 How to develop your best team members is a pretty tough challenge as a manager So if you're lucky enough to have one or more star performers on your team, how do you go about managing and developing them? I explain nine actions that you should be taking to get the most out of your best team members and to keep them in business for longer My name is Jess Coles and I've led and managed teams over 25 years in corporates and household names through to SMEs And I've had the pleasure of developing many great team members over the last 25 years contributing to several best team prizes If you're new to this channel, Enhance.training provides online business courses to help professionals, managers and business owners improve their performance. And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and share it with friends Let's first talk about your goals as a manager for your best team members Here are four goals that always made sense to me First, to get the most value out of our best team members as possible Second, to keep them learning and developing, which I always felt was one of the best retention methods Thirdly, to keep them in the business, but not necessarily my team as long as possible And then fourth, to keep them happy. And you may of course have additional ones When you have talented people on your team, they can produce results that other team members struggle to deliver As a manager, it is great to have strong team members The downside is that every team and company want these talented individuals So they have a lot to choose from if they go looking Keep them in your company and team is a challenge By focusing on developing your best team members You are helping them deliver even more for you, the team and the business And you're increasing the chances that they will stay for longer This is a win-win-win situation for you, for them and the business So let's explore some other actions to help achieve this Giving your best team members new challenges regularly is hard work, but it is a must After all, the day job needs to be done and creating new opportunities can be challenging Particularly if your team or company is small Here are some ideas to help you Swap tasks or responsibilities between the team members Give them some of the work that you typically look after Give them project work to do assuming that it gives them learning opportunities Ask them to help you solve specific problems Give them goals to reach and then ask them to come up with how they're going to get there So this is a coaching and mentoring approach You could ask them to mentor and help other team members, i.e. create a buddy system or similar You could ask them to look after specific stakeholders in the wider business When you start thinking about all the activities and projects that you and the team are involved in You're probably going to come up with a lot of options The hard part is making those options a reality This will require you to organize the changes, speak to team members and stakeholders Make sure suitable training and handover happen and of course get buy-in for any changes from all the team members Making changes to work clothes and responsibilities can be great learning opportunities for all the new team members Not just your best team members Just remember everyone will have a different appetite for change and development In nearly every job we all work with teams and interact with a range of people Therefore building and maintaining good professional relationships is vital If you want to get promoted and move towards more senior positions Then your ability to form and manage good relationships is probably one of the most important skills you'll need For this reason the more help you are able to give your star performers in this area the better Develop your best team members by giving them plenty of opportunities to develop relationships with individuals throughout the business Cross-functional projects and teams are a great way of doing this Anything that gets them away from their desks and speaking to new people in a productive way is great So create opportunities to introduce them to other stakeholders and managers in the business and help them raise their profile As a manager the more responsibility and autonomy you give to your team The more they will learn and the less you will have to do Of course there is always a balancing act with each team member between being hands-off and providing enough support that they are learning and productive Generally speaking the stronger the team member the more autonomy one should give them You'll be making better use of their skills giving yourself more time to focus on other areas and keeping everyone happier Giving responsibility and autonomy doesn't mean that you leave that person unsupported If it's the first time doing a particular type of project or activity they will benefit from your guidance How you give support is important and will be your judgment call My suggestions are do Coach them. You know, I ask the right questions to get them thinking and solving the key problems But don't really give them the answers until they're really stuck Help them get the right resources in place point out the common pitfalls to watch out for Help to find the goal and how you and they will know when it has been reached Check up on them periodically ask if they need any help and if they are on track rather than grilling them for the detailed progress On the flip side don't give them instructions on how to get to the goal unless they ask for help I coach them first and tell them second if coaching doesn't work Don't leave them on their own until the day before the deadline and don't ignore requests for support or help And also don't leave the goal or outcome poorly defined another tip If staff members come to you for a decision on their area of responsibility Try not to provide one until the staff member has given you their decision on the matter first This encourages the team members to make the decisions and keep the responsibility themselves rather than hanging it back to you Giving autonomy and responsibility will free up a lot of your time and make the team more effective In most companies that i've worked in the good people tend to be