Six Ways to Build a Winning Team
Posted on 10th March 2021 at 15:56
Your business is growing, you have started to employ staff, but how do you ensure that everyone is working together for the good of your business. There are six steps that you need to follow when creating a strong team. I am delighted to share with you the thoughts of Kathy Bassett from Action Coach who explains the six ways to build a winning team.
1) Focus on Strong Leadership
– Having strong leaders within your business is vital, whether it is just you or your management team. You need to be someone who communicates well and who everyone trusts. As a leader you will inspire others to go that extra mile. Businesses that have strong leadership display the following behaviours. Solving problems effectively. Operating with a strong results orientation. Seeking different perspectives. Supporting others
2) Set Common Goals
- You need to ensure that you have a Common Goal. Your team need to have a clear understanding of the direction that your business is heading in, what the goals are for the next month, quarter and year. Most importantly of all, they need to understand their role in the process and how they can help you achieve it.
3) Rules of the Game
- It is important to ensure that your employees know what your core values are and what is expected of them. It is also vital that they all understand the reasons for the rules, and that by sticking to them they are helping you to reach your end goal.
4) Develop an Action Plan
- It is all very well having a great company culture, with a set of common goals but you will not achieve your desired results unless you have an action plan that sets out WHO does WHAT by WHEN. This needs to have a list of logical steps with tasks and deadlines assigned to you and your team.
5) Support Risk Taking
- I am not suggesting that you throw caution to the wind, I am advocating that you allow your team to take calculated risks particularly where it might lead to innovation. You are not going to make progress unless you take a few risks here and there. I'd love to hear your examples of this happening with in your business.
6) 100% participation
- Involve and include all people in the team - You need to ensure that you have the Involvement and Inclusion of all the people in your team. In order for this to happen you will need to lead from the front and encourage the complete commitment of your team. This might mean that some members of your team decide to leave, but don't be afraid as ultimately the success of your team needs this to happen.
7) Wifle (a bonus step for you)
– What I Feel Like Expressing – each day ask everyone in turn, to speak about how they are feeling at that time, in just a few sentences, encourage a positive slant, this is not a negative whinging session.
If you want to grow your business then the whole of your team needs to be engaged. Whilst this may sound simple, getting it to happen effectively can be quite a challenge. You need to ensure that your team has not only heard and understood your vision but that they have bought into it too, so that your vision becomes theirs too. This is no simple task. If you think about some of the household brands we love today such as Apple and Dyson, what marks them out is the way in which their senior leadership team have been able to instil this sense of ownership in the whole of the workforce. This common purpose results in motivated people who have a real connection with the company they work for.
As a business coach I regularly spend time with clients running team alignment sessions that enable the team to come on board and see the owner’s vision for the future of the business. These sessions are an opportunity to get you the director(s) together with your team to look at where the business is currently, where you want the business to go and how you can get there, together.
Communicating with your team in this way helps them to buy into your vision, it also enables them to see how their individual roles are connected and how the work that they do is to the benefit of the business as a whole. Lastly you can all have a frank discussion as to the challenges that the business might be facing and what can be done to resolve them.
A key part of the team alignment session is the opportunity to brainstorm the way forward for the business. This is important because so often it is the people who do the doing, who come up with the best ideas. These sessions help the business to move forward secure in the knowledge that everyone is working towards the same goals. Remember Together Everyone Achieves More and there is no I in TEAM – you cannot do it on your own, you need your team.
BIO
Kathy Bassett ActionCOACH
Kathy’s passion is working with owners of successful small to medium sized companies. She can help you to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you really want to be, whether it be to grow your business long term, or to implement an exit strategy.
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