Team building can be both tricky and rewarding business. The world of work has been through a few upheavals post Covid, the biggest one being the shift to remote and hybrid work. “We need to keep that feeling of trust and connection, no matter the physical location,” says Vaida Valiulienė, Assistant Vice President at Moody's Corporation.
While this might intimidate some, Vaida welcomes the challenge. “I find it extremely interesting to work in an environment when you cannot predict what the next day will be, what challenges you might face, or what puzzles will need to be solved.”
To say Vaida is a team-building professional would be an understatement. Since 2005, she’s led teams through different stages of maturity, transformations, and the pandemic. Today, with Moody's Investors Service, she manages a team of 25 financial data analysts located in six countries.
How does she get it done? We sat down with Vaida as she opened up about her career journey and the experiences that made her a leader unfazed in the face of change.
The beginnings
Vaida’s career as a team builder began when studying at a university. “I was working as a part-time teacher during my study years. I’d lead groups of 20-plus 10-year-old children with 45 minutes each day to get their engagement, to make them work together, and to motivate them. That experience trained me in many things, but the key was pushing various buttons to get to a desired end goal,” Vaida explains.
She then became a project manager at a publishing house, where her team-building experience was vastly different. Her projects were around a year long, and she was responsible for building a team of contractors and setting timelines. “There were no possibilities to have team meetings or shared projects to foster engagement and motivation; it was the one-to-one type of coordination to ensure the result turned out the way we expected,” she shares.
After a few years, Vaida began her career in finance at a bank that opened a new operations center in Vilnius, and she was one of the first to join. Starting as a specialist, Vaida moved up to a senior team leader — witnessing how to keep the team strong and collaborative during different stages of maturity and process changes along the way.
The shift to Moody’s Investors Service
Vaida was looking for a new career move when Moody’s, a well-known and established credit rating agency, opened an office in Vilnius. “I was willing to join the leadership team and take the challenge of building a new team from scratch. This time I got even more than planned: a possibility to be mentored by senior leaders, trust to act, and navigate in a global and multicultural environment.
Moody’s is famous for its awareness of diversity and inclusion and for investing a lot to educate communities, its employees, and leadership. I wanted to benefit from that, so I found what I was looking for — and I’m still learning to this day.”
Takeaways from years of team building
For Vaida, the first and the most important step in team building is ensuring shared values across the company and teammates.
“For me, everything starts with attitude and behavior. Knowledge gaps can be filled during training sessions, but behavioral values are set in us, and it’s imperative to clarify that and ensure they match with company values,” she explains.
Once a team member joins, Vaida focuses on promoting openness, collaboration, and trust.
"Once we sit and start working together with new joiners, openness and trust between the manager and team members are so important. I ensure that new joiners feel that they have possibilities to contribute to the team and, from day one, they can share ideas, suggest improvements because all ideas are welcome,” Vaida says. “Small things matter. When employees feel trusted, heard, and empowered to contribute, it’s easy to have an open dialogue and engagement from day one."
3 tips for building a high-performing team
For other leaders working to build collaborative, cohesive, and high-performing teams, Vaida offers these three tips:
- Clarify company values. “When managing people, I think the first step is to assess the company values, then what team you want to build, and what skill sets and competencies are required. The interview is a discussion. Managers need to be aware of that to allow the candidate to share their preferences, the way they work, and what motivates them.”
- Collaborate. “A team is an organism where every part plays its own role and is key to success. Some talents are very visible, and others are disclosed in certain situations. Even specialists working on very individualistic tasks should be able to work on a project and share ideas with team members, as this helps to understand your team members, learn new things, and build trust.”
- Make the most of training sessions. “A well-developed training program helps a new joiner get support and succeed. In my team, we practice shadowing, where people sit with a specialist of the team and work on one task together. A new joiner is given a chance to work with each and every team member, no matter their seniority. I keep saying new joiners bring a lot of knowledge to the team. Their eyes are fresh, and their willingness to contribute is high. We benefit from each other.”
