Business Leader Raef Hamaed on Building a Successful Team — Company Leaders

For small businesses and global corporations alike, goals are met through the dedicated work of committed employees. Without these integral team members, companies could not thrive, thresholds could not be pushed, and goods and services could not be provided to clients. Thus, the creation of a dedicated team is integral to the success of a company. For entrepreneur and business leader Raef Hamaed, building a successful team is the result of a few thoughtful considerations, best practices, and good old fashioned intuition. Hamaed shares profound tips for building a dedicated team, managing team success, and maintaining a positive team-oriented culture.

Interviews Aren’t Key

When hiring new employees, Hamaed warns that successful interviews aren’t necessarily indicative of a slam dunk. With extensive resources readily available for interviewees to put their best foot forward, this rehearsed representation may not be accurately descriptive of an individual’s propensity for professional success. Hamaed cites that there are many tools that highlight professional success via a polished resume. Many potential employees examine best interviewing tactics. Some even practice answering sample questions often asked by hiring managers.

Thus, an impressive resume and polished answers may not always be proof that a candidate will succeed within the daily operations of a business. Instead of relying solely on these factors during an interview to determine a potential employee’s viability, Hamaed suggests looking at an individual’s excitement, commitment to a field, willingness to listen, and other soft skills that may come in handy. Conversation can lend tidbits about an interviewee’s personality, professional motivations, and ability to handle constructive criticism in an effective manner. These factors can be more telling than an expensive suit.

Attitude is Everything

To maintain positive energy within a professional atmosphere, and a corporate culture focused on personal growth and development, attitude is everything. Employees who can learn from mistakes, take ownership of mistakes, and use negative moments as learning experiences are coveted. Expectations of perfection aren’t realistic, and all employees will experience missteps at various points within their assignments. How these missteps are handled can be integral to maintaining a generally positive corporate culture. Negative employees have the propensity for diminishing positivity, spreading a negative attitude, and impacting operations.

Thus, Raef Hamaed touts the importance of championing employees with positive attitudes. According to Hamaed, it is exponentially easier to train an underperforming employee with a positive attitude, than it is to reign in an otherwise successful employee with a negative perception of everything. If generally negative, confrontational, or otherwise inappropriate employees are not willing to evolve their mindset, they are not a good match for a successful team, and can be harmful to overall goals.

However, positive employees who may be underperforming may become more fruitful assets with additional training, pivoting of responsibilities, or other adjustments. Often, when Hamaed recognizes the overall commitment, dedication, and positivity of a somewhat underperforming employee, he seeks ways to improve the employee’s success. Sometimes, this requires extensive training on a specific topic to improve outcomes. Other times, an employee may already possess skills that are better suited for a different position. Thus, if a more appropriate position is available, Hamaed champions the employee by pivoting the employee’s position, and providing the infrastructure needed for growing success. By investing in team members who possess a positive attitude, Hamead ensures that his team is on the same page at all times.

Commitment to the Cause

When seeking team members for long-term assignments, it is important to choose individuals who are committed to the success of the particular venture. Rather than looking at their assignment as a stepping stone to something else, or a short-term stop on an otherwise wavering journey, it is crucial to seek team members who want to evolve alongside the company. For Hamead, this facet is crucial to developing a team with low turnover. High turnover rates can inhibit productivity, as staff members spend valuable time constantly training new employees, processing paperwork, and searching for leadership roles outside of the company. By minimizing these time-consuming practices, seasoned teams of committed individuals can grow together, and dedicate time to perfecting their combined efforts, rather than replacing lost team members.

Openness to Learn

According to Hamaed, a positive sign of a successful team member lies in the individual’s ability and desire to learn new skills, expand their expertise, and evolve alongside the business. In his own experience, Hamaed has witnessed his business pivot multiple times to maintain an edge in the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, in order to proactively and successfully pivot operations, he needs to be surrounded by a flexible team that is willing to perfect new skills, and engage in evolving practices for the betterment of the company.

Successful team members are willing to expand their skills to ensure that the company can flourish within an evolving industry. Additionally, the ability to garner new skills is a welcome benefit for the individual. It makes them a multi-faceted employee integral to the company, a valuable asset, helps to expand an employee’s personal horizons. In Hamaed’s professional experiences, he recounts that most dedicated team members want to learn new skills, and appreciate the chance to grow professionally. Rigid and unwilling team members often don’t work out during times of change. This can be a good opportunity to weed out individuals who aren’t committed and dedicated to the team.

Transparency and Straightforwardness

During an employee’s tenure, Hamaed recommends maintaining open and honest communication to gauge the employee’s happiness, motivations, and professional aspirations. By championing the employee’s satisfaction and continued growth, entrepreneurs and business leaders can ensure that dedicated team members feel valued by the company, and want to succeed alongside the company. Additionally, this valuable insight can provide entrepreneurs with the information needed to provide assistance to valued team members. Whether providing additional training and education opportunities, or ensuring that a healthy work/life balance exists, caring for dedicated team members via transparency and straightforwardness is key to maintaining long-term team success.

For any business to be successful, team members must be committed to concise goals. They must be willing to adapt to changes, and work alongside various other individuals. They must be strong independently, and come together appropriately to forge a team that is inherently committed to growth. By paying close attention to a few soft skills, and consistently communicating with team members, leaders like Raef Hamaed can build successful teams that propel a company forward.

Originally published at http://companyleaders.org on September 10, 2020.