Be clear about the purpose

A team needs to know what it is trying to achieve if it is going to deliver consistently high performance.  As the leader of the team you need to make sure that the outcomes or results are clear and completely unambiguous.

Get the right people on board

What makes a team succeed is having the right people, with the right mix of skill, experience and personal attributes.  Take the time to select the best possible people for the team and if you are inheriting a team, take the time to discover what the team has to offer.

Empower people to deliver

Too often in teams leaders tend to micro manage rather than making it clear what is to be delivered and then empowering people to make it happen.  On the other hand the best leaders focus on bringing out the best in each team member.

Listen a lot

Ever been in teams where people are more interested in giving their own opinions rather than listening to each others views?  Trouble is when it comes to communication people are often skilled at verbal and written communication but less skilled at listening.  Train your team to become great listeners.

Be clear on roles and responsibilities

There are always lots of different activities and roles to be undertaken in the team.  As the leader, make sure that everyone on the team is crystal clear on what they are expected to deliver.

Focus on team accountability

There may be a leader of the team but it is vitally important to make sure that the team as a collective is responsible for delivering the results.  As the leader, creating dependencies is an important contributor to people working together effectively.

Bottom Line – Teams have the potential to deliver great results.  So what steps do you need to take to create more success in your team?

Let’s look at something that is probably quite topical in organisations right now, which is cost reduction.  One area of commonality is that every individual or group will be thinking what does it me for me or us. 

On the other hand if you asked people for their views on how others might view the issue, you might hear something like the following:

“The accountants will be in their element and finally feel like they are doing something useful”

“At last an opportunity to reign in those rogues in sales and marketing who never pay attention to any financial procedures”

“The CEO is only interested in engaging us to save his or her own skin”

“I hope that they don’t expect us to contribute as we are already cut to the bone in terms of staffing”

“No doubt it will be the lowest paid and least respected that will get a rough deal”

So if you are the leader who is trying to move things forward, how can you utilise these different perspectives?

Listen a lot

The real challenge is to get to the heart of the issue and that requires you to listen.  You often find that what they are presenting as the surface level problem is not the real issue.

Ask questions

Questions are another great way of really understanding the different perspectives.  Combine this with great listening and you are going to be well ahead of most.

Stand back from the detail

It is all too easy when times are tough and difficult choices need to be made to unconsciously become a collaborator.  While you need to listen and understand, don’t let it result in you losing sight of the issue or challenge.

Be open

In organisations, it is often the people closest to the point of delivery that come up with the best solutions.  Be open to these opportunities rather than needing to be right.

Bottom Line – We all to a greater or lesser extent view challenges through one lens. The challenge to be more successful when it comes to team effectiveness is learning to understand and utilise the different perspectives.

Skills

It is hard to imagine achieving anything without skills.  Successful teams recognise that achieving results is not just about mastering one area.  To prosper they need a range of complimentary skills.

Firstly they need the right technical skills.  Having technical skills across a wide range of disciplines is highly unlikely.  For example, how confident would you be if you were introduced to a surgeon who was the technical expert in hip replacements and then being told that same surgeon was the hospital’s technical expert in IT, Accounting and Human Resources?   The challenge is to find those with the complimentary technical skills and blend them together.

Secondly, teams need to have the skills to problem solve otherwise they will just become stuck when faced with the inevitable and sometimes unexpected obstacles they will face.

The third area of skill is interpersonal skills.  This includes areas like communicating, influencing, getting others on board with the team’s ideas and dealing with conflict to name just a few.

Commitment

Teams are generally faced with one or more performance challenges.  These for example, could be related to delays in discharging patients from a hospital, high error rates in a production process, problems with staff retention or delivery delays.  Commitment in a team is about:

• Agreeing a specific set of goals

• Agreeing an approach to achieving those goals

• Having a clear purpose

Accountability

We are all familiar with the concept of being accountable for what we deliver individually.  In teams this personal accountability still exists but mutual accountability is another vital addition in successful teams.  Mutual accountability brings with it risk and requires high levels of trust, respect and commitment.  This presents a challenge for many teams and requires new ways of thinking and behaving.

At the end of the day teams focusing on a particular performance challenge can achieve more than one individual on their own.  The challenge is how to develop and embrace these three essential ingredients and incorporate them into the way the team works.