Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams!
Rubina Das
team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of
team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in
the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger
than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the
mission or objectives of your organization.
In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success
of the organization. You work with fellow members of the organization
to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function
and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other
organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger
picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger
picture.
You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task
of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a
specific goal. People confuse the two team building objectives. This
is why so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and
activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed
to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense
of team work is different from building an effective, focused work
team when you consider team building approaches.
Twelve Cs for Team Building
Executives, managers and organization staff members universally
explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Many view
team-based, horizontal, organization structures as the best design for
involving all employees in creating business success.
No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous
improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work
teams, you are striving to improve results for customers. Few
organizations, however, are totally pleased with the results their
team improvement efforts produce. If your team improvement efforts are
not living up to your expectations, this self-diagnosing checklist may
tell you why. Successful team building, that creates effective,
focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following.
Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated
its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do
team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization
demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with
resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive
sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion,
attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?
Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on
the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help
the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team
members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of
corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the
total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and
values?
Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team
members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to
accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members
perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their
own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their
contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop
on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team
opportunity?
Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people
participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step
of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its
members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues
for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to
the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies
and support needed to accomplish its mission?
Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and
designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the
mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its
anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will
measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team
followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other
coordinating group support what the team has designed?
Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel
the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time,
do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may
members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and
time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the
team experiences barriers and rework?
Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood
by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the
team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is
there a defined review process so both the team and the organization
are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members
hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and
results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities
for self-management among organization members?
Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do
members understand the stages of group development? Are team members
working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members
understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team
leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving,
process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team
members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team
established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict
resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the
team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?
Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their
tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback
and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide
important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the
complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate
clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse
opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?
Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in
change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new
ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make
improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the
status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books
and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?
Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for
team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are
successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the
organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend
their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the
organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and
individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains
and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can
contributors see their impact on increased organization success?
Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team
that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have
priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do
teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next
process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-
functional and multi-department teams common and working together
effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-
focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental
thinking?
Cultural Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-
based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of
the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical
organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or
in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises,
hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it
employs?
Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and
support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more
it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive
in pay back from the work of the teams?
Spend time and attention on each of these twelve tips to ensure your
work teams contribute most effectively to your business success. Your
team members will love you, your business will soar, and empowered
people will "own" and be responsible for their work processes. Can
your work life get any better than this?
Your feedback is most welcome.
Rubina S Das.