5 Proven Ways to Build and Manage Great Teams

A team is a group of people who come together towards a common goal. In any given organization, there must be a functional team to work to run effectively. In as much as people are employed as individuals, there are certain tasks that require people to work together as a team. In these instances, the quality of work done by a team cannot be compared to the quality of work done by an individual.

How then do you select a group of individuals and put them together to form a functional team? Is there some sort of magic that you need to use?  Academic research has shed light on how to build and manage the perfect team for your business. Here are the best ways to manage highly effective working teams:

Team Building Exercises

Recently, there has been some negative attention linked to team-building exercises. A research from Citrix has shown that 31 percent of employees’ state that they can’t stand teambuilding activities. However, this is untrue. The Harvard Business School publication states that a connected team is a motivated team. Further, a research by the American Psychological Association (APA), supports the fact that team building exercises can motivate and help employees feel valued.

The most common team building exercises include:

• Physical Activities. You can engage in sports that most employees support and actually want to engage in. Physical activities such as hiking and mountain climbing can also come in handy. Ensure the activities are safe to engage in, and will not lead to any physical injuries.
• Field Trips; the team can visit a park or a museum.
• Professional development activities such as educational workshops. This ensures that the employees stay up to date with the current know-how in the industry, and develop professional relationships without the awkwardness of learning alone.
• Employees can help support a good cause in the community like feeding orphans or distributing clothes to the homeless.
• Shared meals. It is always said that a family that eats together, stays together.

Non-Work Communication

All great teams need some sort of communication in the workplace and outside the workplace. A study by the MIT Human Dynamics Laboratory found out that the success of a team is highly dependent on their form of communication during non-informal meetings.

Team members do not necessarily have to be best friends outside the workplace, but they need to form a communication channel that looks out for each other and keeps them updates on work in progress or arising issues.

There is a need for informal conversations to be developed within work teams. By this, we need to think outside the box. In this digital era, employees can have WhatsApp groups or Facebook groups where they discuss their work-related issues but in a non-formal setting.

Have Both Extroverts and Introverts in The Team

People are born with different talents and abilities. Some employees may be “Doers,” others might be “Thinkers.” Some employees are extroverts while others are simply introverts. All in all, they need each other to function. The extroverts complement the introverts and at the same time, the “Doers” compliment the “Thinkers.”

Don’t underestimate the introverts, thinking that because of their shy nature, they cannot contribute much to the organization. In fact, research has shown that over time they will steadily climb the ranks while the extroverts will stagnate or fall.

Also, don’t overestimate the extroverts. Simply because they talk too much, does not show that they always have something meaningful to say. Remember, sometimes emptiest vessels make the most noise.

Ensure All Team Members Understand the Vision and Have Clearly Defined Roles

In a team, everyone must always have a purpose. But before this, the group must have a vision. What is their reason for coming together? What is the role of each and every person to ensure that the vision is achieved?

Everybody remembers the US “Dream Team” in the 2004 Olympics. Despite being widely touted to attain gold, they only managed a humiliating bronze medal, despite the team being packed with NBA stars and coaches. What lesson can we learn from them? Despite the team having the right people to do the job, none of them clearly understood what was expected of them. All of them wanted to ‘shine’ thereby not paying much attention towards the group’s common goal.

A team must have a team leader who clearly makes the group objectives known, and make it clear what each and every person’s role in the group is. This does not give a chance to the group to have any spectators.

Employ Internet Research and Online Tools

Teams are created with various goals in mind, in order to achieve these goals or beat deadlines, a team should rely on information and proven ways of handling tasks. Thanks to the internet, we can outsource services and use various internet sites and tools to lessen the burden. Listed are some of the best online services recommended by professional to get the work done.

• Google Apps: From sharing files to sending emails Google is a one-stop service hub for all your team’s internet woes.
• Wikipedia: The free online encyclopedia that will help you complete your team goals in time or help you solve mystery history occurrences.
• HipChat: An alternative to Skype that allows you to create multiple rooms for different focus groups, and do much more

For a great team to succeed, various factors must be put in place. But most importantly, the group should know its purpose, each individual member should understand the role they have to play and there should be ground rules set to govern the team. If all these are in place, then you will have no problem building and managing an effective team.

Author: Carolyn Williams is a passionate blogger and content writer at EssayKittens.com. She mostly writes about blogging, marketing, and entrepreneurship. Connect with Carolyn via Twitter.