Team Isn’t a 4-letter Word - Dhejo

Action Coach

Team Isn’t a 4-letter Word

Most of us cringe when we hear there is an upcoming team-building, morale improvement, employee engagement, and team productivity workshop that we are expected to attend. Why are we so turned off? What is it about team dynamics that challenge many of us? Why does the idea of working on team-building conjure such negativity?

Many believe that working on team building is a waste of time and money. They don’t see a tangible return on investment in activities that force teamwork and team building. But it is critical that employees work in unison to reach organizational objectives. How do you do that without forcing them to work together?

Often, team building fails because the basics aren’t addressed. Organizations rarely focus on individual motivating factors, personality styles and don’t have standard operating procedures to help feed organic team dynamics. Without understanding where each employee is and how they contribute to the organization, you leave huge gaps in the team-building framework.

“Teamwork is a much deeper concept than simply group work.”

Six Keys to Building a Winning Team

we focus on six keys to building a winning team and the foundation of the process focuses on individual contributors and how they are fundamental to team productivity. The six keys to building a winning team include:

Strong Leadership

Common Goals

Rules of the Game

Action Plans

Support Risk Taking

100% Involvement and Inclusion

 

Strong Leadership

Strong leadership requires leaders who are transparent and demonstrate high integrity. Strong leaders model behavior and are clear with their direction. Strong leaders understand that lifting their team members up makes them even stronger.

Common Goals

Common goals allow team members to identify what is important and how they fit into the organizational framework. Core values, culture points, and a clear vision and mission all serve to crystallize goals.

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game are simple standard operating procedures that give clear direction on how things are done. These agreed rules provide clear parameters of behaviors and actions expected from the team. Detailed outlined rules leave little room for interpretation because these rules relate to the desired outcomes that the company expects.

Action Plans

Action plans developed to achieve results include team members and are a clear roadmap. These plans give team members clear direction and expectations.

Support Risk Taking

Supporting risk-taking within the organization can ignite innovation and motivate team members to contribute in new ways. Learning from failure is critical to help teams be successful. Build a culture that doesn’t punish team members for mistakes but creates a learning opportunity to continue to improve.

100% Involvement and Inclusion

100% inclusion and involvement are critical to set up an environment that demands participation. Contributions from everyone in the organization need a voice and an outlet to ensure team members work as a collective to reach organizational objectives.

“True teamwork requires more to achieve the ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ payoff.”

Open communication, clear roles and responsibilities, timely feedback, and transparency all work to build team dynamics. A motivated team member that understands their place and contribution to the whole will likely function and behave in a way that achieves results because it benefits their personal goals.

TEAM doesn’t have to be a four-letter word, it needs to be transformed into a rallying cry, ‘Together WE Achieve More.’

For further information, feel free to get in touch with us at  [email protected]