For any business to survive and thrive for the long haul they must have a strong grounding in their teamwork.
It is not as simple as throwing a group of great employees together and they will succeed, there is much more involved to make it efficient and effective.
If your staff are working well individually, you may still be succeeding, but not to your fullest potential. A group working well together will always achieve more than individuals, regardless of how great the individual is.
There are many ways for you to help bond your team to become a winning combination, here are just three.
1. Collaboration
This means having two or more people in your team working toward a particular goal or purpose.
It helps if it is a compelling cause, something they enjoy doing. As the leader of the team ensure you make expectations clear from the start as well as during the process.
Establish some team and individual goals where it encourages the use of their initiative.
If possible, try to help foster relationships with your team in and out of work, by doing this you will help them build more trust amongst themselves.
2. Committment
Being committed means everyone on the team must pledge to a certain course or policy. At all times they must be dedicated and loyal to the team.
When team players show they are committed it fosters more reliability. It also creates a happier environment, and they feel like they have ownership of the team. As well as this they will become ambassadors for your company.
There are six levels of commitment:
- Apathy.
- Non-Compliance.
- Grudging.
- Formal.
- General.
- Committed.
You should strive to have a team sitting in the committed category.
There are some obvious signs to let you know if someone is committed. They will go the extra mile when required. They will try to find ways to improve their own performance. They only speak positively about the company; they may even refer their friends or family for employment.
3. Communication
By far for me this is the most important aspect of teamwork, if you are failing in your communication, I suggest you work to improve in this area now.
There are different ways to communicate, sending or receiving information, speaking, writing or some other form of medium.
Having great communication increases staff morale, everyone will become more productive. The team will operate more effectively, it will also give everyone a voice.
Ensure all your communication is consistent, though.
Defining your goals regularly improves your communication, if you can have face-to-face meetings with your staff this is the best way to go about it.
Whenever I feel my team may be slipping, I make it a priority to step fully in and improve the communication with everyone. It does not take long to get them back working together, if you leave it too long you will have a harder job on your hand.
Having a collaborative, committed and team that communicates well puts you in a great position to go in any direction. There is no pushing and pulling required, you just change the direction you want to go, and they will be right there with you.
Marie Temby, author of “Simple Soulful Successful“
