Divides the effort

One of the great benefits of teams is that you can take what appears to be a mammoth task and divide those tasks between people. As a result, things get done faster.

Creates more ideas

One person operating on their own can generate ideas. At the same time, the breadth of the ideas of one individual will be limited by their experiences to date. With a team with a wide range of experiences, you can generate many more ideas.

You become the facilitator

In his book, Teamwork 101, John C Maxwell states that the true measure of a leader is getting people to work hard together. In many ways, I see this as the leader facilitating or enabling great team performance.

Camaraderie

On all the great teams that I have been part of, there was always a huge sense of camaraderie. This enabled us to get things done even when the odds seemed to be stacked against us.

You learn quickly

One of the fastest ways to get good at something is to see someone in action who is already excellent in an area. When team members all play to their strengths, you learn a lot quickly.

The bottom line

The truth is teams have the potential to deliver great benefits. So what’s the biggest benefit you have experienced from being part of a team?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. For more information click here

Teams have the potential to deliver extraordinary results. At the same time, there is no such thing as the perfect team. So what are some real truths about teams?

Truth 1: There Will Be Conflict

Teams will from time to time have periods of conflict. This is just the way it is. The challenge is to make sure that the conflict remains productive rather than destructive.

Truth 2: It Is Hard To Get People to Pull In the Same Direction

After nearly 30 years of working in or with teams, I still see people struggling to pull in the same direction. Remember, it is natural to think about the personal impact on you or your people when team decisions are being made.

Truth 3: Building Trust Takes Time

A team does not just come together and instantly work together. There need to be high levels of trust, which take time to build.

Truth 4: There Is No Magic Formula

There are things that you can do; ways in which you act and structure you can put in place. At the end of the day however, there is no magic formula that works every time.

Truth 5: It Takes a Major Mindset Shift

For most of our life, we are judged on what we do individually. For example, most academic achievement is geared towards individual performance. Moving towards team working requires a mindset shift.

The Bottom Line

If you are willing to invest the time and effort in creating team success, you can achieve great results. Just remember that it is more like middle distance running than the 100 metre sprint.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. For more information click here

As your career starts to gain momentum and you start to demonstrate what you can deliver personally, chances are you will find yourself in a position where you are given your own team to lead.  Leading a team brings with it a number of challenges and can feel like no matter what you do someone will be unhappy.  So if you are to succeed as a team leader, what 5 qualities are essential to your success?

Quality 1: An effective listener

One of the most important and yet most challenging things for team leaders is effectively listening to others.  It can be hugely tempting to try and rely on your position power to make things happen and while this might get some results in the short term it is unlikely to work in the long term.  Make listening more effectively and actively a priority if you want to make an immediate improvement in your team leadership competency.

Quality 2: Treating everyone fairly

Just as in life, there will be some people that you connect with more than others.  This in itself is not a problem as such unless it starts to compromise how you treat others.   Treat everyone fairly and you will gain the respect and support of those that you lead in most cases.

Quality 3: Providing clear direction

As the leader of the team you need to provide direction to others.  This includes giving a clear message of the overall direction of the team or function as well as clearly setting the expectations of the team of people that you lead.  If you fail to do this, chances are that the results that you deliver will be less than they could potentially be.

Quality 4: Making decisions

You might not always have 100% support for every decision that you make but people will value the fact that you take decisions.  Being led by someone who procrastinates over every decision is a huge de-motivator and hugely frustrating for those that you lead.

Quality 5: A genuine interest in others

If you don’t show any interest in helping others to achieve results and success in their careers why should they be interested in helping you get results?  Team leaders who make the time to take a genuine interest in helping others achieve results will get benefits well in excess of the investment of time and energy that that they make.

Bottom Line – Team leadership is challenging and rewarding.  Doing some simple things exceptionally can make a huge difference to the results and success that you achieve.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professionals and organisations to achieve better results through improved team working.  Click here to find out more.

We all know that when we are part of a successful team it feels like we have the ability to achieve just about anything.

In any team one of the most important components in being successful is having a clear purpose.  Think about it if a team does not have a clear purpose it is going to be difficult to:

• Assess what progress is being made

• Determine whether the team is on or off track

• Identify what needs to change when things are not working

While most people understand that it is important to have a clear purpose, achieving this in practice is often more difficult.  A good indicator that you have a clear purpose is when individual team members can easily articulate what the team is trying to achieve.

A good example of the complete opposite is when the team is vague and people talk in vague terms like improved efficiency, better engagement, customer satisfaction or better productivity to name just a few.

So how can you get a crystal clear purpose for your team?

Make the time to define the purpose

Seems obvious but how often is it done in practice.  Chances are the team is established to either address a problem or exploit an opportunity.  What is the problem or the opportunity?  Answering this question will get you off to a flying start in having a clear purpose.

Check out understanding

You might think you have a crystal clear purpose if you are the leader.  Yet the team members might have a different point of view.  Ask the team members to describe in their own words their understanding of the purpose so that you can get to a point of common understanding.

Keep it simple

It is really easy to become over elaborate and make things more complicated than necessary.  Generally simpler is better.  For example, 98% of employees paid correctly is simple and crystal clear as a purpose.

