Teamwork and Productivity

How would you like the people in your business, the people you work with or even yourself, to be more productive at no additional cost?

All you need is great teamwork.

With a high performing team, you can achieve something much bigger, more effectively and more enjoyably than a group of the same individuals working on their own. It`s like free extra profit.

Team building skills are therefore critical and valuable to any business and to you, providing that extra edge.

So what exactly is a high performing team and how do you build one?

Many books and much academic time has been devoted to understanding the critical elements of a successful and effective team building but in essence these boil down to three key elements:

1. A clear team goal is a must shared and understood by all and supported by strong communication channels across the team and supportive member relationships
2. A broad range of skills and personalities exist enabling complementary strengths to be used in support of team goals and to compensate for weaknesses
3. Factors inhibiting good team work are identified, such as remote working, personality clashes and the like, and either removed or overcome or their negative effect on team mitigated

But people thrown together do not automatically make a great team. People need time to get to know each other, to learn to get along, to develop interpersonal trust and build team spirit. There are many tools and games to help build great teams. Here are my top 5 ideas:

1. To ensure that team good balance of skills and personalities, undertake a personality profiling or feedback session to help team and its members discover strengths and weaknesses and gaps.
2. Ask team to work together to establish team norms and behaviours e.g. how often it is going to meet formally and informally, protocols for 1-1s, rules for meetings, and the like. It can be a good idea to establish a system of fun fines and forfeits for breach of team rules and norms
3. Allow team members to build trust and openness by encouraging them to spend time together in an atmosphere that encourages open communication, bonding and the creation of shared team experiences. For example a weekly or monthly lunch when whole team can come together.
4. Whenever possible try to involve whole team in decision making or problem solving sessions. This allows each team member to feel as if he or she has contributed and therefore has a stake in and ownership of the final outcome.
5. Finally whenever there is the opportunity ensure progress is seen and small successes celebrated. Always make sure the team knows how far they have come not how far they still have to go.

Team building and team working can be a constant challenge, but the pay off from a high performance team is well worth it and undoubtedly a business tool to make and save money.