How to Build Your Best Team

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, The Blue-Green Game (35-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introduction and Objective: The Blue-Green Game is a team-building activity designed to highlight the significance of Win-Win thinking and effective teamwork. In many organizations, achieving a Win-Win situation where everyone benefits can be tough due to a lack of trust, communication, [read more]

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Editor’s Note: Grant Stanley is a seasoned Business Coach and a Sales & Marketing Expert with a 20+ year outstanding Sales and Marketing record. He is also an author on Flevy, where he has published materials from Business Fundamentals to Management and Leadership Excellence.  Take a look at all of Grant’s Flevy best practice documents here.

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Group of individuals working together for a common objective form a team. Teams are generally formed to accomplish complicated and difficult tasks. All individuals come together on a common platform and strive hard to achieve the set objective. When individuals work as a single unit towards a common predefined goal, a team is formed.

Not all teams can perform well. The performance of a team is dependent on its team members. The individuals must be handpicked very carefully to form a high-performance team.

Let us go through some important points one should keep in mind while building a team:

• The team members preferably must have a similar if not the same taste, interests, likings, needs and attitude. It has been observed that individuals with a similar taste tend to gel with each other easily as compared to others with different interests.

• Individuals should be from similar backgrounds and too much of a gap should be avoided. The team members must be selected keeping in mind their interests and specialisation. Do not form a team just for the sake of it. An individual with a technical bent of mind will always be in a state of confusion in a team of marketing professionals.

• Always understand the team members well. No individual is alike. A person might be a particularly good speaker but may be poor in writing emails or written communication. An individual can be excellent in presentations but might lack the art of making an impressive presentation. It is particularly important to understand the individuals well and responsibilities must be assigned to them as per their interest and according to their qualification and specialisation. An individual with excellent marketing skills never finds a desk job interesting and his/her best will never come out. Never force any one to be a part of any team. Individuals must participate on their own.

• The goal or the objective of the team must be clearly defined. The objective of the team must be shared with every team member and they must be clear what is expected out of them. The purpose why the team has been formed must be clear to the team members. They should know what they have to work on so that they can deliver their best.

• Promote effective communication among your team members. Communicate with the members on an open platform and encourage team members to actively participate in discussions. Prefer a meeting room or a conference room to discuss various issues inviting all the members. It is always better if the communication is through email with all the team members in the loop so that none feels neglected or left out.

• Avoid conflicts. Don’t let negativity creep into your team. Pick individuals with a positive attitude. One should avoid fighting over small issues and be a little more adjusting. Everything can’t be exactly the same way you want. Team members must be demotivated to criticise or make fun of their fellow team members.

• Various activities and events must be promoted within the teams. Work will never suffer if the team members go out for a movie or lunch; instead, it strengthens the bond among the team members. Individuals come closer to each other this way and avoid fighting among themselves. People know each other better. Always remember to greet your team members with a warm smile.

• A leader should be appointed carefully. A leader should be such that everyone looks up to him/her for advice and guidance. Do not select anyone just because you like him/her, instead prefer the voting system. The most favourite candidate among the group is the best choice for a leader. The team leader must extract the best out of his/her team members and be equal to everyone. He/She ought to be intelligent and a little tactful. He/She must motivate the individuals from time to time and be impartial. Never embarrass any of your team members.

• It is important to take the feedback from each and every individual. Review your team and team member’s performance on a monthly basis. Sit with each and every member to understand whether he/she is enjoying his/her work or not. Job rotation is a good option to reduce monotony. Promote healthy competition among the team members. Appreciate if he/she has done something great. Reward them suitably.

• Discipline must be maintained at all levels in the team for maximum output. Team members must arrive on time for meetings and discussions. One should avoid a casual or a laid-back attitude. The team leaders must be easily available to the team in case of queries and confusions.

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