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How to build a successful team

Written by: Joynicole Martinez

Article Overview: Building a team requires identifying specific goals, learning to communicate effectively between members and ensuring ongoing evaluation of success targets and communication patterns.

How to build a successful team

Watching football can be a life lesson on how-to (or how-not-to) work as a team.

I love it when the Quarterback is on his game, he is slinging the ball fast and with extreme precision like a bullet, he has plenty of time to sit in the pocket and wait for right moment, the Wide Receiver has run an amazing pattern, the defensive line is moving and working like a 20 yard wall, the WR outpaces his coverage by a half-step, turns, leaps in the air and that bullet finds his hands as if it had his name on it? Ahhhhh….

That kind of success begins at and flows from the leadership and trickles down the line all the way to the water boy.

A successful team begins with a skillful leader. The leader helps the team maintain its focus on major issues. They avoid simply spewing advice, but helps the team move from the task to identification to a plan of action.

The team must have:

· appropriate goals or priorities, and know their purpose

· a shared sense of why the team exists

· a stake in accomplishing the team’s mission and goals

Members must know:

· what needs to be done next

· by whom the task should be done

· by when to achieve team goals

Finally, for teamwork to be effective, there must be an appropriate match between the tasks and the persons set to achieve them.

All communications are not equal. The level of information must be suitable for the situation or particular application. There are varying degrees of accuracy of interpretation, emotion and feedback from each member of the team. Who hasn’t cringed while watching as their favorite team falls apart? There’s chaos on the field. Nobody seems to remember the plays; they are not in the positions they were supposed to end up in. Coverage is ridiculous, they are being beaten in their own house, looking like amateurs against a team that is well organized, well practiced and well trained. If you’re a basketball fan, this is especially obvious, because the ball moves quickly and when the pass comes if you’re not in just that perfect place, you’re going to be on your butt.

For teamwork to be effective, each team member should know their roles in getting tasks done and when to allow for or request a more skillful member to complete a particular task. Finally, authority and decision-making lines must be clearly understood. This helps reduce conflict, which should have a planned approach to solving.

Using processes for making decisions can simplify solutions, but solutions require fine-tuning over time. Continually tracking progress toward goals allows monitoring the degree of success and identification of points where there needs to be change. Great teams recognize that their working together towards a goal is a dynamic and flexible operation. While the team and teamwork always changes, success targets can only be reached with a clear plan of action and ongoing communication.

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Article Tags: communication patterns, successful team, targets, team, teamwork



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