Building great teams is no easy task but you can do it if you know how to do it. Teamwork has become a buzzword. And, it has lost its original meaning. Genuine teamwork is a rare skill. It is hard to find even at the most renowned and largest organizations.
Whether you are part of a small company or a multinational organization — it is important to understand the roadmap to build a cohesive team. In this blog, we will share some tips with you to achieve extraordinary teamwork.
Build trust among your team members
Every great team has one thing in common, they trust each other. Ask your team members whether they trust each other or not. Most of them will say they do. Unfortunately, trust is a word which has been misused so often, that it has lost its value. Hardly anyone knows what it really means.
When we talk about teamwork. Trust is the confidence that each team member places in other members that their intentions are good.
What lack of trust looks like? An indication could be that team members are careful and protective around their peers.
Building trust is a long process and it cannot be achieved overnight. It requires colleagues to share different experiences with each other over time and multiple instances of credibility. We will share a few ways you can accelerate the process of building trust:
Have a meeting with your team and ask all the member to ask a few questions about their personal history
- Number of siblings
- Hometown
- First job
- Worst job experience
- Hobbies
- Unique challenges faced
Your team members will see each other as great humans with interesting stories and backgrounds.
Next exercise may get difficult for some people as it involves identifying one biggest strength and weakness of one team members. It may seem a bit risky but it can build trust as it will allow them to do constructive criticism. And, constructive conflicts are a great way to open up and build trust.
Get them committed
Highly cohesive teams are able to make a decision after receiving buy-in from all team members. Meetings end without any doubt. Even if someone voted against the decision, they know that there are no hard feelings.
Teams who want to reach consensus can never get team members who are committed. There is no way all humans can reach consensus every time on something. Your goal should not be to reach a consensus. Instead, the goal must be to make certain that every employee is being heard. The opinion of each team member should be heard whether you all agree on the same thing or not.
Certainty is another obstacle in front of commitment. Your team members should be able to commit to any goal without assurance about the result.
To get complete buy-in from each team member, review all the key takeaway from the meeting. Whatever decision is taken, make sure everyone communicates it to the other employees. This way, you can also assure that any sensitive information stays confidential.
Make everyone accountable
Just like trust, accountability is another buzzword which has lost its meaning in recent decades. When we talk about teamwork, your employees should be able to call out each other on performance or behaviour issues when required.
There is a little discomfort involved with accountability but everyone has to go through it. Great teams have people who can get over this discomfort to make themselves accountable.
A good way to hold each member accountable is by making clear what each employee needs to achieve. The job duties, KPIs and behaviours should be explicit. Ambiguity can make it difficult for you to hold anyone accountable. You can also set up an online performance management tools to keep a track on the performance of each member.
If anyone goes against the standards or objective, you should communicate to him/her how you feel about it. Also, by shifting the focus from individual results to collective results, a team can contribute to greater accountability because then team members will care about the performance of other members.
Conclusions:
These are some tips for you to build a strong team.
Members of a fully cohesive team:
- Trust each other
- Are able to engage in constructive conflicts to think of new ideas
- Are more committed to plans and ideas
- Can hold other team members accountable for underperformance
- Focus on collective results
In the end, it all comes down to practising these tips consciously over a long period of time to achieve great teamwork.