‘Sven Goran Eriksson’ management approach (which he characterises as "oh, let’s just let the star players perform"). He wanted an element of democracy – after all, everyone needs to have a voice – but within a structure that optimised overall performance and which placed an emphasis on planning.
‘The new management team here has had to learn what authority is really about,’ says Hoult. ‘It has been difficult but very useful. Over the last year, there have not been many clashes because we have gradually realised that we have a lot in common.
‘One of the areas I have been emphasising is for my team to focus not on where the company is now, but where it could be one, two or three years down the line.’
Part of this has involved priming existing staff for more senior positions – ‘you must think about how to re-invent and empower people,’ he explains – but it has also involved cutting out very quickly those people who don't work, to ensure that ‘you cause minimum disruption’ to the enterprise.
Having a team united to a single purpose was crucial because in February this year he added three more agencies to his business, increasing annualised turnover to £10 million and the head-count to 100.
This has thrown up many problems, not least his own role within the organisation. 'I've had to constantly redefine myself as my team has grown. I used to be a jack-of-all-trades, getting involved with clients, ideas, training and recruiting. I now do fewer of those things, or do them at a different level. It's a challenge though – sometimes I have less to do on my desk and then I have to take stock of what my priorities are,' he acknowledges.
Strengthen, not stifle
According to Dominic Wright from leadership development specialists The Leadership Trust, one of the problems an expanding business encounters on the team-building front is the tendency for the CEO to tighten control as the team grows.
‘One of the fundamental growing pains around teams in SMEs is how a company refines and consolidates its processes. In many instances, it requires a change in leadership style away from a transactional approach to one that is more transformational. It can be a precarious time and so leaders tend to tighten control, because that is what is comfortable for them. But this ends up stifling staff potential.’
Banish control freakery
Control is an area Julia Middleton, chief executive officer and founder of educational organisation Common Purpose, believes is familiar ground when it comes to team-building.
‘In my view, people who strive for high-performance are very determined not to have a team at all. In some of the programmes we run, there is a deliberate attempt from CEOs not to team-build, because then they feel they are no longer in control if they do.’
‘There is also a tendency to forget some of the basics, such as apologising when you get something wrong. Unless you re-learn these things, your team will never perform,’ advises Middleton.
Another area that can generate inertia is the fear of making the wrong choices when picking and building management. But there are ways you can monitor your potential choices without committing yourself. Companies such as Asda and Vodafone have placed good-performing middle managers onto the board as non-executives, to expose potential candidates to board level experience.
However, ‘it can be much harder to do in a small business, but if you as a leader can separate your emotional attachment from the business and your ego, then you are much more likely to make the right choices,' believes Judith Clegg, associate director of consultancy Egremont.
