Archived Promoted to Flow team Lead
- Thread starter VIBE
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Greetings and salutations.
Welcome to The Break Room.
This is a repost of mine from a similar thread from a while back for gaining team loyalty.
Lead by example. Work harder then you would expect them to, get to work before them and leave after them.
If you have to go to the office to work on something rather then be on the floor or be in one of the interminably long TL meetings make sure they know what they are supposed to be doing while you are gone or who they should talk to if they have any questions. Keep those times as short as you can.
Eat lunch with with your TM more then you do the TLs.
Spring for doughnuts or whatever, our TL for Plano bakes brownies.
Never ask somebody to do a job you wouldn't do yourself.
You have to shovel way to much drek on these peoples heads that comes from above. Deflect what you can and make it clear that while you understand it's drek you're going to make sure it gets done with the rest.
And as add on:
Talk to your people like grownups.
Welcome to The Break Room.
This is a repost of mine from a similar thread from a while back for gaining team loyalty.
Lead by example. Work harder then you would expect them to, get to work before them and leave after them.
If you have to go to the office to work on something rather then be on the floor or be in one of the interminably long TL meetings make sure they know what they are supposed to be doing while you are gone or who they should talk to if they have any questions. Keep those times as short as you can.
Eat lunch with with your TM more then you do the TLs.
Spring for doughnuts or whatever, our TL for Plano bakes brownies.
Never ask somebody to do a job you wouldn't do yourself.
You have to shovel way to much drek on these peoples heads that comes from above. Deflect what you can and make it clear that while you understand it's drek you're going to make sure it gets done with the rest.
And as add on:
Talk to your people like grownups.
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Run.
T
target etlhopeful2012
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Congrats 
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As the leader of the largest team in the store you must not be afraid of holding people accountable. There are going to be people who just can't cut the mustard. Get rid of them. The success of the store rides on the success of the flow team so you need to have the best.
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This is absolutely true and is one of the reasons our store is so broken. Our Flow TL and ETL-LOG are not managing talent like they should be!
Commiecorvus is right on with his response. You have to build a relationship with most of your team. You're going to be asking a lot out of them every day so gaining their respect is key. They're probably watching you more than you're watching them so just jump in get your hands dirty, that goes a long way.
Congrats on the promotion! so far I've only worked with 5 different flow TLs, each of them very different from the other. The most successful 2 of them had A) years of experience as flow TLs and B) been promoted from a flow TM. The two least successful were transferred from team leads in other departments (presentation and backroom team leads), and the other one is still fairly new, and from outside the company.
Things to DO would be complete openness and honesty with your team. If your STL and ETL are telling you things pertinent to a particular TM or to your whole team, you need to relay that information. I remember one time where we waited for months before our ETL-Log told us that we were zoning the entire store incorrectly as we pushed, causing half the team that got hired and trained in that time to learn how to do everything the wrong way.
Make sure to hold everyone accountable to the same standard. If your team perceives you as fair this will go a long way to winning their trust. If you let one person get away with pushing an aisle at 1 carton every two minutes and everybody else is pushing at the standard case per minute, they better damn well have a medical restriction.
Don't get too chatty with particular team members, and be cold to others, this will get noticed. The one time I've seen a team lead fired was when a flow tl let this disparity turn into a physical dispute. My first flow tl had been working with some of her tms for nearly a decade. Now, when most of the team was gone I would see her chatting them up, asking them about their personal life and the like, but when everybody else was around she treated them like everybody else.
Don't condescend to your TMs. I've never seen a flow team lead do this, but I've seen most of the ETLs (especially the young ones) do this. It may be tempting to talk down to your TMs, but remember they won't respect you if you don't respect them. You can only give instruction to your team by talking to them as equals, if you act superior to them they won't take you seriously.
Hope this helps!
Things to DO would be complete openness and honesty with your team. If your STL and ETL are telling you things pertinent to a particular TM or to your whole team, you need to relay that information. I remember one time where we waited for months before our ETL-Log told us that we were zoning the entire store incorrectly as we pushed, causing half the team that got hired and trained in that time to learn how to do everything the wrong way.
Make sure to hold everyone accountable to the same standard. If your team perceives you as fair this will go a long way to winning their trust. If you let one person get away with pushing an aisle at 1 carton every two minutes and everybody else is pushing at the standard case per minute, they better damn well have a medical restriction.
Don't get too chatty with particular team members, and be cold to others, this will get noticed. The one time I've seen a team lead fired was when a flow tl let this disparity turn into a physical dispute. My first flow tl had been working with some of her tms for nearly a decade. Now, when most of the team was gone I would see her chatting them up, asking them about their personal life and the like, but when everybody else was around she treated them like everybody else.
Don't condescend to your TMs. I've never seen a flow team lead do this, but I've seen most of the ETLs (especially the young ones) do this. It may be tempting to talk down to your TMs, but remember they won't respect you if you don't respect them. You can only give instruction to your team by talking to them as equals, if you act superior to them they won't take you seriously.
Hope this helps!
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