Managing teams is a wonderful experience; tough, demanding, and yet immensely fulfilling.

You manage a service business, or a service delivery team. You have a good well-knit team, that needs to be grown in number to meet the requirements of your growing business.

You are tying up with new clients, getting new assignments; great place to be for any businesses. It is time to add new team members, new leaders, and managers.

But you are unsure about the way your team will take this. “Will my team perceive new additions as threat to their relevance in my business?” It is natural for such thoughts to keep you on the edge.

Growth is good!

Yes, the phase is inspired from a famous Hollywood movie. Growth brings in positivity in teams. It indicates increased sustainability of the business, and a potential for individual growth. Capability – Capacity – Communication can help to manage such situations well. We call it our 3C Model.

Capability

Managers need to evaluate requirements of their businesses, and capabilities of their team members from time to time. Unbiased assessments help to identify appropriate allocation of responsibilities to generate optimum results.

If some team members, including your star performers, need to be up-skilled, train them. Group trainings in functional skills and soft skills, are more effective than one-on-one sessions.

Capacity

In service businesses, capacity is often determined by Capability of team members.

Your team leads can at best manage 4 clients at a time to maintain service delivery? That’s capacity!

Your team leads can at best manage a team of 6 along with their own deliverables? That’s capacity!

Businesses of functions operate within these capacity parameters, which are used to determine a realistic team structure and team size.

Communication

Once you are ready with your homework based on Capability and Capacity, you must communicate with your team. This is where most often managers falter. Teams want managers who are genuine and fair. And this needs to be displayed in actions, and in words.

Discussing broad plans with the team lets them be an integral part of the change. Team members understand that without more pair of hands, the existing team would get loaded with more work. That could mean longer work hours, weekends included. Nobody fancies that.

Your team members are pillars of strength on whose shoulders your business stands tall. Engage them and help build their capabilities and capacities. The simple three step C-T-G approach can help achieve this. We love acronyms!

• Coachyour team to help them see your vision. Team members understand that growth benefits all, and upgrading their own skills could make them ready for larger roles.
• Trainthem to be ready for change, to be ready for the longer journey. Help them strengthen their Capabilities and build on them.
• Guide Circumstances change, and even good team lead could lose their mojo. Help them to correct their course.

Be there for those who have been there for you!