Ask, Listen, Action: How To Manage Teams And Individuals Like A Pro

Unilever strives to create a fair work environment where everyone feels their thoughts and opinions are valued.  In my contribution to the LinkedIn Pulse Series, I discuss how asking the right questions and listening to responses helps effectively manage employees to attain team harmony and success.

How do you successfully manage a broad range of people from different departments? You ask the right questions, and attentively listen to the answers.

In my role as Modern Trade Lead at Unilever East Africa I handle all national, regional and distributor served supermarkets.  My focus is to develop and cultivate customer relationships.

During my time at Unilever, I’ve worked with and managed a great range of people in many functions and departments, but I’ve always used questions as my tools to help me along the way and then listened intently to the responses.

My experience at Unilever has helped me develop a knack for asking key questions that illicit revealing answers - giving me useful insights into how to effectively lead people so that everyone’s concerns are heard, considered, and then acted upon in a manner that’s conducive to a happy work environment for everyone!

Here are some of the considerations I’ve focused on to successfully handle cross-functional teams, departments and individual members, as well as some questions you can ask yourself to help you become a master leader.

Focusing on the ‘units’ that make teams

An essential quality a good leader needs is to be a keen listener. Listening to those you manage can’t be over-emphasised; you need to understand what motivates your team, what their working styles are and the concerns they have. Only then can you truly understand the dynamics that lead to success.

Before you focus on the team as a whole, however, you need to get to understand the individuals that make them up so that you can play to their strengths later on.

Personally, I take the time to ask thought-provoking questions to know what makes individuals tick, and get their personal thoughts on projects; these insights enable me to find solutions to help and build individuals in my team and work their concerns into my plan, which inevitably helps things run smoother later on.

Unilever has a diverse range of people to manage, and we make sure that we hear everyone’s opinions and provide equal opportunities to employees. We go the extra mile to get feedback from each and every person when making decisions because we want everyone to be treated fairly and have a happy work life here.

Key Questions To Ask Yourself:  

• What motivates this colleague?
• What are their concerns/fears? How can I address them?
• How can I inspire them?
• What does this member need from me to carry out their role?

 Focusing on teams and departments

Cross-functional teams workin­g together are an inherent part of life at Unilever, so making sure things run without difficulty between departments is crucial. Handling lots of departments on a project requires that I understand every department’s angle and know where they’re coming from.

 Imagine the launch of a new product: the Supply team needs to deliver stock on time; the Customer team needs to deliver product numbers; the Brands team is focused on how products resonate with consumers; and the Finance team look at the profitability of the launch. Knowing perspectives helps you work contingencies into your plans.

I’m very fortunate to have gained a large scope of different perspectives, thanks to Unilever’s ‘rotation’ approach – that is having people work in different departments. This flexibility has given me an understanding of how things flow from one department to another, and has helped me develop empathy for them since I know their concerns.

Key Questions To Ask Yourself:

• What angle is this team coming from with this task?
• What are their issues and how do we work together?
• Where does this department’s actions come into play in the process/project?
• What issues may prevent this group from fulfilling their role?

 A ‘helping’ culture that boosts career growth

I’ve had the opportunity to grow my career at an incredibly fast pace thanks to Unilever’s ‘helping’ culture.  We have an open door policy here where you can reach out to anyone, at any time, to ask questions and get help with whatever issue you may have.

Additionally, there’s all the training I receive, most of which is cross-functional and highlights the processes as well as the challenges each team faces so that I understand how departments run and how they link to one another. 

This training has helped me hone my ability to ask relevant questions that enable me to work most productively with teams and individual members. 

Actually listening to the answers to these carefully crafted questions helps me know how to delegate tasks, how to mentor and coach, and makes me aware of what I need to do to bring people in line with the project’s aim.  

The exposure you have at Unilever is immense – it’s global and you get to work with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds, which forces you to keep your questioning and listening skills sharp.   You’re most definitely guaranteed to grow here! 

 Key Questions To Ask Yourself:

• How do I bring my delegates to the required level?
• How can I best mentor my team/team members to make delegation easier for me later on?
• What else do individuals and teams need me to do, so they can do their jobs better?

People flourish in workplaces where they feel their thoughts, opinions and concerns are listened to and acted upon.  Unilever is committed to fairness in the workplace and equal opportunities through providing world-class mentors and leaders who nurture employees.  See how we bring fairness in the workplace by following Unilever on LinkedIn today.