How to Build a Successful Team

Encourage clear communication among your team members.

The success of a company depends on a variety of factors, one usually being a solid team good at completing company goals. Depending on the nature of your business, a functioning and cohesive team may be imperative to meeting company deadlines, ensuring that projects are completed properly and that problems can be met with multiple solutions offered by various team members. To build a successful team, interview candidates carefully and ensure they have the personality, talent and level of expertise you are looking for to fit in as seamlessly as possible with existing team members.

Instructions

1. Hire people who have differing skill sets. These separate hires each bring something to the table as a team. For example, if you own a hat business, hire people who have experience in fashion marketing, floor displays, retail accounting, wholesale fashion buying, public relations and customer service. Individually these employees may not have what it takes to run a hat store, but together they create a cohesive team to tackle problems and accomplish overall store goals.

2. Communicate what you want as a manger clearly and effectively, especially if you are managing multiple teams in different departments. A team cannot be successful if its members are confused by your directions or interpret your requests in different ways. To communicate your needs to your team, it may help to email all team members with a clear outline of what you are looking for. During meetings, allow team members to ask questions if there is any confusion or misunderstandings. Communication may also be a problem among team members, so encourage members to clarify requests or strategies. A successful team needs to be on the same page about strategy, requirements, deadlines and objectives.

3. Assess which communication method works best for your team. Implement this method as your team's go-to mode of communication. For example, your team may communicate mostly through mass emails, even though it's apparent to you that strategies, questions and concerns get lost in the long email threads and inefficiencies in communication arise as a result. If this same team seems to function better verbally and in-person, ask that team communication be kept to a minimum over email and that the bulk of it be in meetings with necessary members present.

4. Boost your team's morale. If multiple layoffs have been occurring in your office or certain deadlines have been missed, team morale may wane. Be enthusiastic and upbeat despite setbacks, and always use calm, problem-solving language when dealing with problems. Do not become visibly frustrated or angry and act condescending toward your team if members make a mistake. This will only further corrode team morale. Reward your team for its hard work with occasional in-office lunches or company parties.

5. Trust your team. If you micromanage every aspect of a project or goal, employees may begin to feel that they are dispensable to the endeavor or that their expertise is unnecessary since you may regularly make the ultimate decisions during each step of the process. Demonstrate that you trust your team by allowing members to incorporate their own ideas and strategies. Show them that you rely on them by micromanaging them less. Trusting your team will most likely make members feel valued and can boost their work ethic and team morale.

References

• Michael Page International; What Makes a Good Team?; Ben Fletcher
• Team Building Information: Building a Successful Team

Resources

• Your Office Coach; A Successful Start for Project Teams; Marie G. McIntyre