Five main principles to build a successful team by CMO at Gamingtec
Two years ago, our CMO headed the Marketing Department at Gamingtec. Since then, her team has grown from one employee to a full team of professionals and started to resolve complicated tasks and support B2B client`s projects at a completely new qualitative level.
She shares 5 key principles that help her to manage the team and create a friendly and supportive environment in the department.
- Build a trust-based relationship
The main value is mutual trust and confidence in the professional quality of every team member. If a person gets the job in my department, it means I am absolutely confident in his/her level of expertise. This approach helps to build a leader-leader model in our department. Delegating control to the performers isn’t that easy but it is a good opportunity to grow professionally together and refocus efforts on other tasks that require my attention at the moment.
Beyond that, it is important to work with professionals whose expertise in some areas or issues can be higher than the team leader`s. Empowering the team with top-level professionals allows us to achieve greater results by sharing knowledge and implementing benchmarking practices.
2. Clarity and transparency
An open discussion is the best way to involve the whole team in the working process. I must clearly state our goals and actual plans for the reposting periods.
We have two golden rules in the team:
- If there is a problem, it should be discussed openly and honestly.
- Be open to criticism but do not take it personally.
3. Delegation is the key to productivity
Despite the desire to do everything by himself/herself, the team leader should remember that their task is not to accomplish a feat but to assign tasks wisely. Therefore, it is important to delegate tasks and be ready that at the first time they can be done not the way you’ve expected. The trick is that on the second time the same task will be done much better, and at the third time — even better than the team leader could expect.
By the way, when it comes to assigning particular tasks, it is much better to entrust professionals with areas of responsibility instead. In this case, the team leader doesn’t have to control whether each and every task is done on time, but can provide the team with conditions for productive work and provide them with tools for it. Once a team member knows which part of the work is in their responsibility, they don’t have to wait for orders and can take the initiative every time whenever the situation requires it. In this regard, my task switches from pushing team-mates to solve tasks to helping them by managing the whole process. Therefore, I always ask my team: ‘How can I help you? What sources do you need?’
4. Do not tolerate mediocrity
It is extremely important to have a powerful team of highly motivated professionals. I am ready to work with those who strive for results and work as hard as they can. With these people, we are at the same page: we have ambitious goals and we celebrate victories together. Strong team players keep on their toes the whole department.
5. See problems as opportunities
The biggest challenge we faced this year (as a whole world did) are quarantine restrictions and the necessity to reorganize our daily routine to remote mode. Staying far from each other, we started to communicate even more than we did in the office. We became more empathic and attentive to colleagues’ needs, we started to work harder and unite efforts to overcome difficulties. The pandemic became an opportunity to build trustable relationships and minimize the manager`s control in the team.
Just to conclude I would like to say that I see my role in providing reliable support to the whole team. To succeed in the marketing area, you should experiment and risk a lot, therefore, I allow my team members to carry a risk even if it means to make faults. However, I always make sure these faults are not crucial.
I believe the successful work of the team is possible only if every team member has mutual respect for each other and trust in the integrity of their respective work while the team leader supports not only the whole project but also every single professional that contributes to reaching the common goals.
Read also:
How to keep your IT team motivated? 5 Tips from our IT Project Manager at Gamingtec
