Leading Your Team In Professional Services - Howie Siegal

Branch Out - A Podcast from Connection Builders

Leading your team through a project is like building a house. You need a good understanding of the house you want to build, sturdy foundations, and a variety of contractors, each with their own set of expertise. Today we sit down with Howie Siegal, an audit partner at RSM, to find out how he leads his teams through projects. To open our conversation, Howie tells us about the first steps he takes when a project commences. Regardless of the project, Howie says it's imperative to build the right kind of team. Yet, the path to curating a team is always different, and it is important to create one that caters to the client's specific needs. We then turn our focus onto the next step of the process: speaking with stakeholders. As Howie tells us, this phase will provide you with additional information that will help your team execute their tasks. Following this, we find out how to bring ideas to fruition. Howie details some of the ways this can happen and shares examples like having a whiteboard session where factors are listed, deliverables are recognized. To do this, your team needs to be aligned. Later in the show, Howie tells us how he reaches consensus within a team, and why it is essential to embrace different perspectives between members. We then shine a light on one of the more important tools a project leader can use — a timeline. Timelines are versatile as they represent the project journey and help keep the team and its individuals accountable. To conclude our conversation with Howie, he touches on why project feedback from clients is important, even if you failed to secure them in the first place. Be sure to join us today!
Key Points From This Episode:

• The first thing Howie does when a project commences.
• Hear why the path to building a team is always different and how to shape a team around a specific project.
• The next steps to take once you have created your project-specific team.
• Howie shares why he arranges meetings to arrange meetings.
• Find out how you can bring an idea that's in your head to fruition.
• How Howie builds consensus and alignment within his teams.
• Fundamental questions to ask your team when its members have vastly different interpretations of information.
• The importance of implementing a project using a timeline.
• Howie talks about how to motivate your team.
• Asking what we can do to ensure that we are growing and better the next time around?
• We hear why feedback can be so valuable to a team and its leader.

Howie Siegal on LinkedIn
Howie's Previous Branch Out Episode
Howie Siegal on Twitter
RSM
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Branch Out Podcast LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn
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