Rapidly Growing Teams — App’n’roll blog

In order to create and maintain a well structured team consisting of various indispensable individuals, each with significant strengths and talents, we should consider onboarding and the capability to learn from our mistakes in order to improve ourselves.

Let’s imagine that there are two team members (two minds) collaborating on a project, they communicate between one another, this is one connection (1 ^ 2 = 1). The value of the team increases as the size of the team increases.

If we have five team members, the value becomes twenty five (5 ^ 2 = 25) and by the time we reach a thousand members of staff, the value is at one million.

This is an example of how Metcalfe’s law could be used to interpret rapidly growing teams and how the solutions to problems are sometimes found in unexpected places, if you know where to look.

It’s important to remember that less connections means less noise, which is ultimately better for the organization.

Organizational Socialization

Onboarding is how we’re able become the most effective at what we do. It is the combination of organization efforts, newcomer tactics and new employee characteristics, aided by adjustments to create the most incredible team outcomes.

Curious, proactive and open people make the best team members. A certain level of extroversion is also encouraged but not necessary.

Teams who seek actively seek out new information and trends will be able to implement new tactics and help build relationships. We highlighted some useful team related strategies in The Startup Studio Model: The Team.

One concept App’n’roll recently started is a mentoring system. We’ve created a handbook available to all employees so that they can familiarise themselves with the company on arrival.

Being able to access information relating to the office in your own time is just one of the ways of making life a little easier and possibly even more organised!

Every new employee has a mentor from the team to provide them with help and leadership, the mentors also ensure that onboarding goes well. It’s less about contributing skills and more about being there for each individual. Explaining things clearly and concisely whilst checking that everything is heading in the right direction.

Gaining trust and being able to trust members of your team will inspire confidence in one another, lead to much smoother project development stages and the instigation of ideas.

If you trust that someone will do something, you won’t need to worry or look over their shoulder but when there’s doubt, it can be highly problematic for everyone involved.

Socialization techniques have numerous benefits. A team member satisfied with their job will perform better, they’ll suffer from less occupational stress and are will feel an inherent psychological attachment to their team and to the company or organisation.

In order to facilitate the development of well adjusted employees (especially new employees), organizational efforts and programs can be put into place such as mentoring, coaching and orientation activities.

These are all examples of such efforts, with emphasis on coaching (oneself) and self improvement to monitor progression, rather than basic training.

Learning From Our Mistakes

It’s crucial to hire A-players. A-players are employees (aka team members) who are a pleasure to work with. They’re game changers, influencers and ultimately, self-motivated.

They want to earn their respect and responsibility. We want individuals to be proud of their work and to achieve this they need to expect nothing less than excellence from one another.

Technical skills are not enough, cultural fit is a must. It’s easier to develop and work on an individual’s knowledge than it is to change them as a person as questionable behaviour and attitudes tend to be irreversible.

The philosophy of a company may become diluted if the focus shifts away from mindset and common goals. It comes down to being part of the same team, unique personalities with distinctive characteristics brought together by their willingness, dedication and contribution to the swift pace of company growth.

Here are six concepts which may help with a rapidly growing team:

1. Failure is a good thing, we learn from our mistakes but it’s preferable if the mistake we make in the first places is minimal and within reason. Although it isn’t a good idea to make the same mistakes twice, common sense plays a huge role in this, we need to learn from our mistakes as fast as possible.
2. Mistakes are inevitable if you want to reach scale because you need to start delegating as soon as possible. Sometimes team members may not be ready but it’s important that they learn fast. If you fail first, you’ll succeed later.
3. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission as micromanagement doesn’t scale. Learning from mistakes can also be put down to a lack of micromanagement. Giving teams freedom enables them to rapidly develop themselves and one another.
4. Over-communication is a must, keeping in touch, working on praising teams and individual achievements will stabilize dynamics in the work environment. Processes for learning and measuring successes are a positive reminder to everyone that the work we’re doing makes a difference. Data driven victories are encouraging as visual reminders for teams.
5. Planning skills within an organization should be impeccable. Being able to plan, predict, promote and encourage admirable behaviour will make everyone’s life easier.
6. A team full of unpredictability may lead to unexpected issues at a later date. It’s better to start a little unorganized and find your feet than to avoid planning altogether. Teams often choose to use management tools such as Trello in order to structure and visualise their progress.

Proactive individuals are able to organise themselves and deal with issues which may escalate quickly. The more self-motivated your teams are, the faster the success rate.

We’d Love to Hear from You

How are rapidly developing teams managed where you work? Would you like us to add anything to this post? Is there anything we may have missed?

Please feel free to share your experiences with us in the comments below or via social media (send us some photos or videos too), you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, let’s connect!

To learn more about App’n’roll, take a look at out our Medium publication, website and our other posts.

Originally published at https://www.appnroll.com on March 26, 2016.