Teamwork makes the dream work. Focus on creating a truly successful team to make your business thrive and grow.
"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."
~Michael Jordan
A collaborative and productive team is essential for a successful organisation. Most managers, leaders and business owners know that, but getting a group of unique personalities with distinct life experiences, beliefs, and backgrounds to function smoothly as a single unit towards a common goal is a tough nut to crack. You need to provide the right skills, tools, and environment to attain that feat.
A strong and efficient team empowers an organisation to achieve business goals with consistency. According to my experience, when you take the right measures to build a strong team, you ultimately prepare your organisation for success. As a leader or manager, you can cultivate successful teams by implementing effective strategies that promote teamwork and collaboration.
10 Tips to Build a Strong and Productive Team
If you are looking to determine the appropriate strategies and deploy them to nurture your team, you have just arrived at the right place. Here are 10 team-building exercises extracted from my vast experience working as an Executive Coach for 1000+ hours that you can follow to build a strong and successful team.
1. Set SMART Goals
Set SMART goals for your team by choosing objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. When every team member shares the same metrics towards their goals you can easily track the progress regularly and accurately. Having a single metric to measure progress instead of multiple definitions of success helps the team understand their progress and motivates them to stay consistent in their actions.
2. Match Organisational Goals and Individual Skills
Once you set and determine SMART goals, assess the skill sets required to achieve them. Knowing each person’s responsibilities and skills will help you effectively allocate tasks as well as resources. Delegating tasks and responsibilities according to the skills of a professional is the most efficient way to accomplish organisational goals at a reliable pace.
3. Define Everyone's Roles and Responsibilities
After delegating the tasks and responsibilities to a worthy individual, make sure that the respective professional understands his/her role and responsibility with clarity. Even the individual with the right skill set may not deliver the performance as expected from him/her due to ambiguity in knowing responsibilities.
4. Encourage Effective Communication at the Workplace
Effective communication is a key feature of successful teams. The more people communicate and share, the more comfortable, engaged and collaborative they become. Good communication leads to effective decision-making and successful projects while mitigating the chances of any conflicts.
5. Ensure that Everyone Feels Trusted and Respected
There is a famous saying, “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” Focus on empowering individual team members to empower your team. Ensure that they feel trusted and respected at the workplace. It promotes engagement and collaboration within the team, which boosts overall productivity.
6. Allow Your Team to Innovate and Take Risks
While working towards the goals, there will always be some unprecedented challenges and setbacks. Allowing your team members to take calculated risks when necessary helps them grow and find innovative measures to overcome problems. They may find an innovative way to do something better, faster, or more economical. They may be able to apply and sustain some of those findings to future projects, which increases efficiency and decreases cost.
7. Give Authentic Recognition and Credits
Everyone in a team wants to feel that their contribution matters and that they are appreciated. As a leader or manager, identify and admire significant contributions. The more sincere and frequent the recognition, the more engaged and excited team members feel about their role in the team. There are many ways to recognise someone; however, saying even a thank you during a team meeting can be an impactful team-building tactic.
8. Ensure Professional Growth at the Individual Level
Encouraging professional development not only helps improve your team members' skillset but also keeps them motivated to advance their careers with your organisation. It generates their trust and amplifies their commitment. Along with giving authentic recognition and credits, offer them hikes, awards and other compensation when they deserve it.
9. Implement and Promote Strong Leadership
Strong leadership is necessary to ensure that the teams reach their goals, work together, stay motivated and deliver their best. As a strong leader, try to cultivate adaptability, welcome feedback, and create a more pleasant and fulfilling environment at the workplace. This approach enhances the commitment and accountability of team members towards their goals.
10. Encourage Giving and Receiving Feedback
Giving and receiving feedback is key to engaging your people and keeping them on track towards achieving their goals. Giving feedback constructively and effectively can lead to outstanding performance. Also, welcome their feedback to understand how they feel and find out how you can improve as a leader or manager.
A team is often an underestimated asset that defines the success of any business. When your team is aligned, it maximises the organisational potential and that can be an incredible win for your organisation. Learn and implement the right strategies along with the ones mentioned above to create a more engaged, more successful yet less fatigued team.
Are you in the right job? Take the Free ‘Are You in The Right Career Assessment’ to identify whether you are in the right job and discover what type of jobs you will excel at. The results of this test will be your guide towards a successful career change.
Smita D Jain is a Certified Life Coach, Executive Coach and NLP Practitioner. Smita’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Personal Clarity Coaching Programs enable busy professionals unhappy in their jobs to tap into their passions and transform them into professions so that they work because they want to, not because they have to.
Before her journey as a coach, Smita had extensive experience of 14 years as a corporate and business strategy professional with Fortune 500 companies. She is also a speaker at various public forums, a published writer, and an Amazon bestselling author.
You can learn more about Personal Empowerment Life Coach and Executive Coach Smita D Jain’s ‘Empower Yourself’ Coaching Programs by visiting www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com and book a strategy session at https://www.lifecoachsmitadjain.com/booking.
#successfulteam #teambuilding #workplace #presence #coaching #career #Life #lifecoaching #stress #managament #empoweryourself
Related Posts: