People are the biggest asset of any successful business as they represent your company’s brand through their interactions with your clients and business partners.
The people in your company also make decisions on how business resources like money and other people’s time are spent, impacting the profitability of your company.
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach said, “You develop a team to achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. All of us alone are weaker, by far, than if all of us are together”. These words ring especially true for teams in business and it is critical to your company’s success to get these teams to work together effectively.
Tips for entrepreneurs to build teamwork
Building an effective team starts with selecting right people for the required tasks
Start by understanding the tasks at hand in your company and the knowledge, technical skills, soft skills and experience levels required to do these task in a productive way. Once you have established the competencies and experience needed to achieve your targets, use this as a checklist when recruiting people to work in your company. Also keep in mind who is already working in your company and how the new person could complement or enhance skills in the existing team.
Gaining a common understanding of each team member’s role
Start by getting the group to understand how each person’s role contributes toward the company’s goals. Explore how the teams could work by gaining an understanding of what each team member’s preferable working method is. Also discuss how potential conflict in the team will be resolved. These insights will greatly enhance the team’s output.
Making time for team communication
One idea is to have regular team meetings where each team member gives progress feedback and challenges, offering an opportunity for team members to support and assist one another with. This also offers you as the leader the opportunity to communicate business changes that will impact on the team. These events can give you a good view of the major issues in your company and the morale of your people, helping you to be proactive in preventing possible crises.
Leading by example
Our role as a leader in your business is to create the direction for the team. But more importantly, your behaviour will set the example of the type of culture you want to create. Listening to ideas or feedback, giving honest feedback, being fair and displaying consistent behaviour are aspects of leadership that build high-performance teams.
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