How Together Is Your Team?
Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together. --- V. M. Kelly
How "together" is your team? Is it a real team or just a group?
Just because people work together does not mean they make a team. They may be merely a group. Groups seldom achieve great things. Just imagine if a football team consisted of people who did not compensate for each other's weaknesses, did not have a common strategy known to everyone, and did not really want to play together. You can easily predict the results they would get. Only when people truly work as a team would you start to see sparks and hear "yahoos" of triumph. Do you hear any in your department? If not, no need to despair. Many groups have learned to become teams and produced breakthrough results. It's important first to recognize that you don't really have a team at play, and do something about it.
Here is what you can do to create a winning team:
- Make sure the team has a challenging goal to achieve.
- Ensure all team members understand the goal and are committed to it.
- Provide the necessary training to master the needed skills.
- Stay the course even when things are tough. Keep all eyes on the ball.
- Resolve conflict before it distracts people and splits the team.
- Measure the team's progress, and make the score known to all.
- Ask team members for their input and find out what they need to win.
- Encourage diversity of styles within a shared dedication to the goal.
- The coach is to motivate and guide, but not hold players' hands.
- Celebrate small wins along the way, until you achieve the big one.
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