Building a great team

Having managed teams for over 18 years delivering projects with impractical timelines, tight budgets and intense pressure, I’ve learnt a lot about people, how they behave, their reactions under different circumstances, and how to empower them to best work as part of a team.

Even in an era of data driven KPIs and results-based incentives, my biggest learning remains — a star team will always beat an optimised process, or a superstar individual.

What is a great team?

We should start with considering what a star team is. A great team is not always made up of the most talented, gifted and intelligent workers. A great team is one made of people with aligned values and a dedication to achieve a common goal. People who see the team as greater than the individual. People who do not allow their ego to run out of control. People who are uncompromising but pragmatic. They know their role and understand it in the wider context of what the team is striving for.

Where to start?

An important understanding to have is that great teams aren’t accidental — they are created, moulded and constantly cared for to achieve their potential. All good things start with a solid foundation and that is where we should begin.

If a team already exists then the members should be involved in all discussions as their own viewpoints, built from the experience of working at the business, are invaluable and increases their likelihood to buy into the team vision.

How do you create or mould a great team? It all starts with the question:

‘What is the value that my team adds to the business?’

This is not the same as the question ‘What does the team do?’. Think about the value that is added to customers and to internal teams. Try and reduce it down to a few sentences.

From the team’s business value perform a SWOT analysis of the existing team to get your baseline from which to work from. If it’s a new team it is worth performing this analysis within a few months of establishing the team, and also on a regular basis as it will showcase areas that need focus.

Now you are clear on value and SWOT, you you can start designing or remoulding the type of team you need to deliver that value.

Values

Aligned values are the basis of great teams. The setting of values for businesses has quite rightfully got a bad reputation with thoughts of generic cheesy statements springing to mind, that upper management present but rarely follow. However, set with just a team in mind values can be quite powerful. Values create standards for behaviour and bring a sense of belonging. In my experience, I’ve found aligned values have allowed for the implementation of ‘that big idea’ because we had felt a collective responsibility towards our work. It is ‘we’ not ‘I’ — a mistake that is allowed to the leave the team wasn’t a mistake made by the individual, it was made by the team, and each of us was partly responsible. The reverse is also true; we shared in successes as well. When values are shared in the team and defined together, nothing can hold them back from achieving great things.

Communication

The next key trait of great teams is internal team communication. Again, a bit cliché but if approached in the right way and a team has an excellent communication structure, then you’re on the path to success. Individuals need to be comfortable enough to speak their minds and say they disagree with something, or admit to a mistake or that they need help. Feeling comfortable also means, on the flip-side, that they will share a great idea when it comes to mind and desire to let the other members of their team in — because you’re all in it together. Communication outside of the team also needs to be considered. Running through scenarios listing the inputs as well as output communication channels helps identify areas that can be consolidated and simplified with some simple guidelines introduced to people outside the team unit. In the development teams I’ve run I’ve found that developers’ value uninterrupted, focussed work and therefore there was a basic guideline set to others in the business that I was the first person you spoke to during certain parts of the day and I would manage the message along.

Dynamics

Most managers know that each team player is an individual and needs to be treated as such, but most forget that they must manage the team as a whole organism with as much care. That includes the relationships between workers, the mood of the team, the energy levels and general well-being. The factors that can affect team dynamics are endless, it’s the most humanistic part of a team with all its good and bad parts so using common sense and emotion intelligence is a good bet. In development teams, a Team Lead is a good candidate to be taking the team’s temperature every few hours to ensure everything is on track. The dynamics of the team can be helped by using some tried and tested team building and management methods. Leading by example is the most effective driver of team dynamics, a Team Lead that is energetic, positive and clam in a crisis will pass that onto the team. Arranging events in which team members get to know each on a more personal level can help but have to completely inclusive and sympathetic to people’s needs i.e. arranging an away day that lasts until the evening is major headache if you have kids at school. I found that with development teams these social events didn’t really hit the mark, so I created fun little side projects that we could all work on without commercial pressures allowing us to see what each other is really like without a deadline looming.

Identity and belonging

Knowing your team’s place in the business, alignment in values, strong communication and team dynamics creates a sense of belonging and are the foundations of a star team. But we are all human and it’s not realistic that it will always be for ‘we’ and not for ‘I’. As such, the last ingredient is about the individuals, it’s about making sure people have and know their ‘identity’ in the team. Each individual needs to understand what their role is and what is expected of them. It’s rare for an individual within a team to cover only one area but there should be an aim to give each individual sole responsibility for a specific expertise, it will allow them to push the team’s knowledge and skill set in that field, as well as being fulfilling for them as a person. Naturally the choosing of the area of expertise needs to be done in the collaboration with the person and considering the wider context of what it’s contributing to the team.

Results

The culmination of all these team traits is the delivery of results — what the team will be judged on. The best teams manage their own quality, they know if they’re delivering good results, or if they are letting issues slip in. Results are the by-product of the effort put in. A team with the right mix of people and skills with a clear place in the business and aligned values will drive results. Clear communication and well-managed dynamics allow the team to work best together to achieve results.

Why it’s important?

You have heard that ‘the people’ are quite often what retains employees, and being a member of a great team is a huge part of that. Building and maintaining a great team is not an absolute target, it is an ever evolving and complex task, but certainly a worthwhile one.

Beyond retaining great employees, taking the time to purposely work on the team, as well as the work it produces, contributes to the bottom line for the business and pushes boundaries that can support continued growth. Plus working in a star team is just a lot more fun.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Please get in touch if you want to talk more www.willmulcair.com