Having a skilled, functional and cohesive team is vital for business success. It sounds simple doesn’t it.
Recruit the right people who are able to perform the requirements of their job and success “here we come”. Right?
Wrong!
You need to have an effective team of people who can work well together, complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, fit within the culture of the organisation and are clear on what they are working towards and why.
How can you work on the relationships in your team so everyone trusts each other and want to excel for each other?
I’ll assume you have people in your team with the ability to perform their specific job well.
Here are three tips on how you can create an effective team with your people.
1. A Belbin team profiling workshop
Team profiling helps people to fulfil their potential in a team by identifying their key strengths and allowable weaknesses.
It also helps leaders put the right people in the right teams based on not only their skills but also their behavioural traits.
Profiling provides the intel on how the team as a whole can cover for each team members’ weaknesses, which is why I call them ‘allowable weaknesses’.
An individual will still have a weakness, but this is made up by someone else’s strengths in the team.
According to Belbin theory, every successful team has nine key behaviours present which are called team roles.
This doesn’t mean you have to have nine people in each team though. We all have varying degrees of many of these roles within us.
A Belbin team profiling workshop will identify what team roles each person in your team prefer to adopt.
And importantly, a report will be compiled on what your team has, what your team needs and how everyone can work more effectively together.
2. Regular team building activities
Regular and fun team building activities should not be undervalued because they allow everyone to connect or re-connect with each other on a more personal level.
We can get so busy in our everyday work lives that it can be easy to overlook committing the time for everyone to learn more about each other.
It’s not about being social, it’s about understanding and appreciating the people you work with.
Team building allows people to forget hierarchy for a moment, connect with each other and work on important team skills such as leadership, communication and problem solving.
If there is any ‘stuff’ going on within a team, often a team building activity is a great way for people to let this go and re-connect in an energising and fresh environment.
It’s important that team building is a regular occurrence, not just a once-off, to rejuvenate, reload and reconnect your people to each other and the goals of the organisation.
3. A FISH! culture training session
A FISH! culture training session allows everyone in your team to explore how to create a great culture whilst utilising everyone’s strengths and passions.
It is an extremely effective culture programme because of its simplicity.
Complex culture change programmes can fall flat because they are so difficult to comprehend and apply.
FISH! is so simple and easy to remember because it all boils down to four key practices which apply to all levels of staff.
When everyone applies these practices into their attitudes and behaviors, the results are remarkable.
It will help any business improve morale, customer service, teamwork, trust and retention, with results often immediate.
There are small things that people can do right away that will transform the way it feels for them to work, communicate and lead.
So they are three tools to create an effective workplace team. Whilst each on their own will be beneficial, if you undertook all three, your team will go to another level in high performance.
Anita Kropacsy, Corporate Training Manager – Corporate Challenge Events
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