Team Building

To be a team leader or manager is a wonderful privilege, but also a great responsibility. As leader of the team / business, you must help, inspire and lead your team to fulfill their potential and become the best that they could be as a team. Many business / team leaders feel quite overwhelmed by this task, knowing that ultimately they are responsible for the team’s success.

Frequent questions asked: “Where should I start?” “What must I do to get the team together?” “What should I focus on first?” These and many other questions sometimes increase the anxiety levels of new leaders. Although there are many success principles when it comes to teamwork and leading a small business, there are a few essential items that will go a long way in preventing, resolving issues and increasing team effectiveness.

V: Vision & Values

Vision brings a team together, values keep them together. When all the team members are clear about what they need to achieve, what they are working towards, and what the rules of engagement (values) are, morale will be a lot higher.

Your role, the leader’s role, is to create and ignite a burning vision, focus the team, give them the tools to reach the goals, remove obstacles, make hard decisions and get out of their way.

When team members feel that they are empowered in these ways, they will work a lot better together.

E: Empowerment through encouragement

Everyone in the team has a role to play. By the way, if this statement is not true, then the team was assembled incorrectly. Each member has to take ownership for the function they are fulfilling in the team. This means that as leader, you need to help members take responsibility for both their own role, but also the success of the team.

The best and easiest way to do this, is to encourage, recognize and reward your team when they have done something well.

T: Team identity through team building

Lastly, recognize that your team / small business is an entity with its own vision, purpose and personality. Use this! Brand this! Create, mold and build this identity.

Create a slogan, logo or motto that will inspire the team. Make it fun and true to the organizational culture. When people have a symbol that represents what they stand for and what they are doing, it brings people together.

Teams have the potential to achieve so much more if they are inspired and focused. Use this power of teams! Harness it and you’ll accelerate your team success and business growth, tenfold.

Put your Team into Top Gear

Is your business or project stuck in first gear..? Or is your business a well-oiled machine, shifting gears smoothly quickly when necessary..?

It all boils down to people… whether you’re looking for business growth, operations efficiency or achieving a specific target or goal. The difference between teams that succeed and those who don’t, can be found in their communication. Most big organisations or corporations recognise the importance of open and firm-wide communication. But most SME entrepreneurs and owners miss this opportunity as they most often assume everyone knows what he or she is thinking. Often these “unspoken expectations” are the main cause of issues and misunderstandings.

Good communication starts with good listening. Listening can be seen as the foundation of effective communication, because team members who listen to each other will be able to respond appropriately and efficiently to others. Active listening should be regarded as the bedrock of any good communication. After you properly and really understand what is being said (verbally and non-verbally), you need to respond by using the following “5C Gears” of effective leadership communication:

1. Clarity

Clarity is the antidote to misunderstandings, frustration and confusion. Make sure that you clearly say what you want from others in a team as well as what you are doing. Taking a few minutes at the end of a conversation or meeting to make sure that everybody is clear on the actions that will be taken, can reduce misunderstandings radically.

2. Compliment

When compliments are sincere, they can encourage a team to new heights. Negative communication that only focuses on problem areas can often break down the morale of teams, while positive communication or compliments will boost their performance and motivation.

3. Continuous

Communication is a continuous process. It takes place through several channels, like letters, e-mails, memos, message boards, meetings, and one-on-ones. It’s your / the team leader’s responsibility to ensure there are regular check-points or meetings through which issues can be raised and resolved easily, quickly and effectively.

4. Consistent

Nothing frustrates team members more than being thrown from larboard to starboard by indecisive management. It is vital that teams know exactly what is expected of them and WHY. And that this message remains consistent throughout project delivery. Nobody can or will commit to a task that they don’t believe in, and nobody will believe it if you don’t really know why it should be done! Once a team leader or manager has decided on a course of action, it has to be communicated consistently, without giving conflicting messages to different team members.

5. Connect

If you want a team to work well together, they need to really connect to each other. This usually happens as a result of aligning expectations openly, recognition, respecting individual differences and having a clear common inspiring goal or vision. Connections between members can also be improved by enabling the team to spend time together outside of the team context.

Communication is a FREE infinite resource for project and business success. But it takes a clear plan and continuous commitment to be utilised successfully! Knowing how to effectively use it will be the difference between stop starting in first gear and racing to the foal line in top gear!