Is betting on your team a losing game?

​A company's biggest resource is its team, its people. Nothing compares to the ideas and innovations that the human mind can devise. No other resource in your company, neither finance nor technology, is as valuable as your best people. 

People are also the most challenging resource to manage, and leaders have the tough role of managing them alongside finance, workflow, technology, and everything else involved in the product development process. So naturally, when you're leading a team of people and the results are suboptimal or not up to your expectations, you might ask yourself, “Should I keep investing in my team? Are they worth it?”
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Deciding whether to continue investing in people or cut losses is a hard decision for any team leader, and it always comes down to the specific conditions of a situation. So, before making any decision, a leader should analyze all the factors that contribute to the obstacles individually.
 
Here are a few questions team leaders can ask themselves to get relevant information that will help them decide:

• Who are the people on the team, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and are their skills being used properly?
• Do they know what their role in the product development process is? Do they have a clear vision of what the end goal is?
• Were they onboarded properly?
• Is the work process coherent? Are there sufficient documents and procedures for them to follow?
• What is the most common issue that keeps on occurring?

 
Often, people’s knowledge and skills are not the issues – it is poor organization and communication. The team either lacks direction, information, or inspiration. Therefore, they lose the motivation to finish their tasks, let alone work on continuously learning or improving. So rather than taking the easy way out and cutting them off the team, good leaders will put some skin in the game and bet on the people. Instead of blaming the people, they will roll up their sleeves and work on the organizational aspect – corporate communication, processes, and culture.
 
Betting on your team is never a losing game – in fact, it’s the trait of a leader to find the courage to embrace potential failure, nurture people’s potential, and believe in them.