Building Effective Teams: The 11 Essential Steps You Need to Build Your Own!

Is building effective teams something you want to do? If so, here are the 11 essential steps you will need before you can do that!

Dream:

This is about Vision and knowing where the team is going. Do all members in the team know what they are trying to achieve and what the goals for the whole team are?

Serve: 

Leadership involves skill, insight, patience and vision. If leaders don’t lead properly, the organization becomes a rudderless ship.  Most problems and challenges within an Organisation are broadly categorized as a ‘leadership issue’.  Our experience agrees with this.

Roles and Rules: 

Everybody needs to be clear about what role they play and how their performance is measured: Is there a clear action plan and achievable time-frames that enable people to work together and know what exactly is expected of them, and when?

Challenge: 

As part of quality improvement, teams should constantly challenge processes, systems and the way ‘we do things around here.’  Complacent teams become unproductive over time.

Your People, Your Family: 

Without good people in teams, an organization has nothing. People matter most. Put all your efforts into providing resources, skills and growth for your team.  If your people feel valued and heard, they are content.  Happy staff are productive.  Productive staff work more competently.  Competence and happy staff = profitability.

Ask – and tell!  Communicate, communicate, communicate: 

If there are problems in the ‘team camp,’ don’t leave it.  Train team members to resolve issues and conflicts that arise.  Don’t ignore or deflect issues that may affect a team’s performance or impact on the organisation’s profitability

Recognize, Reward and Succession: 

Teams need to know when they do well and rewarded appropriately.  It does not have to be money.  Not everybody is motivated by money. Praise, thank them, make them feel special.  Train them up to grow into more senior roles

The ‘Yes’ Factor: 

Create a team environment that has a ‘can do’ attitude.’ This starts at the top.  An optimistic leader mostly creates an optimistic team.

Heart: 

Passion, excitement and commitment to work, the organization and the dream are key factors in organisational success. Organisations with no heart die over time.  Focus on your people, engage with them, show interest in them.  Create the type of organization that everybody wants to join and be a part of.

Fun: 

Create fun, celebration, enjoyment.  Make work a place your people want to come, not have to come.  We spend most of our waking time at work – make it enjoyable for your team.

Reflect: 

Take time each day to assess how your team is going and where improvements can be made.  Reflective practice occurs where leaders and teams take time out regularly to assess performance and rectify areas that are ineffective.  How often do you do this with your team?