Bottom Line – Creating a clear purpose is core to team results.  So what steps do you need to take to define the team purpose and get better results?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become great leaders and managers and improve team working.  For more information click here

When we are part of a team that is delivering results we feel hugely motivated and when we are hugely motivated we tend to keep taking performance to a higher level.

Often small teams whose members are drawn from a group of people who tend to share common values and ways of thinking achieve a lot.  The struggle sometimes arises when people are asked to work in a cross functional or cross discipline team.

In these situations, it is not uncommon for there to be:

• Power struggles where different groups are trying to take the lead and be in charge

• Silo thinking where people are only thinking about the impact on their little part of the pie

• Conflict and argument without there being any productive results orientated behaviours

When working in the team, especially one that is cross functional:

Recognise that different people view the same problem differently

The way that we look at and respond to a particular challenge will be influenced by factors such as our experience, training, skill set, knowledge and our personal stake to name just a few. Rather than trying to force through your way, try to focus on creating a new way of doing things that embraces the richness of the collective experience and expertise of the whole team.

Remember it all balances out in the long run

Sometimes you will be the person who provides the spark of inspiration or builds on the ideas of others.  At other times you will have to take more of a back seat.  In the long run however you will get plenty of opportunity to be the catalyst for the team.

Get all views heard

Some of us are more outgoing extrovert types while others are more introverted and quiet.  If you are in the role of leading a team, it is vital that you create the opportunity for all views to be heard.  Failing to do so could result in key opportunities being lost.

Keep the focus on the end game

Ultimately the team is tasked with delivering a result.  It is all too easy to get dragged into personal agendas and pet topics.  When you notice this happening, get teams re-connected to the overall purpose, goal or end game.

Bottom Line – Teams present their own challenges.  The key is to understand an use these dynamics to create success.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to become highly effective leaders and managers. To find out more click here

In any organisation whether small or large, teams of people from different backgrounds with different experiences need to be able to work together to deliver results.  If you are a leader or even just a member of a team, what are 5 golden rules to keep in mind to encourage effective team working?

Golden Rule 1: Find things people can easily agree as the key focus

This is particularly important when in a large organisation where it can be all too easy to get narrowly focused on the activities of your department without considering the overall purpose of the organisation.  For example, professional accountancy firms exist to serve clients, schools to educate and hospitals to deliver healthcare.  People, no matter what their functional bias can generally get behind and support the overall purpose.

Golden Rule 2: Recognise good team working

It is all too easy to attribute team successes to a leader or particular individuals but in truth most of the results will have been achieved by people working together and bringing their own unique contribution to the challenge.  Make a point of recognising good team working, especially cross functional team working.

Golden Rule 3: Get people understanding each other better

We all tend to look at things through a particular lens which is usually influenced by things like our experiences, training or even professional discipline.  Encourage people to avoid stereotyping and help them to better understand the different ways different people look at the same problem or challenge.

Golden Rule 4: Focus on contribution from all

The fact that people look at things differently is not a drawback but a distinct benefit of team working.  Get people listening more to others contributions so that the best solutions can be arrived at from the range of possibilities.

Golden Rule 5: Don’t expect it to happen overnight

Teams take time to come together, gel, bed down and deliver results.  Don’t expect improving team working to be like a light switch where the time from flicking the switch to having more light is almost immediate.  View it more as a longer term project where small steps are made that eventually lead to big results.

Bottom Line – For just about any organisation, team working is important to success.  So what do you need to start doing to get teams working effectively?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps teams in large organisations to deliver better results.  For more information click here

When teams get to performing there is no doubting the value and benefit that they bring.  Sometimes however, teams just do not work effectively.  So what stops teams from working effectively?

Fuzzy goals or objectives

If a team does not know with absolute clarity what it is to deliver, chances are that at best it will deliver something of little value or at worst nothing at all.  Don’t compromise the ability of the team by leaving it to try and finger out what it is to deliver.  Make it crystal clear.

Roles are not defined

Just imagine a scenario.  Something has not gone as expected and everyone is saying that they thought that someone else was doing the task that was so critical.  When riles are not defined things fall down a track and when things fall down a crack no one wins.  Get clear on who is doing what.

Bad decision making

Taking decisions as a team is different to taking decisions individually.  It requires team members to rely on each other, a concept that might be alien.  One thing is certain you will get some decisions wrong.  The key is to aim to get a clear decision making process on the team that everyone understands.

Policies and procedures that are past their sell by date

Organisations, especially big organisations need to have some boundaries and protocols which are typically set out in policies and procedures.  Trouble is these policies and procedures can easily become onerous our out of touch with current practice.  Make sure that policies and procedures are still relevant.

People don’t interact with each other appropriately

We all based on our experiences, background, professional disciplines have different preferences.  Trouble is people often forget this and fail to adapt their style to move closer to the people they are interacting with.  Make a point of thinking about the other person’s preferences when interacting.

Bottom Line- Teams when working well together have the potential to deliver great results.  So what’s getting in the way of successful team working in your organisation?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professionals improve their leadership and management skills and improve team working.  Click here for more information.

