Management Wisdom: Focus on Team Building not Fault Finding

"Fault finding is easy but that would serve no purpose. You need to build a team to get things done."

I and my boss were discussing his recent visit to some troubled markets where market share was under severe pressure. While elaborating what was wrong there, he remarked that although it was very easy for a senior manager to find faults with people and their way of doing things, it was highly unlikely to do any good in tacking the tough situation. He said that key to handling tough situation was to build teams and boost the confidence level.

It's true. Tough times demand a new approach; a drift from what we have been unsuccessfully doing to something different and innovative. But this requires collaboration of minds and confidence in one's ability. During tough times, motivation is generally low and people tend to focus more on managing their weaknesses instead of playing to their strength. During these times, it's best if the leader focuses on team building and increasing the morale of the team instead of doing a post-mortem analysis and finding scapegoats. Tough times demand a strong team that has abundance of faith in its competence and the ability to focus on their strengths to overcome a difficult situation.