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Power of team building

11 Jun 2015 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Human energy is more powerful than any other energy sources in the world.

Business success is the result of collective effort, but not individual effort. That is why, organizations require employees to work as a team to make sure of business success.

Just because you build a team doesn’t mean you can achieve the goals. As each and every person has different qualities and abilities, it is not an easy task to put everyone into a group and inspire them to work together. However, working as a group is key to business success and to come up with unique business solutions.

Teams are built in a company, with the objective of reaching a common goal or goals. In turn, in achieving their objectives, they will help to improve the quality of services or products rendered to the customer. We always see advertisements which seek individuals who can work as a team. The ability to work as a team has become as important as other paper qualifications. It clearly proves that almost every organization has paid attention towards setting teams, so that they are able to deliver better outcomes in the competitive world. Nevertheless, what is more important to note here is that every company has not been able to win the market and make profits. If so, business leaders should look into how to build a powerful and unique team.

Diversity

The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other’s weaknesses. Different personality types balance and complement each other.

What we know is that everyone is not good at everything and, at the same time, everyone is not bad at everything. It means that different individuals have different skills. It is up to senior HR professionals, team builders to pick people whose knowledge and skills can compensate for one another’s weaknesses.
Furthermore, team players have to be used to or should be trained to be optimistic about team combination. The idea that we are a team that consists of individuals good at whatever field, should be embedded into the minds of team members. On the other hand, diversity can have a bad impact on team performance. An individual is sufficient to destroy all the contributions made by other team members. Hence, the responsibility lies on the hands of team leaders to choose people with positively diverse characteristics.

Team goals
The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships.

Having divided the main goal into different segments, team leaders ought to assign tasks to team members as per their knowledge and skills. When each and every person contributes towards the main goal by accomplishing their tasks, the big picture can be achieved.

The lack of communication is the killer of team performance. All the team members must have an idea where to go and what to do at this moment. It is up to team leader to make members aware of the team goal and always communicate the progress of achieving that goal.

Motivation
Motivation is a wider subject whereby many HR issues can easily be tackled. It is needless to say that people like to be appreciated and respected.
If team members are motivated to extend their fullest cooperation, team success cannot be avoided. When working in a group comprised of best professionals, people can be nurtured by each other. Juniors can learn a lot by working with seniors in a team. Team members are just like family members. They support each other whenever necessary. However, all these things are fueled by motivation. Motivation can spread easily and rapidly. Once an employee sees a colleague working hard, he also tend to work hard. The most important thing which team leaders should do is to let team members grow in the team itself. Members must be allowed to feel that they achieve more, because of team working. Getting works done without proper consideration of personal growth may not be sustainable.

When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position. Similarly, team leaders should not be leaders forever. When market is changing, team goals are changing, leadership should also be changing. Other team members should be able to raise their voice in the team. In the long-run, team leaders should hire better team players into the team and fire poorly performing team members from the team. Team success results in business success.

(The writer holds a BA in Economics from the University of Colombo and can be reached at [email protected])

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Power of team building

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