Building HIgh Performance Teams
Your managerial success is tied to your team. Teams are the most
valuable resource of an organization. The times of lone
leadership are over with Alexander the Great. These are the
times of the team leadership. If you can build a successful team
and work as the leader who is just a little more equal than
others you may be able to pull off everything you do with great
success.
Successful team building requires a lot of focus and effort.
Here are a few tips to build teams that are effective and
deliver results.
Define the Objectives: Does the team members understand clearly
the expectations from them? Have the performance challenges
clearly been defined? Do they know what the expected outcomes
are? If there is a misunderstanding on the results expected from
each member as well as that of the team, you may as well write
off the team. Great Team + Challenging Objective = Extraordinary
Results.
Define the vision: The teams realize that they may be able to
survive only by delivering the bottom line results. However they
need something more than the key results defined to them. They
need a vision, something higher than profits and results. A
higher ideal fires up the team's creativity and passion.
Empower to Create Ownership: Empower your team to be independent
decision makers to accomplish tasks and team objectives while
defining their boundaries. Empowered teams and members carry out
its objectives faster as they do not need to wait for the leader
to decide for them. Empowered teams own up their responsibility.
Train, Train and Train Some More: A leader has a large stake in
the success of each team member. Members of teams require
different skills and the leader needs to be a trainer rather
than a driver. Identify skill gaps in soft as well as areas of
expertise and keep training them to produce better results.
Fostering Right Interpersonal Relationships: Make the team
understand that there would be differences. Difference in
gender, culture, thought process and approach to work symbolizes
the dynamic and diverse members who have come together to
achieve common goals. Respecting the difference and valuing
others experience and thoughts enable the team to function with
the right relationships.
Rewards and Compensation: As they say, first share the cash then
the compliments. Everyone talks about the value and benefits of
team work. However benefits to individuals must be clear along
with the benefits to the organization. Set down the right
monetary rewards and incentives for so that the achievement and
benefits for the individuals and organization are balanced.
Lead by Example: A leader always leads from the front. Set
example of discipline, performance orientation putting aside
personal ego to the team's superiority. Give credit to the
others even though you may have contributed more. This nurtures
the right team atmosphere and spirit of togetherness.
Celebrate Success: Finally don't forget to celebrate success. It
must become a habit to celebrate every achievement though small
they may be. Constant celebration boosts the team morale driving
it to perform at higher levels and aim for bigger achievements.
Many of the business cultures and managements celebrate the lone
hero leadership much more than the team leaderships. In the
modern interdependent world it is the teams within the
organizations and multiple teams all collaborating and
contributing to the common corporate objectives that really
differentiate the dynamic growing organizations from the lone
cowboy leaderships that may collapse the moment the leader is
not available to lead.