“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Henry Ford
Managers make the mistake of assuming that a team is formed by bringing people together to work on the same projects or workspaces. Even if a group of people works in
cooperation, are in constant interaction with each other, remain highly motivated and deliver good results does not necessarily make them a team. A real team has a strong sense of mutual commitment, which creates synergies, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members (known as
Gestalt theory).
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.” Babe Ruth
If you want to build a team, the real thing, it takes time. First, you will need to establish a team-oriented culture in your company.
Build Trust
The best way to start is by working on trust among members. As a manager you must ensure that your members learn the following basic points to build trust:
- Be consistent: Trust is based on pattern recognition. People need to observe constant behavior to have clear expectations about you, and to be able to trust you. That's why when we play with others, we learn to trust them.
- Keep it real: Do not pretend to have all the answers, if you do not know something, say so. This will give more value to your word so that when you claim to be able to help, people know they can count on you.
- Stop the drama: Because of your emotional volatility, others will refrain from relying on you when there are problems.
- Be reliable: If you make a commitment, stick to it.
- Respect: every argument, discussion, debate, etc., must remain within the boundaries of respectful communication.
Foster Open Communication
Encouraging an open communication environment where everyone can express their opinion, and contribute to a discussion is critical to a company. Open communication fosters the
creative and problem-solving capability of a company, as it allows for refining ideas and finding multiple solutions. Therefore, staff should be encouraged to participate and contribute to the discussions, arguments, and debates, and even to challenge others' ideas freely. However, these should always be kept within the limits of respectful communication. In addition, supervisors, managers, and owners must be open to listening to the needs of the staff, assisting them, and following up on how team-building efforts can be enhanced.
Set Clarity
A common vision for all team members is essential for team building and organizational success. The
objectives of our company must be supported by all team members, thus it is extremely important that all members clearly understand their individual roles and responsibilities, and how their efforts are feeding into the larger
objectives. Moreover, you need to create mutual accountability where the team holds itself accountable not only for what is achieved individually but as a collective. Likewise, you need to prevent that one person's goals from conflicting with another's, or they won’t work as a team, given that the success of one undermines the other.
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