Teamwork
is one of the most crucial skills required for running a successful business.
Your team’s performance drives the business forward and creates a solid
foundation for any expansion or future development. However, building a high
performing team is a challenging process that takes time, patience, energy, and
a lot of effort. Nevertheless, with the right guidance and dedication of team
members, it can be an incredible journey that creates strong bonds with
everyone, increases productivity & performance, and brings
success-over-success for any company. Let's see how to do it the right way.
Main factors that determine a good team
When
building a high performing team and becoming resilient, there are various factors to consider.
My goal is to share insights about the perspectives on teams, possible
environmental blockers that may hinder the development, understanding your work
style and that of your employees, and finally, how to approach the work that
has to be done. The objective is for you to have all the necessary tools to
create your dream team!
The importance of team composition
Team composition plays
a vital role in building a high performing team. What helps each individual to
excel and communicate with others is driven by:
● Characteristics:
communication, focus, support, organization, diversity.
● Attributes:
a clear vision of the goals, the ability to take responsibility, cooperation.
● Behaviors:
social cohesiveness, collective efficacy.
● Traits:
self-awareness, commitment, motivation, reliability, honesty, optimism,
empathy.
If each member of your team focuses to develop in these areas, your team will function flawlessly. However, if they fail to do so, it will create obstacles that will be challenging to overcome.
What prevents your team from achieving the best results?
Understanding
environmental blockers that will hinder your team's development and performance
is the best way to find a proactive solution. When an employee starts working
for a company, they are usually very energetic and try to perform to the best
of their capabilities.
However, beyond the initial 90 days, their performance could go down, commonly due to misalignments such as:
● Job
position/role: if an employee does not move to a more desirable position/role
after some time or does not get promoted, then their morale and performance
could decrease.
● Daily
activities: if an employee is getting too many or not enough daily tasks, it
will affect their work efficiency.
● Salary:
an increase in monthly earnings will motivate an employee, but a status quo
might create unease. Not everyone deserves a salary raise, but they must understand
the rationale for not getting the increment.
● Manager:
if an employee is not satisfied with their manager, they will look for a way
out of the team. A manager must cultivate the ability to notice a change in
their team member’s behavior in a timely manner.
● Culture:
this can be a serious issue especially for employees who are not aligned with
the values practiced and the traits emphasized by company management.
● Location:
a lot of people work away from their hometown during their school years, and one of the challenges can be relocation.
As a leader, your objective is to recognize these issues and talk to your employees about their disengagement or dissatisfaction. They must see your empathy for the issues and hurdles they are facing due to the above factors.
The leader grows with the team.
Coaching and
nurturing have a goal to create strong managers that will not only lead
their team but also grow together. However, this process is not the same for
everyone. Your work style will set the tone for your team.
There are four basic quadrants that teams can be classified as:
● innovation
and agility
● results
and discipline
● process
and precision
● teamwork
and employee experience
Depending on the team’s collective characteristics, they will fit in one or more of these categories.
Additionally, your employees might have a stronger drive than you. In that case, you must inspect your blind spots, or your development will not be a match to their expectation. As a leader, you must set an example that others will follow. That's why it is essential to understand your team's strengths, weaknesses, and overall makeup.
Understand the work to be done and map your team’s objectives.
Performing
a few team exercises is a crucial step because it will enable setting different
objectives & relevant tasks under each objective, discovering the blind
spots & resolving them. Upon completing the exercise, they will have a
higher understanding of the work to be done. Furthermore, it will allow you to
get to know everyone's capacity.
Consequently, you will learn to optimize the talent and stretch them to unleash their full potential.
How to create cohesion within the team?
The
final piece of the puzzle is team cohesion. Teams constantly communicate, make
decisions, and take actions collectively. As a leader, you need to align them
to reduce friction, curb any loss of team spirit, and reduce energy waste.
Essentially, become aware of your individual strengths, fix your blind spots, and create synergy among your team members. At the same time, understand your team's strengths and weaknesses, as well as their potential and capacity.
Building a high performing team
With
time, even leadership traits have evolved in some ways. Leaders of yesterday
had a different approach, and they used to tell their employees what to do.
However, the leaders of tomorrow must learn to ask, solicit ideas, encourage
participation, and collaborate with employees.
An effective leader helps their team to adapt in various situations, leverages their strengths, stretches their capabilities, unleashes their true potential, facilitates open dialogue, and delegates effectively.
The path for driving results is hard, and you need to visualize yourself, your employees, and the entire team as a cohesive group that functions as one body and one mind.
