How To Build An Effective Team In The Workplace: Best Tips And Practices
In today’s article you’ll learn everything you need to know about how to build an effective team.
With the competitive society we live in today, team and leadership skills are a must for any business to experience success. In business, nothing great can be done by one person (normally), but with a team, great things can occur. However, these highly effective and efficient team building skills are hard to come by, but can be learned through proper guidance and implementation.
Here we’ll look at various kinds of methods for building a successful team, and managing it effectively so that your team members will produce high results. We’ll also provide some tips and tricks to help you become a better leader starting today!
How to Build an Effective Team at Work:
3 core principles that each successful team must have
When you consider successful teams, what traits come to mind? Great teamwork? Have an awesome leader to lead the group? While these traits are related to successful teams, in terms of building a successful team, the 3 core principles are the factors that play a major role in building a successful team.
Every successful team should have 3 common core principles that must be established. Without one of these missing core principles, you’ll have team members who will be uncooperative, will be less motivated. But if these 3 core principles are applied, you are well on your way to leading a successful team.
So the 3 core principles of this successful team are:
Have clear goals: In the Bible it says that “Without vision one perishes”, scientific studies have also found that the most motivating factor in a team is moving towards a goal. When the leader sets clear goals for the team. Teams are more involved in the task at hand to attain goals quickly. But if there isn’t any clear goal, people start to slack off and become lazy.
Have a role clarification: Having role clarification is essential in team building. Having a clear leader to define certain tasks is important not to order them to do the work but to work together on a project with the same end goal. By having an arrangement like this, people listen to others more and become more cooperative.
Too many people mistake this passage to believe they’ve to rule over their workers. However this is a big mistake, if you’re a team leader you should treat your teammates as the same human beings but just have a different talent than you. Where do you work together.
Interpersonal relationship management: Humans are social creatures where interpersonal relationships are very important. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying to you, or have never managed a successful team before. There must be a set
The “system” that enables for the management of these relationships, this system has to take into consideration separating the people who do not “click”, and bringing together the people who do “click” well.
As someone who wants to build and manage a successful team, i.e. a team leader, you must master and instill these core principles to become a part of who you are. These principles are very rare in today’s society.
Especially Interpersonal relationship management, when I counsel people to build successful teams, it is surprising to see how many people do not even consider relationships within their teammates. These people only think of their teammates as workers who only work for them. But with the right relationships and building trust, I’ve seen a group’s productivity go up 10 times.
But these 3 core principles aren’t enough to create an excellent team in today’s competitive environment. Where this is the minimum bear you need. Now let’s get into the more advanced principles that lead to a successful team.
Team motivation without the carrot and stick
How would you react if I told you that everything you know about motivation in humans is wrong? What do you think that in humans the real motivation doesn’t come from money but a sense of accomplishment?
In probably the most famous Ted Talks of all time “The Puzzle of Motivation”, Dan Pink examines the myths of motivation in humans and discusses how we should approach this problem. In this talk he argues that we literally lose motivation and creativity in the crunch of time.
Also we utterly lose focus when the main motivator is money. Have you ever been sitting at work just waiting on your “lunch break” doing nothing? This is precisely what he was talking about
Then how should we overcome this problem of team motivation? The solution to this problem is not associating the main motivator with money but associating it with the work it produces. When you measure your team’s motivation by the amount of work done, you will be surprised at how much your team’s motivation increases. So that solves the money problem.
But how do we solve the problem of timing? This is where it gets tricky. You, as the team leader, must utterly disband the group when the intended goals have been achieved. What does this mean? When your workload is really fulfilled, you should let your team go. It’s that easy, but easier said than done
Too many leaders are fixated on time equaling money. Allows people to work a certain number of hours and pay an hourly rate of work. But when you allow people to leave when the job is finished, in addition to pay with the work done, their motivation skyrockets because they’ve something to look forward to when the “real job” is finished. Sounds Simple? Yes it’s, but it works.
Lead the tribe. How do you do it?
In the world we live in today there’s plenty of leadership training, and have seen great leaders in a wide range of work settings, but as advances in technology and communication decline, these great leaders have gotten more and tougher to find.
This is because as I mentioned earlier, they’re missing one of the core principles of team building which is establishing interpersonal relationships with their teammates. If you have come this far in reading, I’m going to assume that you are not one of these people and have derived 3 core principles and motivations.