Creativity is an important aspect in any team that is aiming to deliver great results.  If you have two teams and one plays it safe within the boundaries of what they already know and another one that is always seeking to test the possibilities, chances are that the latter will have more success.

So how can you unlock the creativity in teams so that they contribute to great results?

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a highly effective technique where team members initially put forward ideas freely without discussion and debate.  These ideas are then reviewed to establish which are likely to have the greatest impact and also to determine the challenges and obstacles to making the ideas reality.

Ask lots of questions

Questions are often the thing that can really help a team shift to a new level.  However, not any old question will do.  Questions that are likely to open up possibilities and unlock creativity are likely to be short, forward focussed and non threatening.  Examples include:

• What’s possible?
• What matters?
• What do we need to do?
• What’s the first step?
• What else?

Think big picture

Detail has its time and place but when in the creative space, you want to be keeping the focus on the big picture, the end game or vision.  Holding this as the focus will encourage people to push the boundaries.

Encourage real active listening

We all love to get our point across, be heard and be the person who comes up with the breakthrough.  At the same time if everyone is focusing on what they want to say, chances are no one is really listening and when no one is listening things get missed or lost in the noise.

Don’t stereotype

On a team, especially if it is cross functional, it is really easy to fall into the trap of stereotyping folks.  You know the scenario, only the marketing folk are creative, the accountants are only interested if it makes a payback quickly, the human resources folks are only worried about what it means for staff, the production folks are only interested in top specification, etc.  Remember, people are not so limited as job roles would have you believe, so embrace and use the diversity of views.

Bottom Line – All breakthroughs come from an idea so what do you need to be doing differently to unlock the creativity in your teams?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professionals improve leadership and management skilss and team working.  For information about services and programmes click here 

A team is a group of people doing something together to produce a specific result or outcome.  None of us, no matter how good we are can be great at everything.  So what are 6 key advantages of teams?

Advantage 1: Increases productivity

Organisations are continuously looking for efficiency or productivity gains as a source of competitive advantage.  Teams, especially those that are close to the point of delivery can identify what needs to change to boost productivity better than any group of senior managers could ever hope to.  Let the team focus on productivity and the organisation gains.

Advantage 2: Improves communication skills

For teams to succeed they need to be able to get their messages across, listen effectively to other points of view and build on ideas.  As a result of being on the team, people are getting the opportunity to develop and improve their communication skills.

Advantage 3: Diversity of skills

Some people in organisations thrive in dealing with the big picture stuff.  Others get their kick from getting immersed in the detail.  There will be others who thrive on idea generation and others who love to take something from concept to finished article.  This diverse range of people skills and working together have the potential to deliver a much better solution than any one individual could ever hope to do.

Advantage 4: Improved problem solving

Think about a time when you had a problem that you needed to solve.  You probably get so far and then end up getting stuck because of your own range of experience or knowledge. When you have access to the wider range of skills and knowledge you ultimately solve problems faster and better.

Advantage 5: Process improvement

Few business processes operate in isolation just within one area of the organisation.  They tend to cross functions and even geographical boundaries.  A team with insights of different parts of the process will clearly be better placed to make successful process improvements.

Advantage 6: Smarter use of resources

When a team has focus on getting a specific result, chances are they will find creative ways of using the resources at their disposal rather than focusing on the constraints.

Bottom Line – There are numerous advantages of teams.  What else would you add to the list of advantages.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to improve their leadership and management skills and getting better results through teams.  For information about services and programmes click here 

Many things contribute to team success and some things get in the way.  Team leadership is an important element in team success, so what are 5 common stumbling blocks when it comes to effective team leadership?

Stumbling block 1: The leader is closed minded

One of the great strengths of teams is their ability to generate a whole host of alternatives and ideas.  Used effectively these can contribute to great results and even take team performance to a higher level.  On the other hand if the team leader is closed minded and not open to new ideas then these ideas will never translate into results.

Stumbling block 2: Not using appropriate leadership style

Leadership styles can essentially be grouped into 5 main categories.  Telling, telling and selling, consultation, participation and empowerment.  The style that you adopt will depend on the situation, the expertise of those in the team and the context to name just a few.  For example, in times of urgency you might need to go for a very directive, telling style.  The key is to be able to adapt and use an appropriate leadership style when leading a team.

Stumbling block 3: Self interest before team results

Team members expect the team leader to be loyal to the team.  If the leader becomes more interested in themselves, they start making choices from a self interest rather than a team results perspective.

Stumbling block 4: Lack of consistency

We have all probably worked for people who seem to lack any sort of consistency when it comes to dealing and interacting with others.  For the team member this is a real challenge and can ultimately lead to disengagement.  As the team leader try and aim to be as consistent as you possible.

Stumbling block 5: Having your favourites

Like anyone else you will have a better connection with some people in the team than others.  At the same time you need to be alert to this connection leading to you having personal favourites which can alienate others.  Be alert to the fact that you might be showing favouritism.

Bottom Line – Team leadership is a vital component in team success.  So what stumbling blocks are getting in the way of your success as a team leader?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to improve management skills, leadership skills and team working.  For information on services and programmes click here