How To Build A Successful Team
To every business success story, there is a formidable team behind it. This is true for both start-ups and industry veterans. With a good team, your venture can develop, scale, and prosper in ways beyond your wildest dreams.
Recruiting individuals who cherish working toward a common goal, who are visionary and grow the leadership capability in your organisation is the first step in building a successful team.
Why is it important to build a successful team?
Every founder needs a team to transform their ideas into concrete reality. In other words, one individual, no matter how smart or competent, cannot attend to the various demands that come with growing an organisation. This demonstrates that regardless of how fantastic your business idea is, it will remain small until vibrant talents work together to translate it into a scalable venture.
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It is imperative for the team you put together to have complementary skill sets so that when all hands are on deck, they can achieve what you as the team leader cannot achieve alone.
Let’s explore how to build a successful team
High-achieving teams do not just spring forth from nowhere. It takes a leader with a clear understanding of the entity’s beliefs, objectives, and code of ethics carefully to nurture them. Without that leadership prerequisite, your talents would be like a shepherd-less flock. To assemble a successful team, here are some quick tips to pay attention to.
- Set clear guidelines from the start
Recruits often begin relatively unclear. At this stage, they are receptive to diverse corporate cultures, but soon after, they begin looking for behavioural guides within your company. You must learn to use this to your advantage. Establish ground rules and make your expectations clear from the door; not just in terms of your ten-year strategy or sales targets, but also in terms of the kind of culture you want to foster. Do you wish to foster an atmosphere of shared accountability, problem-solving, and decision-making? State it with clarity during your onboarding process and drum it constantly as they start with you.
- Establish clear goals
Establishing codes of conduct is one thing; backing it up with clear goals is another. Never leave your team hanging without a target to chase. Ensure that you set clear goals for everyone joining your team and hold them accountable to them. As they work on these goals, enable regular, honest, open, and transparent communication. Create appraisal and reward systems. If you do not give your team a clear goal that inspires action, they tend to slide into redundancy or they channel their energy or time doing something that adds zero value to your organisation. You don’t want that because it is going to impede your overall plan of building the right team.
- Respect each team member for who they are
In as much as you want your members of staff to function as a team, you also need to keep in mind that they are unique people with their own experiences. Without your help, they made it this far in life, and when they leave work each day, they probably have full and interesting lives. It is critical to avoid thinking of new team members as mere automatons. When people are valued and respected for their distinct talents and capacities to contribute to your shared objective, a strong team environment emerges.
- Promote healthy relationships within the team
While you must respect and regard each team member individually, it is equally important that the team members show one another the same level of decency and consideration. Encourage people to view one another as business collaborators instead of competitors. By so doing, they will work together to advance the company, attain personal achievement, and accomplish team objectives.
- Develop your emotional quotient
Emotional intelligence is important, and great leaders understand it. Simply put, it indicates that they lead by treating people like people, not like robots. Excellent leaders are aware that the same things do not drive everyone. Some team members excel when working toward common objectives. Some people enjoy a good rivalry, whether it is with an internal or external rival marketing team. A good leader would view people’s differences as an asset rather than a barrier by accepting the realities of various work styles and motivational approaches.
- Encourage others with optimism
Good leaders believe that “you get more flies with mango than coffee.” In the actual world, this means that shaping behaviour using positive rewards as opposed to negative reinforcement is more effective. Avoid the impulse to point out the errors of your teammates publicly. Instead, foster a good team climate by highlighting instances and actions that you found particularly commendable and encourage your team to continue in that vein while working to close identified lapses. Shaming people who made mistakes is a much less effective strategy for encouraging team performance.
- Always communicate
We all enjoy knowing where we stand as humans. Are my co-workers satisfied with the work I am putting in? Do I have anything to work on? Assume that everyone is curious. Their performance will suffer if they can see you are unhappy but keep mute about it. This can cause stress to build up and even animosity. They may have an unpleasant shock when you inform them that they have been underperforming if they believe they are doing a wonderful job. Therefore, brush up on your communication abilities because poor communication can destroy business connections while great communication can keep them effective for years.
- Think about techniques for praising efforts
People like it when their efforts are recognised. If you have the financial means, you can give performance-related bonuses as a way of showing appreciation, but if your business has limited finances, think of other ways to show appreciation and trust. Delegation is another wonderful strategy. Give key decisions you might have exclusively reserved for yourself to a team member who has shown good judgment. If they have a reputation for being very frugal with money, let them use the business credit card. Find a small way to show that you appreciate and are paying attention to the work that your staff members are doing.
- Increase your variety
Make your workforce as mixed as possible in terms of experiences, background, age, and viewpoints when it comes to building a successful team. Hire people who will help take care of your blind spots. Surround yourself with knowledgeable people who will influence the decisions you make and your deliverables.
- Learn to Experiment Often
Although teams are frequently most effective when their duties are well defined, think about trying out novel concepts. The most effective teams typically encourage calculated risk-taking and provide plenty of chances for learning, particularly when these trials have the potential to produce superior results. Allocate time for brainstorming sessions before beginning a new project to integrate new perspectives into your regular operations. Team members can offer suggestions for undertaking research, organising a project, or gathering and assessing information during the brainstorming exercise.
- Hold yourself accountable to the team
Each team member needs to maintain accountability if you want to build a successful team. Team members usually perform at their highest level when held accountable. Setting a good example with your work, encouraging your team members to explore methods to improve, and making it a point to communicate feedback are all ways you may create this form of accountability. You can help your team members feel a sense of purpose and belonging by promoting group accountability.
- Watch and evaluate
To ensure consistent progress in your team, evaluate the group’s performance regularly by organising group meetings and one-on-one discussions with your team members. Ask such questions as how the team is doing, what progress they are making, and what has been discovered. What is not functioning very well? How can you make it function better? It is possible to implement changes and enhancements along the route by tracking and analysing progress.
- Find a leader you can trust
Find a dedicated person who can act as your representative, someone who can fly your flag as well as the company’s flag. Give your team the freedom to choose their leaders. You can train the various unit leaders to work together. Consider the likelihood that these leaders will remain with your business or in your sector for a reasonable time as you are spending time and money on them.
Suffice it to say; that understanding the totality of human management, team building, and effective workspace interaction may be the only disparity between a successful business venture and a failed one. Therefore, to build a successful team it is pertinent you have a good grasp of the tips highlighted above and apply them to your daily team management processes.
