The ability of individuals to operate as a highly effective team is vital for achieving success in today’s organizations. Those who understand the dynamics of teamwork and have the skills to manage a wide range of team situations are valuable assets.
For any team to be successful, there are four keys on which to focus:
Team Structure—assess the team’s purpose and goals and look at each person’s role on the team. Knowing what you’re aiming for is always key if you’re going to hit the target!
Team Style—analyzing behaviors/personalities and evaluating how best to capitalize on individual strengths. Individual strengths can collectively create a synergy. Focusing that synergy on the goals at hand can produce a superior and more creative product than that done alone. Using tools such as the Hartman-Kinsel can help pinpoint personality uniqueness and give teams a better idea of how to work with one another. A personality-diagnostic tool can also highlight areas of talent and passion in team members which can help with role assignment and helping maximize a person’s potential and job enjoyment.
Team Skills—incorporating team building and interaction skills into the team. Soft skills have gone by the wayside in recent years, yet these skills are some of the most necessary in team development and training. Using some basic creative training techniques, increase the level of trust and communication in your team. Doing a Blindfolded Trust Walk is one effective, quick, and easily adapted trust-building technique. Pair your team up, giving one member of the pair a blindfold. The blindfolded member has to follow verbal directions given by his partner—turn left, step to the right of the chair, take three small steps forward and you’ll feel the stair…After a few minutes (depending on how much time you’ve allotted), have the partners switch—now the direction-giver becomes the blindfolded direction-taker. The exercise builds trust and creates an awareness of the importance of clear, verbal communication. It can be done in hallways, conference rooms or outdoors (which is by far the more fun and challenging setting).
Team Meetings—making meetings effective—and not a massive waste of time and other resources! Create a meeting summary ahead of time to help keep the meeting focused and progressing.
While having an effective team isn’t rocket science, it is not 100 percent common sense either. But these four keys will give you a starting point on improving your team and improving your aim!
To subscribe to The Bob Pike Group FREE monthly ezine, click here.
This article was re-uploaded from our internal archive.
