5 Inexpensive Ways to Invest in Your Team
April 11, 2024 | By David M. Wagner
In an old joke, a cost-conscious leader asks his peer, “What if we invest in our people, and they leave?”
His peer responds, “What if we don’t – and they stay?”
Investing in team capacity is mutually beneficial
When we invest in our teams, they can learn new things they enjoy and may be able to parlay into new opportunities (internal or external). Organizations benefit from having a more effective or more efficient team – one that can also handle inevitable staff transitions and successions more easily.
We often think of “capacity building” in the form of training or education, which can be time-consuming and expensive.
Here are five cost-effective ways to invest in your team’s capacity.
Mentor them. Supervision is about more than just evaluating staff performance against a set of standards. It also demands that we help staff grow in their capabilities. That may mean mentoring them directly or ensuring that they have another mentor to learn from and bounce problems and ideas off of – even someone outside the organization.
Delegate to and coach them. Nonprofit leaders, I have witnessed, are especially prone to taking on too much themselves. You can lighten your own burden, build team capacity to backstop your position, and invest in your team members by teaching them to do parts of your job. Look for opportunities to show capable staff how to handle individual functions. As they develop comfort, delegate more responsibilities to them.
Cross-train them. Cross-training has many benefits. Staff learn new skills and can bring fresh ideas to existing processes. Staff can take time away from work more easily (knowing someone else can take over their responsibilities). And your organization can handle staff departures more fluidly while a replacement is found and trained.
Ask them to teach others. The philosopher Seneca is credited with observing that people learn while teaching. Ask your team members to find something they’d like to teach their peers –something they already know or have been wanting to learn. For example, preparing a “brownbag lunch” presentation can help staff deepen their expertise while sharing useful knowledge with the team.
Get to know them. Your single most valuable asset as a leader is your time. Investing even a small amount of your time in getting to know your team is a powerful sign of how much you value them. Your team will trust you more if they get to know you in the process, too. And you may learn something about how to unlock their greatest potential.
Investing in your teams does not need to be expensive. Simply encouraging your team to learn from each other and from you, while you learn from them, will increase your collective capacity.
I help nonprofits and their leaders develop meaningful strategies and put them into practice with tips like these. Set a free consult to discuss how I can help find opportunities to maximize your team’s capacity to carry out your mission.