As an executive, how do you find time to get to know your team members enough to understand their strengths, interests, and potential?
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Schedule time on your calendar to meet with the team regularly. Have regular meetings and foster open and honest feedback.
Although it can be challenging, I agree with many of the comments previously mentioned. 1:1 meetings with all levels of the organization are the most critical aspect of getting to know everyone, establishing crucial trust, and comprehending abilities. I strive to hold these one-on-one sessions at least once a month with everyone. While this requires a substantial amount of time, the benefits justify it.
I think it's important to also cater to the individual. Staff require different things from these 1:1s. I meet with some people who just want to chat about life. Some are strictly work related. Some a little of both. It's all over the place and that is ok. It's more about establishing mutual trust and understanding so that individual strengths and interest shine through. I want people to be comfortable coming to me and telling me that they have a new crazy idea or that they want to learn something new.
I have no doubt that the reason we have such low turnover is in part because of the established relationships through these meetings. A great example is one of our best SQL developers was getting tired of just creating population health reports month after month. He mentioned he wanted to try and use 25% of his time to branch into some of the Python development we were doing in house, as well as some of the architectural items. This was no problem at all, and I began switching some of his workload. Without that trust that it would be ok, and that he could fail as he learned it is likely those individuals may just look elsewhere. Trust and empowerment are key and it starts with making the time to meet with everyone even when its admittedly challenging given schedules.
100 reasons to talk to your colleagues: Most often, we wait for an occasion to connect with others, instead, if we proactively find 100 reasons to connect, it becomes easier.
Imagine, like a skill matrix, we have a matrix with columns for all possible reasons including important dates, various hobbies, and common interests groups. This will remain a template unless used but when used effectively, even 1 minute taken to wish or share a piece of relevant information with your colleague will make them feel valued. Of course, we can talk about automation & email triggers or alerts to make it more efficient but the first step is to get the matrix done.
A beautiful aspect related to the above idea is, the entire data collection journey when co-created with your colleagues, will bring a lot of folks together.
Transit time: Being a CxOs or a leader one has to travel for work a lot, and utilize the time to talk to your colleagues (video will be better).
Travel time: While on the plane or train, allocate 15 minutes for talking or listening to employees.
To make the calls effective, before talking to the employees, ask them to send you a short voice memo so that you can listen to it & carry forward the conversation. This will help those who feel they are bad with small talk.
Lift vs Stairs: Instead of a lift, take the stairs (if possible) and ask your colleagues to walk with you.
50:5 rule: For every 50 minutes of work, stand up & walk for 5 minutes & use the time to connect with those on the floor. 2 benefits - one gets to stand up frequently and have an opportunity to talk.
There are more, but depending on your constraints & priorities, more ideas can be discussed.
1) Work together.
2) Ask for inputs. Have team discussions. Talk!
3) Give them more responsibilities. Delegate management task. trust them.
4) Perform team activities work related and social
The very simply answer is that you make time. If something is important enough you will do it and as a leader you get things done through your team so you best know them. People also work for someone who takes an interest, cares about them and feel empowered by. If you dont know your team and spend no time with them how can you learn everything you need to know to improve it?