passed more and more of the work Because they get it done and they do it well This can be great for the individuals to a point But once that point has been passed they have too much work and they are starting to struggle to do everything that has been asked of them Your job as a manager is to know when that point has been reached and to ensure that the individual is busy and productive But not overworked and this can be quite a hard balance to maintain Make the time to regularly check in on the workload of each person you manage But keep it extra on the workload of your best team members You do need to keep it to a manageable level to avoid the individuals burning out or getting unhappy If either occur your best performers may leave the company to go elsewhere, which is exactly what you don't want One of the best ways of developing your best team members Is to find out what they want to achieve in their careers or at least over the next few years You ask them Say that you want to build a development plan for the individual and knowing where they want to head to will make it a lot More useful for them Sit down with the individual and work out the types of activities projects and responsibilities That will help get the team member towards their goals Then work out a practical way of delivering some or all of these obviously within the constraints of the team and the company It is really important to be realistic and to give yourself some wiggle room You know business landscapes change and different requirements and pressures come up You need to anticipate some movement or changes to your plan So you must make sure you don't over promise and under deliver If you create a plan then individuals will be judging you and your ability to deliver your side of the bargain i.e. creating the opportunities set out in the plan Having a development plan and then you delivering against this plan Creates a lot of trust and appreciation from the recipient This is a really powerful retention tool and you get even more from the individual as their skills and experience are expanding So create a plan and make sure you deliver the opportunities on it I've found coaching and mentoring one of the most important investments manager can make in their team The more you put in to try to develop your team the more you get back from them And this helps you directly and it helps the company. Everyone is a winner Coaching is about getting the team member to think and take responsibility This means you don't provide the answers but you ask questions to prompt their thinking This is an important skill to develop and great to use for your high performing members of staff Do what you can to keep the responsibility and therefore the decisions with the team member Mentoring is about passing your knowledge and experience over to the team member You're the teacher and they're the learner This is really useful when the person just doesn't know what to do or is going down the wrong path Both coaching and mentoring are very useful to employ as a manager to get the best out of your team But don't expect results overnight But do expect the investment you make to pay back and then some over the months and years ahead Sometimes there are only so many development opportunities available within a business Because of this make sure you also look for suitable external development opportunities for your team members Some examples for you You know think about training courses to develop skills and knowledge That will help the team or the company directly as well as develop the individual You know, for example, if the individual is a future manager material Then any courses involving managing staff or building relationships with a wide range of stakeholders will be really useful Another option are coaching programs that offer bespoke learning for individuals and these can produce some really good results Another good option is to encourage your team members to read books and watch youtube videos on relevant subjects There are lots to be learned from both Just remember those skills need to be practiced. So what if you learn from the books videos? Make sure your team members practice Whatever you choose investigate and include external learning opportunities in your plans develop your best team members While you're developing your best team members, it's really important that you also look to develop the rest of your team too If you only focus on the best members of the team, you're likely to build resentment amongst the rest of the team And this really wouldn't help overall team performance Just remember everyone will learn at their own pace and want development at a pace that they are happy with and can manage So in a team you're going to have team members moving at different development speeds and requiring different levels of input to achieve this We do suggest putting more of your time and energy into developing the stronger performers Rather than the weak ones as this is likely to improve the overall team performance more But do provide development opportunities for all your team members A great way of consolidating the learning is asking team members to teach what they've learnt You could ask those that are strong in a particular area to teach the rest of the team This helps both the teacher and the students And finally being consistent and fair are both important disciplines as a manager I'll make your job easier and more enjoyable Developing your best team members should be a pleasure Investing in development of the best performers and the wider team will pay you back several times over in terms of team performance team ability team morale retention improvements and better team culture All of these reflect on you as the manager of the team So get confident and get good at developing your team and their skills Developing your team creates a win-win-win situation for you for them and for the business So enjoy coming up with new ways to develop your team members And if you like this video, please hit the thumbs up button below subscribe and hit the bell to get notified of our weekly video releases This really helps us produce more videos to help you And thanks very much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon