The 9 Elements of an Effective Team (Part 2)
October 19, 2013
Last week (Part 1), I listed the 9 Elements that make an effective team.
These are:
1) Clear Goals
2) Good Team Structure
3) Right Culture and Skillset selection
4) Trust
5) Good Communication
6) Positive relationships
7) Accountability
8) Leadership
9) Feedback
Then, I specifically explored the first 4. Let’s now look at the remainder.
5) Good communication – Establish the environment for thriving innovation, participation and motivation within the team environment.
Conflict will come about. The important thing is to address it straight away and not let it eat away the foundations of the team.
Focus on strengths, frequent, positive and constructive feedback.
6) Positive relationships
The leader should give the example of taking risks and accepting that not all things will succeed. Then, praise the successes and support the missed targets enabling the team to lift their performances to the circumstances.
Some simple tips:
● Select team members wisely.
● Make choices based on merit.
● Open communication channels between the team members. Each team member learning about each other is important so that each one appreciates and supports each other.
7) Responsibility and Accountability
Giving credit where it’s due but also holding people fully accountable for their actions or in-actions is always important.
As Roger Connors et al. highlight in their great book “The Oz Principle”
“Individual and organizational results of people improve dramatically when people overcome the deceptive traps of the victim cycle and take the Steps To Accountability.”
But how do you identify if your team has such issues e.g. if the team is trapped in the “victim cycle”.
A good first step is to observe if any of below practices are existent during the team’s interactions. Does the team:
- Ignore an issue or deny an issue exists
- Displays a “It’s not my job” attitude
- Engages in “Finger Pointing”
- Displays a constant “Tell me what to do” attitude.
8) Leadership
Maintain the context and scope of the team’s existence relevant and current to the shifting organisational goals.
Communicate the purpose and engage with each team member so that everybody understands how they fit in the wider picture and why what they do matters and affects the success of the company.
Lead by example!
9) Feedback.
Feedback is the underlying factor that ties everything together.
Unless there is a clear positive mechanism for non judgmental feedback loops then errors get repeated and eventually all the 8 other elements get affected.
A great feedback model can be found (here).
CONCLUSION AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
So, it seems that despite the varying nature of teams nowadays there are some elements that are common for every successful team.
Creating an effective team unit aims at a simple target best elaborated by Jim Collins when he described “superior work environments” this way:
“When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results.”
The above may seem quite intimidating at first but as suggested here, focusing on one thing at a time you will find that, not before long, the team will start entering the virtuous circle of effectiveness.
You can also find more resources on Team Development in previous posts dealing with measuring employee satisfaction, 3 essential targets for employee engagement, as well as, some thoughts on employee motivation versus employee engagement and why the latter is the real target.
Are there other elements you believe to be crucial for effective teams?
George Vrakas 