Every leader, manager and indeed most individuals understand the benefits of effective team working. Despite this many organisations fail to leverage anything close to approaching the potential of teams. So what makes the difference to effective team working?
Right Environment
Many organisations talk about how much they vale team working and how vital it is to the results and service they deliver. Fewer actually create the environment that makes it easy to collaborate than compete or to empower rather than direct. It takes a leap of faith and courage on the part of leaders and managers.
Right People
Every organisation wants people that are highly committed, have a strong work ethic and strong personal desire to do their very best. At the same time you don’t want an organisation full of people whose total focus on themselves and what is in it for them personally. Drive is good as long it is not at the expense of making individual needs more important than success, results and continual improvement.
Right Reward Structure
You will never leverage the full benefits of team working if you have a situation where all of the financial rewards are determined based on what people do individually. Making team working, collaborating and supporting others as part of a range of criteria can go a long way to improving team working.
Re-enforcement
While leaders and managers can write about the importance of team working in business plans and strategies, the real benefit comes when leaders and managers continually re-enforce this. They are the role models and set the tone for the team. When they see others in senior roles behaving in a certain way it re-enforces expectations.
The Bottom Line: Getting teams to work together and leveraging the benefits of team working is always a challenge and continual work in progress. Being willing to work on this can not only make a huge impact on organisational performance and also enhance the careers of everyone.
Duncan Brodie helps leaders and managers in organisations to get better results through more effective team working. Learn more here
