While we are still amidst our fight against Covid, there are ways we can plan certain things from now on and not wait for the time when the pandemic will be over.
Especially, businesses need to develop a far-sight that guides their team to propel forward in the right direction. You as an enterprise must infuse the energy and the sense of commitment among your entire team, thereby making them mindful of organizational goals or missions.
This article will guide you on letting your team refocus on growth once the fight against Covid is over. These visionary multi-stage guidelines will help your team amp up with new energy to attain desired growth.
Step1: Focus on generating ideas
Brainstorming sessions play an instrumental role in generating various ideas to deal with a specific issue or problem. However, most of the time, such sessions do not provide a level field as some people’s ideas get more attention while some others (usually newbies or introverted people of the teams) could not express their ideas adequately, nor they receive the required attention. To level up the session process, you, as a team leader, must set the background and ground rules prior to the meeting.
Then define the general direction you wish the discussion to go. For instance, decide if you want to discuss growing the existing business or making an entry into a new market. Head the meeting by offering advanced materials like analyses of market situation or reviews of new developments in operation to the team.
It’s better if you begin the meeting by clearly stating the focus points of the meeting. For example, you can explain to the team that the meeting’s focus is ideation and generating as many ideas as possible and not critiquing or scrutinizing the ideas. This approach will encourage the team to express their ideas confidently.
Step 2: Share the compiled ideas
Once you gather all the ideas, now is the time to make them available to be reviewed by everyone in the team. If it’s an offline meetup, you can display ideas on easels or a whiteboard such that everyone can see them clearly. If you are heading a remote team, you must compile all the ideas and share them in a chat or by email. The point here is that everyone must see both their ideas and everyone else’s ideas in the team.
Now, initiate the discussion on generated ideas. Engage team members by asking to identify similarities or connections among ideas. Then assemble the ideas to represent the multiple aspects to each.
Step 3: Examine the ideas and empower them
After assembling the ideas and initiating discussion on them, now is the right time to examine them. Add critical points to support each idea and make it strong. Scrutinize if the ideas provide the intended outcome in quantitative and qualitative terms, what time frame is proposed, what resources are required, etc. Position each idea to gain the most value out of it even if it’s decided not to pursue later as each idea has the potential to offer prompts for new experiments.
Step 4: Identify the challenges or risks
Encourage the participants to scrutinize each idea carefully, pinpointing the possibilities of any shortcomings or challenges that may incur in due course of follow-up. This way, strong and pertinent ideas will be considered, and ideas that are not valid enough can be eliminated.
Step 5: Make way for implementing plans
Depending on the organizational structure and culture, you may consider specific vetted ideas to be qualified to pass for further processing- sequencing, financing, staffing, external expertise etc.
Now convey which ideas are shortlisted and which ideas will be addressed later. Also, do not miss to explain why specific ideas could make their entry for further considerations and why others not.
This is the best approach to value the participants’ efforts. By appreciating and providing necessary inputs, you encourage participants to engage in such kind of planning initiative in the future. Go ahead with sharing further plans for implementation to realize the actual work of building for growth.
Way forward Planning is essential for any organization to lead in the right direction and achieve the desired growth. However, Covid-19 has brought some unprecedented changes in the ways we converse, connect and build relationships. Thus, it becomes imperative to plan certain things in advance and provide a pathway for your team to lead in that direction. After all, business growth is facilitated by an energetic and well-led team. Thus, you must not miss the strategies that help you re-build your team with the right attitude.
