Building a team at work is hard work, but as we have seen, the greater your team, the greater heights of success you can reach. Building a formidable team is more than bringing together a group of individuals who are reliable, hard-working and skilled at what they do. To create a high-performing team, you need some core ingredients to ensure your team complement one another so that everyone can excel.
As you know, formidable teams are not built overnight. And even if your team is impressive, there is always something you can do to improve it further by growing, developing and nurturing its members.
Here are seven points to consider if you’re looking for ways to improve your team.
1. Common goals
A formidable team will support each other in achieving the set goals for themselves and the company. You must ensure team members understand the ultimate objective you are striving toward. Otherwise, you may find them heading off in different directions. It’s also crucial to ensure that the team knows how their own role and team members play a part in achieving the overall objective. If there isn’t clarity around both points, while your team may perform well individually, it could be detrimental to the team’s overall goals.
2. Encourage clear and transparent communication
This is one of the most critical aspects of creating a solid team. You should encourage your team members to express their views and concerns and listen and discuss them. This type of positive conflict can foster innovation and help prevent potential risks from becoming a reality. If you receive feedback from team members, take it on board and put good ideas into practice. If they feel their comments are welcome and valued, they are more likely to speak up and inspire theirs to do so.
Typically, mistakes or unnecessary delays can be linked back to a lack of communication or some form of misunderstanding.
3. Trust
Remember that your team is there to work for you, and they want to support you, so make sure you trust them to do their job. Resist the urge to micromanage. Trust will go a long way to creating a happy and successful team that will be loyal to you.
To work well together, team members also need to trust one another, whether in the form of completing a piece of work when they say they are or will have the courage to speak up when appropriate.
4. Team building
Members of a team can become closer if you involve them in team building exercises, where they can get the opportunity to work together and learn from each other. This doesn’t necessarily involve building rafts or climbing mountains. Think about activities where they can get to know one another. This can help improve communication and trust, and it can also help with the next point.
5. Rely on each other’s strengths
We all have our strengths and areas where we are not so strong. We could develop those areas, but there is less need for this if other team members are strong and others aren’t.
The more your team get to know themselves and one another, the easier it becomes to identify their various strengths on the team and who can be called on for particular skills or tasks.
7. Appreciation
If you want a happy and formidable team, you need to be prepared to empower your team members. Appreciation is the ultimate tool for motivation, so if your team are performing well, let them know! Positive feedback can go a long way to a happy workforce, and too often, criticism comes way before any positive feedback – and this only demotivates staff, which will negatively affect your business in the long run.
If you would like to discuss how Delphinium can help you and your team to work stronger together, get in touch to arrange a free initial consultation.
Author: Gemma Rolstone | Published 13th April 2017.
