Build Great Teamwork Fast – 6 Ways to Create Great Teams Quickly
Most managers lead a group of individuals, not a team. You can build great teamwork fast. Groups of individuals typically work alongside each other, doing their own work. There is chat but not a lot of in depth discussion, not much collaboration and little joint problem solving.
For any leader or manager whose teams needs to solve problems on a daily basis, that relies on each other and colleagues from other teams, then creating real teamwork is going to significantly increase positive culture, motivation and performance.
Build Great Teamwork Fast – Sharing 6 Ways To Create Great Teams Quickly
- Show You Have The Team’s Back
- Advertise Responsibility And Accountability
- Incentivise Lots Of Communication
- Find Goals That Scream Success
- Demand Collaboration To Break Silos
- Use Carrots And Sticks
I have taken over teams in multiple different companies and transformed them from the worst team in the business to the best in that business. In terms of profit. In terms of teamwork and motivation. From the team no-one wanted to join to the one everyone was keen to join. You can do exactly the same. You have the skills. You need to know what to do and work hard at serving the best interests of your team.
A great manager or leader creates the right environment for team success. This is one of the most important jobs they can do. To maximise ownership and get the most potential from the team, ask team members to work together. You can’t force them. Using carrots and sticks is a great way to encourage each team member to choose to work closely together in a team.
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Firstly, to build great teamwork fast, show the team you have their back
Trust is a huge deal for teamwork. Your teammates need to know that you will do your part, and you need to know they will do their part. Without this trust, you simply don’t have team.
Building trust in teams starts with their leader. You can have a huge influence on the behaviours and operating culture of the team. Your team will follow your lead.
Here are 6 trust building approaches for you to use with your team:
- Communicate openly and honestly. Show you trust them with information.
- Ask for, listen and act on the good ideas, suggestions and solutions of your team
- Give them frameworks to work within, to extent responsibility. When they do a good job within the framework, expand the framework.
- Openly fight for the interests of your team, even when it costs you personally. Pick your battles and always align these battles with best interests of your company.
- Put your team before yourself – in your decisions, actions and behaviours. Communicate that we all succeed (or not) as a team.
- Constantly look to help your team members overcome challenges, problems and gaps, without doing their work for them.
Trust is one of the most important currencies you have with your team. Do everything you can to guard it carefully.
Above all, work hard and visibility for the best interests of the team. Make their lives better, more interesting and more rewarding and they will return the favour.
An Example
I have stepped in to lead run down teams, without belief in themselves, on the end of complaints and negative comments from the rest of the company. Through offering trust and working hard for the team, I started earning their trust in literally weeks. A transformation happens. They start speaking more, working together more and helping each other out. Within 2-3 months, I was managing a team, not a collection of individuals.
You can do exactly the same. Start with trust.
Secondly, to build great teamwork fast, advertise responsibility and accountability
Visibility of performance is a great way to encourage accountability. Before holding individuals and teams accountable for performance, they need to know what they are responsible for and why.
Make their responsibilities really clear. Educate the whole team on what everyone in the team should and will be doing. Tell them. Write it down in job descriptions. Advertise what each team member should be doing to the rest of the team every week until everyone is clear.
With clear responsibility AND visibility, you can start to drive accountability. Team members will become accountable to you and to each other for the work they do. When they start pushing their teammates and helping them hit their personal targets, you know you have a team.
Without constantly advertising responsibility and accountability throughout the team, you have more confusion, more conflict and more places to hide. None of these will help you create a great team quickly.
Advertise each person’s responsibility and accountability so the team knows everything needed to hit team targets is covered and being worked on.
Thirdly, to build great teamwork fast, incentivise lots of communication
Great teams are noisy places. They have to be. A team works together, co-ordinates, collaborates, solves problems together, provides updates, and has fun together. Teamwork requires talking and communication.
If your team is usually silent, you don’t really have a team.
Encourage team members to talk to each other. Rather than giving answers, point individuals to team members who can give them answers. Ask people to work together to solve problems. Ask them to plan together. Ask them to train and educate each other.
Personally keep them up to date with relevant news and activities within the business. Tell them about useful changes of direction. Tell them about projects. Give them lots of context so they know why their role matters and how it helps the company succeed.
