Every member of your team has an innate desire to belong and be useful. The team is about creating the goal that makes something possible. The thing that keeps the team motivated is what is possible. What is your team’s destination? Where are you going?
1. Leader
Every team needs an effective, bold leader, someone with a vision who sees what the future could look like. He is able to talk about it in such a way that people get excited and want to be a part of it. A leader speaks about a preferred future where people are excited and eager to participate in the journey. They want to be part of having the vision become a reality.
2. Define The Values of the Ideal Players
To create a great team you must assess the individual skills and the temperaments of each member. What are the baseline characteristics of the people allowed to play on your team? This is done through careful interviewing of potential team members. As a boss, you shouldn’t have to force someone to work out of their comfort level or core competency. Management is responsible for collecting the right players, matching the right people to the right jobs and assigning them the right tasks. There should be a strengths and weaknesses test for every member’s skill level.
3. What Do Other Members Need?
Each member needs to know what the other members need from them and when. What is critical for the individual relationships to work? What are people counting on them for and what are their needs and expectations? This creates interdependence and the ability to create something you can’t do alone.
4. ASK!
Make requests, preferably outrageous requests. The more requests you make, the more team! Top managers often bury themselves in tasks and to do lists. It keeps people from being burned out and angry. They don’t want to hear “no”, so they never ask for anything. When you make bold requests, you give people the chance to make and keep huge promises. You free people up to say “yes”. You can bring out people’s sense of outrageousness, the part of them that wants to go above and beyond, their sense of adventure. They expand their vision of what is possible. We all have limiting views and visions. The challenge to go out and get a “no” forces us to step outside of these limiting visions and see that so much more is possible. Lots of requests yield lots of team. It creates velocity.
5. Celebrate
Along the way there will be big and little victories. Celebrating each one keeps people from getting tired and bored. People need to be acknowledged and public recognition is best.
Remember, teamwork is a one to one relationship.
John Stob, Jr., a professional business and personal coach, speaker and consultant and founder of Stob Consulting Associates, wrote and submitted this piece. He can be reached at john@stobconsulting.com or on the web at www.stobconsulting.com.
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