No company has ever achieved greatness without the support of a great team behind them. But building a strong, effective team isn’t as easy as just throwing out the biggest salary.
What is the purpose of a team?
“A team exists to allow an endeavour to grow, scale, and thrive in a way that would be literally impossible for one person to do. ” – Masterclass.com, 2021
Whether you are a start-up or a multi-national giant, having a team or teams, is the only way for you to achieve your business goals, scale up your operation and at least keep some form of sanity.
Why is building a team important?
Without stating the obvious, but the purpose of a great team is to fill the gaps you are missing so that you can achieve things that would never have been possible on your own. These gaps aren’t always just hours in a day mind you, but also skills, experience and much more, and then if you are agreat leader, allowing these team members to take ownership of the areas they know better than you.
Why, because this is how you can scale, learn, and push the boundaries of what you thought your company would have been capable of.
5 ways you can build a strong and effective team
Here are 5 ways you can both attract and build a strong and effective team.
Build Trust
This is probably the most important part of building a strong team, and I don’t just meanfinding team member you can trust not to steal your yogurt from the fridge.Instead look for individuals you are self-starters, those who have the courage to take a brief and run with it on their own accord, fearless enough to bringideas to the table and can bring them to life.
When developing someone, try to give them opportunities to deliver this,perhaps give them lead on a project and all its decisions, or ask them for their input on potential decisions to be made on a current one.
Be Aware Of How You Are Managing Them
Nobody likes to be micro-managed,and any effective team will tell you that’s the fastest way to lose greatpeople.
However, also bewarethe trap of becoming to relaxed on letting your team just get on with it,because even the most skilled team still needs direction, it still needs a captain to stick in in the boot and remind everyone what they should be doing and why.
A good way of maintaining a balance is by running perhaps a more agile methodology and holding scrum meetings at key points in the workflow process. This way you can still manage the team without seeming like you are consistently on their back and checking up on them, whilst also providing your team with enough instructions and opportunities to keep them informed and on track.
Don’t Be Afraid Of Bad Conversations
"Having those good conversations is really 80 percent of being an effective manager.”- Seth Besmertnik, chief executive of Conductor.
Nobody likes bearing bad news, or having difficult conversations, but these are some of the most important conversations you will have if you want to build a strong and effective team.
After all, you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.
The trick here is to make sure you keep some boundaries, everybody makes mistakes, no product is perfect first time round, so try to keep emotions out of it and where possible ask how you can help improve the situation. If the problem persists then perhaps that team member just wasn’t right for the team.
Reward Good Work
Just as important as having those tough conversations, is rewarding good work.
Common practice tends to be financial reward; however, this doesn’t have to be the only form of reward, just any recognition of good work is greatly appreciated, employees love to feel like what they do has made a positive impact and is recognised.
Build Connections
Let’s face it we will probably be spending 99% of our time at work with our teammates, which is probably more time than we spend with our families, so make sure to invest the time and effort in building those connections up,after all we are inherently social creature, and if we feel an emotional connection to those around us, we tend to put more effort in helping them.
When bringing in new team members remember to the team, remember to properly introduce them,perhaps set a day aside for a team event where you can all meet and interact without the pressures of the daily grind.
For current team members,little things like remembering birthdays, or special life events can go a long way, perhaps giving them their birthday off, or holding a special event in-office.
One important thing to remember when gifting, is the art of surprise is everything, if someone is expecting a particular a thing it loses it’s magic as it becomes an expectation, so try and be a bit creative and do things different for each person.
To conclude…
Hopefully this will help you go forward and build a strong and effective team, that will lead you and your company into 2022 with a bang!
O f course building a strong and effective team does take more than these 5 things, and a lot of time and effort will need to be invested in your team members to get he bestout them, but just as long as you remember they are people too, and treat them with the respect you would want, then you are already on the right path.
