Play Well With Others - Secrets to Effective Launch Management
Posted by admin on September 27th, 2006•Bring suggested solutions with the problems to the meeting table.
Identifying problems. That’s the easy part. Thoughtful launch solutions are the challenge that will earn respect and admiration from your launch team.
•Your verbal and nonverbal communication matters… We are all radar machines that constantly scope out our environment. Respect for people on the team is a hallmark of a successful launch.
•Develop Trust. Trust is the basis for much of the environment you want to create in your work place and on your team. Trust is the necessary precursor for feeling able to rely upon a person, cooperating with and experiencing teamwork with a group, taking thoughtful risks, and experiencing believable communication. ”Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
•Keep your commitments. When launching a web site, work is interconnected. If you fail to meet deadlines and commitments, you affect the work of other employees. Always keep commitments, and if you can’t, make sure all affected employees know what happened. Provide a new due date and make every possible effort to honor the new deadline.
•Share credit for accomplishments, ideas, and contributions. As a launch manager, I take the time, and energy, to thank, reward, recognize and specify contributions of the people who help you succeed. This is a no-fail approach to building effective work relationships. The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit…. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
•Help other employees find their greatness. Every member of the launch team has talents, skills, and experience. As a launch manager I try and help the launch team harness their best abilities. I compliment, recognize, praise, and notice contributions from each team member.
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing. As a new launch manager at IBG, it feels great to be playing on the right team. IBG , as a company is about more than empowering wineries to sell direct and measure the performance of their sales but it’s also about excellence, respect for others, and ability to make people happy. Some call those things a “soul.” The IBG team is one of the most creative and driven teams I’ve ever worked with. I know together we can accomplish just about anything. Work can’t get any better than this!
Mattie Schutz
IBG Launch Manager
launch@inertiabev.com
