Effective team building is something that all teams should strive for in order to drive success.
Before you start forming a team, you need to ask a few important questions. First thing is about the type of environment where the team needs to function well. Is it within a factory, on a football pitch, or in an office setting? To have an efficient team, you also need to ask:
- What will be your team’s relationship with you and the other teams. What are your team’s common results? What are your goals?
- What strengths are required of your team members to achieve positive results?
- What things are needed in the company to help support the entire team?
Effective team building strategies should be centred on providing answers to these questions. Team outings that include effective team building activities also need to support these goals.
3 Steps to Building Effective Teams:
1. Influence harmony over your team.
The first step to becoming a great manager for effective team building is being able inspire consensus, mediation between team members (and other teams), and resolving disputes so that the team can focus on its higher goals.
Organisation skill is also a key on how to build an effective team. Make sure that everyone has a clear idea of all the objectives they need to accomplish and be able to understand well each of their assigned task or responsibilities.
It’s important to establish clear time frames, action plans, parameters or general guidelines so that each member knows exactly what is expected of them and how to do it.
You need to set ground rules and limits as well (rules in terms of upholding punctuality, maintaining standards, learning to offer ideas and suggestions properly, reports, prioritizing camaraderie, etc.) to help ensure team efficiency, commitment to goals, member/employee satisfaction, productivity, and success.
2. Great Communication is key to building an effective team.
Even co-operation is centred on this as well. As a manager you need to recognise that the ideas of each of your team members are valuable. Encourage members to share their insights, while emphasising the importance of their contribution to bringing the entire team towards its goals.
During effective team building activities, try games or tasks that encourage brainstorming, problem-solving, and communicating creative solutions together as one team.
Remain open to suggestions as well as concerns, ask questions and encourage listening to others as well. Also note that even if you need to build consensus within your team, you also need to stimulate debate. Members shouldn’t feel afraid to disagree with you or one another because this can lead to your team making only mediocre decisions.
On the other hand encouraging debate (encouraging members to voice out their true ideas and real feelings) inspires better solutions and lead the team towards better results.
3. Last but not the least, effective team building strategies involve building leadership, trust and loyalty.
Establishing the relationships between team members (and other teams) are in every bit just as important as establishing your relationship with them as their manager.
To create real communication, support, and cooperation with your team, you need to maintain your member’s trust and respect in you as their leader because the first rule of building a successful team is to being able to lead the team effectively.
Value your members, be a good leader. Inspire people and do not force to drive performance out of them. Remember, great managers and successful leaders build their relationships based on loyalty and trust, and not on power-plays or fear of the superiors.
To be able to lead or manage a team effectively, establish your leadership and build a productive relationship with each of your members. This is how you can truly build an effective team, support its members and pursue all your endeavours.
What are your top tips for building an effective team? We offer a range of courses in the fields of business and management which are highly useful in developing effective team building skills. You can view them all here…
Leave a Reply