How to Turn Your Employees Into a True Team

Turn your employees into a true team

If you’ve ever enjoyed working with a great, true team of people, you know first-hand how wonderful that is. A great team can collaborate, discuss ideas, disagree respectfully, reach consensus, and get things done while allowing each member to work to their strengths. On the other hand, if you’ve worked with a team that couldn’t pull together, you know what a toxic and miserable situation can create. If you have a group of employees you want to turn into a cohesive team, you have a challenge ahead of you. Fortunately, it is possible to get almost any group of individuals to work as a great team. You can start by putting the following tips into action.

Clarity on roles

Negative things can happen when your staff lacks clarity about their roles and responsibilities. For example, people may unintentionally step on other team members’ toes.

Regular post-mortems

Many leaders choose only to have a post-mortem session if a project has gone poorly. This is a mistake because there are always new insights to be gained from any team experience, even those that have gone very well. It may be easier for your team to discuss process improvement after a successful project. This is because they’ll be feeling upbeat. After a failure, there may be hurt feelings, stress, and other barriers to figuring out ways to improve.

Don’t Micro-Manage

Your team members should know you are always there for direction and guidance. However, you want to be careful about bringing yourself into the mix the minute conflict or a problem without easy resolution crops up. When team members are forced to work through these things among themselves, bonds are formed, and the team becomes stronger as a result.

Embrace technology

If you want a trustworthy team that works efficiently and effectively <span class=”wpil_word”>together, don’t forget to give them the tools to help them accomplish this. What works for your particular organization depends on your specific needs. For example, if you have team members in remote locations, you’ll want to find a good app for video conferencing. You may wish to provide any software or guides for time management. Finally, you might want to create an app that allows collaboration and the sharing of documents. Just be sure that a lack of technology isn’t acting as a barrier to getting things done.

Provide incentives and rewards that are meaningful

First of all, sincerely delivered, specific words of praise effectively motivate your team members. Even so, there will be times when you want to provide incentives and rewards beyond verbal encouragement. This is a great idea, as long as your services are meaningful to all team members. Here’s an example. If you reward your team with a night at the ballpark, that’s a great way to thank them for their hard work, as long as everybody is a baseball fan. On the other hand, catered lunches, time off, gift cards, and small cash bonuses work well in nearly every situation.

Get to know them

As a leader, it is your job to know every team member. This means understanding their goals, talents, motivations, expectations, and the best management style for them. It is essential to remember that none of these things is static. Life circumstances, exposure to new things and a variety of other factors can cause any of things to change. Because of this, you should schedule regular one-on-one meetings. This is so you always know what each team member needs from you.  Ensure you make the best use of each team member’s talents. Most importantly, you want to ensure that you are doing what a good leader does, which is to help your team members find success.

Be your team’s best example

Your behaviour in the workplace will set the tone that your team will follow. If you model cooperation, respect, the ability to handle conflict gracefully, and a willingness to take ownership of your mistakes, that is what your team will emulate. If they witness you using your position to get your way during conflicts, passing blame, and subjecting others to angry outbursts, your words about working well together will fall flat.

Team Building that works

There is a wide variety of team-building activities that you can use to motivate your team. These can encourage them to work better together. These can include weekend retreats where a professional facilitator guides team members through planned activities. There are options for providing fun activities for team members during the workday. Some entrepreneurs put ping pong tables in their offices to encourage friendly competition and social interaction between team members.

Together, these approaches can help you turn your employees into a true team.