It’s not easy to lead a team of gig professionals. Just like the sport, where the captain has to take immediate decisions, leaders have to be careful
Leading a team of gig professionals is a challenge and imparts several leadership lessons, too. To understand it more effectively, we must look at the similarities it has with a successful cricket team. Players in a national cricket team like India come from diverse geographical, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Similarly, a team comprising gig experts is likely to include members with diversity, and at times, even people from different nations. Thus, the challenge for the leader is to sanitise everyone towards the common goal, which is winning the trophy in case of a cricket team and successful completion of the project for the gig team.
In a cricket team, every player brings different skill sets to the table. There are some batsmen like Rohit Sharma, who would hurt the opposition through aggression while others could simply block every ball and deny wickets to the rival team. Then there are fast bowlers, leg-spinners and off spinners — each comes with a distinct style. In the same way, a gig project manager may have to lead a team of graphic designers, HR professionals, content specialists, digital marketers and IT experts to complete a project. Each member has a specific role to play in a project. The graphic designer could create the artworks needed while a content expert may add description to the designs. An IT expert sets everything up digitally and marketing professionals take it to the masses. It is imperative that a captain/team leader is in control of the performance and is able to channelise the team towards successful achievement of the goal.
As is often seen on the cricket field, a captain, who appears highly animated and instructs other players for almost every ball, might prove ineffective. In a gig team, a leader has to deal with a team that is unlikely to be receptive to “minute monitoring” because flexibility is the core reason for them to be a part of such a team. At the same time, letting everyone work at their own pace would also defeat the purpose of setting up a project team. Hence, the leader must tread a fine line. Since the team comprises specialists, telling them how to perform the duties would be detrimental. However, the leader needs to keep everyone informed and needs to be in sync with project timelines and deliverables needed from each member.
One advantage a gig leader has is a complete understanding of the people, who make the team and what all they can deliver. Every professional signing up for a gig project is well aware of the tasks and the timelines related to it. Gig professionals understand that while undertaking a dynamic project, there are likely to be challenges and changes on-the-go. They have to be ready to tackle these issues and dynamically look for solutions/alternatives that can help them overcome such situations. It is important for the team leader to acknowledge the team members’ dynamism and allow them flexibility and authority to make real-time changes whenever required.
To finish the projects on time, there must be a clear communication with each team member regarding the expectations and timelines. Alterations made by any member/client must also be clearly communicated to all relevant team members. Such crisp and dynamic communication will boost the morale of the team and also help in flawless, timely execution of the project. Another analogy that exists between a gig and cricket team is how change of situations may impact the scope of work that a gig worker has to do. The project goals might get altered and suddenly there may be no need to create graphics or a particular technical feature might get removed from the project.
This can be compared to a situation where a cricket team selects two spinners but the ball is not turning. Suddenly, the spinners become easy to hit and the captain has to take them off bowling. Alternatively, the pitch might start turning sharp, forcing the captain to change the batting order and send someone who can play spin better ahead of an attacking batsman. In a gig set up, the professional hired for the project may become redundant or his/her involvement may get pushed back to some future stage. A leader has to then competently deal with the concerned professional and keep him/her in confidence. In cases where such change of events results in lost remunerations to the expert, the leader needs to ensure that they are reasonably compensated for. The good thing is that akin to how the 15 players, making the cricket team know that only 11 of them will actually get to play the match at any given time, gig workers also know that, at times, they may not actually get to work on a project they signed up for. It is a part and parcel of their work and they take it in their stride.
(The writer is co-founder of a startup company)