So you have cooperative, motivated teammates. How do you lead them to the goals you have set together? In other words how can you become a successful leader? What are the qualities you need to learn to become a successful leader?
1. Honesty:
During my research, I have found that honesty is the number one factor that teammates look for when they’re attempting to find their leader. Honesty makes it possible to build trust (1), and with trust a relationship is built between you two. What does this mean?
You build relationships with one another, it comes back to core principles. Think about it, how can you work with someone you cannot depend on? Doesn’t work.
2. Confident:
Well, if you are a leader, it is you who needs to step up and take big action. I’ve seen too many sit-back leaders who “think” they’re allowing everybody to work together.
However, this does not all the time work because if the leader does not step in and take the lead, the direction of the group will go in several directions, making it very chaotic. You were assigned to be the leader for a reason to direct the group’s thinking in the same direction. Be confident and lead the group
3. Commitment:
Let’s face it. When you are assigned to be a leader, your job will be tougher than being a teammate. You will have more responsibility when your teammates make mistakes. However being a leader means someone, or a team, truly believes in your qualities. Take full responsibility and work hard for it!
4. Sense of humor:
Getting back to the core principles of intrapersonal relationships, nothing builds better relationships than a good sense of humor. In a tight work setting, a good sense of humor here and there lets you really lighten up the job when needed.
These are the 4 principle traits that each leader should have. You’ve most likely heard of most of these tips, but have not yet implemented all of them in your team building regimen. I have advised many team leaders and those who become successful are those who implement all of these tips. I repeat each of these tips.
In the start I would recommend starting implementing 1-2 tips and really making it your own and over time apply all of these traits to become a part of who you are and you’ll soon find out your team will appreciate it.
Manage team stress and conflict
Now that you have successfully built your own team and also become a powerful team leader, what you need to do now is to manage your team in such a way that it runs smoothly without any bumpy roads.
It does not matter how good the team is, and how great a leader you are, there will be times where conflicts with your team arise, and things aren’t going to go well during those times. This is the time that differentiates from a good leader to an awesome leader.
Whatever the conflict with your team, you as the team leader must take responsibility and go directly to the conflict area. Within the area, listen to members, and thoroughly evaluate and analyze what the root cause is. If it is simple to fix try to fix it on the spot but most of the time, it is going to be difficult for you to fix it on the spot causing conflict and stress.
A big part of the problem with team leaders is that they’re afraid to take responsibility for the conflict for fear that they will make matters worse. However if you have listened to your team members, and have followed the above team it has the important traits of a team leader. You will be capable to make big decisions and will be capable to solve problems. At this place I strongly advise you to trust your instincts.
You may be asking yourself, “Instinct? We are talking about critical decision making here and what you can recommend to solve this problem is to trust my gut? Yes, right.
The reason I recommend it to all my clients is because when it comes to solving a problem there are too many things at play and there is often no right or wrong answer.
Therefore, the more you think about the problem, the more chaos in your head that results in bad decisions. Better to just trust your instincts and call it what it is. In my experience, this creates much better results for all my clients.
Take action
I’ve laid the foundation for team building and team management. These tips are nothing new and amazing, but people for some reason don’t follow these basic steps and complain that they can’t form or manage a functional and productive team.
Pablo Picasso once said “action is the basic key to all success”. You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve met in my workshop program where they come up to me and say they know everything I’ve laid out but don’t get the results I describe. And I ask them, “Do you practice what you know?” and their response is “Okay… I’m trying…” I hope it isn’t you.
Read the article over and over and let these tips and tricks sink into your brain and let it become a part of you. How can you expect something to occur just by knowing what to do and not doing it?
Go to your team and begin implementing these tips and traits one by one. If you do not see results you like, apply more and more tips and shortly you will find that you have applied all the tips and have created a successful team!
If you have not heard of these tips before I suggest slowing down, when you try to implement all of these tips without delay you’ll quickly notice that things get messy, it isn’t because of these traits, and the tips do not work but you have not. utterly internalize all guidelines and begin taking action without caution.
Conclusion
Successful teams are hard to come by these days. But in the competitive world that we live in today (2), they certainly need. I’ve covered the top and best tips in this short article so you can create and manage a successful team too.
By implementing the tips and tricks I’ve provided, I can assure you that you’re going to be capable to create and manage your own successful team that will enable you to do great things.
I hope you put these tips to good use and wish you the better of luck for your success
