Posts Tagged ‘teamwork’

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

If you are a leader you will be leading at least one and in reality probably multiple teams.  Building a successful team is a challenge but there are some simple things that you can do to greatly enhance the likelihood of success.

Be clear on the results

If you are to have any chance of building a successful team you need to start by getting clear about the outcome or result that is to be achieved.  The result needs to be specific and written in a language that will be understood by everyone.  Remember that vague specification of results is likely to lead to okay but less than optimal outcomes.

Be clear about the skills you need

A successful team needs to have the right blend of skills to deliver the results.  A soccer team for example needs the right mix of defensive, attacking and creative players.  A business team is no different.  Get clear on the essential skills to deliver the results you want.

Be clear about the attributes that are needed

Skills are important but they are only part of what helps you achieve results.  Attributes or interpersonal qualities are just as important.  They include areas like motivation, influencing, relationship building, personal drive and resilience to name just a few.  Make sure that you don’t lose sight of having the right attributes when building your team.

Bring out the best in everyone

It’s all too easy to pigeon hole people or make up what they can or cannot do based on their job title.  You know the kind of things that people say day in day out like marketing are the only creative folks, accountants won’t take any risks, quality assurance get in the way, human resources are too rules based to name just a few. 

Make a point of finding out what people can bring to the table rather than just guessing what they can or cannot do.

Recognise that it takes time

No team ever leaps immediately from forming to performing.  They go through a series of stages where they move forward, move back, work together, have conflict and hit obstacles.  Accept this and see it as a short term setback for a bigger long term gain.

Bottom Line – Teams can deliver great results.  So what do you need to do differently as a leader to get more success from teams?

Teams are a collection of individuals with complimentary skills who are seeking to achieve a specific result or results.  It might be to reduce wastage, improve throughput, increase sales or better determine project costs to name just a few.  Effective teamwork relies in the conditions being created that facilitate effective teamwork.  So what areas require attention?

Clear purpose

The first condition for effective teamwork is to get the purpose clear.  If you don’t know what the purpose of the teams work is, how will you know if it is achieved?  A good question to ask is what do we want this team to achieve?  The greater the clarity you get on this the easier it will be for the team to focus on the right thing.  Another way of getting to your purpose is to consider what will be different when the team has completed its work.

Right people

No team will ever be effective unless it has the right people with the right skills on it.  Team selection is challenging but important.  As well as people having knowledge of their own area, they need to have the right attributes to build trust, rapport and relationships with others.

Dependency

For a team to exist and achieve there needs to be dependency.  By dependency, I mean that the performance of one part of the organisation needs to be dependent on one or more other areas to achieve results.  For example, an organisation might decide that it wants to cut energy costs by 5% and set up a team to achieve it.  The Finance Director might well be the person reporting back but will be dependent on areas like purchasing, estates management and a management accountant to achieve that outcome.

Team accountability

For effective teamwork, team members need to be committed to delivering on their piece of the jigsaw.  In addition, there needs to be accountability to the team and the team results.  This is radically different to the norm which places huge emphasis on individual accountability and takes time to develop.

Diversity

One of the real advantages of teams is that there is access to a greater range of skills, experience, knowledge and personal attributes than there would be in one individual.   This diversity is what in many ways makes teamwork so powerful.  Exploiting the benefits of this diversity does not happen overnight.  It takes teams time to build up that trust and it is important to allow the time for that to be created rather than trying to force the pace.

In building a physical object, strong foundations need to be created if it is to be a success.  Teams are no different.  Their success depends on creating the conditions for effective teamwork. So what do you need to do to improve team effectiveness?

We all have experienced times when we were part of a great team and there are other times when we struggle along in isolation.  In my experience there are 6 main benefits of team working:

1. More creativity leading to more ideas and better results
2. Increased employee satisfaction
3. The opportunity to develop and acquire new skills
4. The speed at which things can be achieved
5. A sounding board for testing out ideas and thoughts
6. A support network that you can draw on

What do you consider to be some of the additional benefits of team working?

For the exhaustive reference on working with, leading and managing teams, check out the special pre-release on my latest book. If you are serious about your team, don’t miss this special Click here for more details