How to ensure clear roles and expectations: Strategy #5.2 – Build understanding of team purpose and role
We have previously published a series of people leadership strategies around the themes of people feeling supported, valued and safe; creating a ‘team environment’; supporting learning and growth; empowering staff and building autonomy; ensuring clarity of roles and expectations; and creating meaning and purpose.
Practical Ideas Guides
We are now going to explore the actionable steps that you can take to enable the suggested strategies and actions. This is one in a series of 31 posts providing specific descriptions of the actions in practice. (There is one practical idea guide for each people leadership strategy)
So, this post is focusing on theme 5 – role clarity. In a previous post we have talked through 5 overarching strategies to support building an environment where ensuring people are clear about roles, expectations and accountability::
5.1 Explain the organisational context and how their work fits
5.2 Build understanding of team purpose and role
5.3 Help individuals to understand their role
5.4 Set and maintain high standards of performance
5.5 Provide guidance on priorities
In this post we take a deep dive into the specific strategy of:
5.2 Build understanding of team purpose and role.
A key activity for people leaders is to build understanding of team purpose and scope; clarify how the roles across a team fit together; and define clear accountabilities for individuals and teams. This significantly reduces scope for tensions within teams and across teams as well as building the confidence of people to act knowing their role and the boundaries.
So, here are some of the actions that can be taken to put this leadership strategy into practice:
1. Engage in discussion with team members to develop a collective view about, and commitment to, the team purpose, objectives, and role. A team is more likely to have a sense of ownership and a good level of understanding if they have been actively involved in developing these directional statements, rather than through a leader ‘tell’. However, it can be challenging to have a lot of people involved in crafting such statements. It is often best achieved through a facilitated workshop where all team members contribute through activities designed to elicit responses to key questions around these key directional statements, followed by identification of key themes (potentially with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools). The actual drafting of the statements is best undertaken off-line by a small group of people and then further tested and refined by the larger team.
2. Develop a high-level map of roles across the team that clearly describes the focus of all the individual roles and how they contribute to the whole. There are a couple of ways this can be done. A simple framework for a small team might involve a matrix with team roles down the left-side and team member names/roles across the top with brief descriptors of key activities each undertake. Another option is for the team to apply the RASCI framework that clarifies who is responsible, accountable, provides support, is consulted, or kept informed in relation to key team tasks. The process of undertaking this role clarification is as important as the ‘map’ that is produced. This process provides a great opportunity to tease out issues through the discussion process.
3. Organise business planning sessions at half yearly intervals where team goals and expectations are part of the agenda. As people undertake their day-to-day tasks there is a risk that over time people can lose sight of their overall goals, as well as not feeling a sense of accomplishment. Taking time out every six months to ‘re-calibrate’ and acknowledge what has been achieved and recognise the impact of the work, whilst also reviewing and updating role clarity and expectations can help re-energise teams. It is also an opportunity to proactively address possible drift in roles and expectations before tensions arise.
4. Ensure that reporting lines are clear – this will help staff know who they are accountable to and where they can go for help with work problems. Some organisations, in the spirit of flexibility and collaboration, may create organisational arrangements and structures where there are multiple reporting lines. While there are some benefits of such approaches, they can create a lack of clarity and certainty for people. Where there are multiple reporting lines, or dotted lines on a chart, it is important to ensure clarity in the roles of the respective ‘bosses’ to whom staff ‘report’ with written and agreed descriptors of what these arrangements should look like in practice. Again, the RASCI framework may be a useful tool to also apply in such circumstances.
5. Provide an organisational chart that gives a clear view of the organisational structure and communication channels. Organisational charts provide a useful snapshot of how roles are functionally organised and the reporting hierarchy. Typically, they show differing levels of detail depending on who the audience is for the chart. It can be useful for a team to develop an enhanced version of an organisational chart relevant to them that includes annotations, icons, or dotted lines that show communication channels e.g. project updates, cross-team liaison/coordination, not just ‘who reports to whom’. This can make the chart a valuable onboarding tool as well as an ongoing useful reference when undertaking projects or significant pieces of work. It should be treated as a ‘living document’ that is regularly reviewed and updated.
Having read this list, some questions you may want to ask yourself might be:
- Are there one or two ideas emerging for me that I might want to put into practice?
- What is the smallest thing I could do that might have a positive impact?
- How will I hold myself accountable for following through on my actions?
Good luck!