Praise and give feedback to each of your team members every single day. Ask your team members to praise and give feedback to each other.
In short, do everything you can to demonstrate great communication and incentivise team members to communicate all the time.
Fourth, find goals that scream success
Teams and individuals need goals. Goals provide direction, purpose, motivation, protection and safety. Team goals give each team member a common purpose with their colleagues. Goals give them something to work towards together.
Finding the right goals, the valuable goals, which also align with company goals is a little harder. Choose goals that have a story to them. Choose goals that are not just a financial target. Choose goals that the team can understand, relate to and get behind.
The top level goal might be obvious – sales, costs, profit or cash related. It is how you reach those goals that is important to your team.
For example, if my main goal was to increase cash in the business by x million, the goals I might shout about to the team every week might include:
- Improving the speed and quality of invoicing
- Reducing the time taken by x days to resolve customer queries on our invoices
- Working with the sales & procurement team to reduce the credit terms offered to customers and increase the credit terms from suppliers.
When you can add a multiple of the entire team’s gross salary to profits, you have found a set of valuable goals.
Constantly provide progress against the goals to the team. Discuss with the team what can be changed to improve progress. Use progress against goals to direct the most help into the areas that are furthest behind OR are going to make the biggest difference to progress.
Always find and constantly communicate goals that scream success to your team.
Fifth, to build great teamwork fast demand collaboration to break silos
Team members working together to solve problems and helping each other out is a great sign of a team that is or is going to be very successful.
A brilliant way to demonstrate your worth to the team is finding ways to remove problems, roadblocks, lack of resources and conflicts within the team. The process of removing these problems nearly always provides opportunities to get different team members working with each other to implement solutions to these problems.
Any other projects or initiatives are also great opportunities to push team members together to collaborate. Hold planning workshops, problem solving workshops or use any other sensible opportunity to get team members working together. In the right environment, this builds appreciation, understanding and team work quickly. Great for reducing silos within the team.
You will soon find team members working together and helping each other out without you creating the opportunity.
Sixth, to create great teams, use carrots and sticks
Poor managers force, demand, cajole, and control. Great managers ask, persuade, incentivise, and encourage ownership. To get the best from team members, you have to get them to want to work hard, to what to develop themselves and to what to do their best. They have to choose, otherwise they won’t take ownership. When they take ownership, you get the best team performance possible.
So work on creating an environment where it makes complete sense for team members to work in the way you want, to work to achieving team goals and being strong team players. Make the right behaviours and getting the right results 100% in their personal best interests.
To give yourself the best chance of this happening, I suggest you employ a lot of carrots and keep some big sticks handy. By carrots, I mean giving things team members want.
Carrots
Some examples:
- Public praise and appreciation
- More of your time to develop their skills
- Development opportunities and challenging work so they improve their potential
- Exposure to senior managers and leaders in the business
- Financial rewards and promotions
There will also be individuals that are more motivated by avoiding pain.
Sticks
So have sticks available as well:
- Progress to goal charts showing the worst performers as well as the best. People don’t want to let team members down.
- Deny access to the better development opportunities
- Reduce exposure to senior managers and leaders
- Reduce the time you spend developing them
- Reduce their financial rewards
The most important thing is to get to know your team and work out what they collectively what and don’t want and then build your carrots and sticks around these. Publicly advertise the carrots. Use the sticks sparingly in private.
Use carrots and stick to make it a no brainer for team members to be good team players and support the success of the team.
In summary
As a leader and manager, it is an amazing achievement to build a really strong team. I know from personal experience that you don’t need to recruit a load of superstars to create a team that delivers amazing results.
You do need to create the right environment to bring out the best in every team member you have AND get them working together as a team.
Here are the 6 Ways to Create Great Teams Quickly
- Show you have the team’s back
- Advertise responsibility and accountability
- Incentivise lots of communication
- Find goals that scream success
- Demand collaboration to break silos
- Use carrots and sticks
Do take a look at the course and coaching options available to build your leadership and management skills. Build your management expertise and confidence years quicker with our expert guidance.
If you have any questions on “Build Great Teamwork Fast – 6 Ways to Create Great Teams Quickly”, please email me on support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
