Six Ways to Build Successful Teams

By Virgil Carter, Plexus Consulting Group, LLC

Building successful, lasting teams is anything but easy. It takes committed leadership to build great teams. Team building requires “a keen understanding of people, their strengths and what gets them excited to work with others”, according to a Forbes article some years ago.

Team building is an art and a science and “the leader who can consistently build high performance teams is worth their weight in gold, say the article’s authors. Here’s six ways successful teams are built to last:

1. Be aware of how you work: As the leader of a team, you must be extremely aware of your leadership style and techniques. Hold yourself accountable, make course-corrections when needed and modify your approach if necessary to assure that you’re leading from a position of strength and respectability.

2. Get to know the rest of the team: Take the time to get to know your team and encourage camaraderie. Understand how your individual team members think, and what is required to motivate them to work together and excel beyond what is normally expected.

3. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities: Each team member’s responsibilities must be interconnected and dependent upon one another. It takes talent and experience to evaluate people not only on their ability to play a particular role—but even more so on whether they fit the workplace culture and will be a team player.

4. Be proactive with feedback: Feedback is the key to assuring any team will stay on track and improving daily. Lead with proactive feedback as the greatest enabler for team continuous improvement.

5. Acknowledge and reward: Be sure to give teammates the proper acknowledgement, respect and reward. This helps the team’s work to bring them greater satisfaction and makes the work more purposeful.

6. Always celebrate success: Take the time to step-back, reflect and celebrate successful accomplishments, as well as what has been learned during the journey. Leaders are only as successful as their teams. Great leaders know that with the right team dynamics, decisions and diverse personalities, everyone wins in the end.

For the full article, go to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2012/10/01/6-ways-successful-teams-are-built-to-last/