"I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people." — Thomas J. Watson, Jr , A Business and its Beliefs (1963)
Project Managers need skilled resources to manage their project successfully. However, in most organizations, it is difficult to get a team where every team member possesses the desired skill sets or the same level of skills. Therefore, project managers should learn to manage individual team members, empower them and help every team member in enhancing their skills and be an asset to the project. Clearing PMP exam can aid project managers to become successful in effectively extracting work from each of the team members. In this article , therefore , we will take a look at some of the key skills required to deal with individual team members in your projects.
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Important skills while dealing with team members
Listening
Individual team members tend to open up and share their ideas, strengths, weaknesses, concerns, values, career goals etc., when we are genuinely listening to them. Therefore your listening skills could enable you to understand people, empower individual team members and build better relationships with them .
Delegation
To be an effective project manager, you must know how and what to delegate. Effective delegation offers several benefits including allowing the project managers to focus on other more important tasks such as planning, provide an opportunity to individual team members to enhance their skill-sets, and completion of tasks within the planned schedule.
Building trust and rapport
You should strive to build trust and rapport with your team members to gain their support to implement the project successfully. As many leaders would suggest, you could make trust your agenda for every single day. For instance, you could make every team member feel that you trust him to complete the job that you allocate to him.
Conflicts management
Your conflict management skills can help you to arrive at better solutions to problems and conflicts. If you successfully resolve them you can earn the commitment of your team members. Conversely, if you are not able to resolve them, you tend to lose their trust and commitment towards project goals.
Networking
Your networking skills could help you in gaining a wider support network, assess the quality of your working relationships and helps you in identifying where you need better relationships in your project.
Appropriate use of power
Some of the most important factors in the success of any project is the trust, support and goodwill of your team members. However, if you fail to make appropriate use of power, you tend to lose their goodwill and support within the team. Therefore, project managers should exercise responsibility and caution while making use of their power.
Conclusion
In most organizations, it is difficult to get a team where every team member possesses the desired skill sets or the same level of skills. Therefore, project managers could enhance some of the skills that are useful in managing individual team members, including those that are mentioned in this article.
