True or false? Teams that practice good teamwork contribute to the success of an organization.
Not just “true” but blatantly true.
The fact may be plain and simple, but creating a successful team, leading a successful team, or participating in a successful team is not so plain and simple. The sticky word is “successful.”
Creating a team is easy. Sitting in the leader’s chair can be quite simple. Team membership can mean simply showing up.
Goal successful? Wait and wait a second.
This article explores two requirements for team success. For each requirement, we explore specific action items to help you and your team meet those requirements.
We start with trust.
Trust: the foundation of a successful team
A team that builds its harmony on trust enjoys the calm and enthusiasm that success brings. In fact, that foundation of trust makes the harmony even sweeter.
Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, states: “Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the best in people. But it takes time and patience…”
Trust and team are almost one. However, you cannot assume that trust develops naturally as part of team personality. Bringing trust (what it means, how it works, and why it matters) to the forefront of every team member’s mind can go a long way toward team success. A big step that demands your attention.
Here are three underlying benefits your organization, and your customers, will experience once your team works with high levels of trust.
Increased efficiency — As team members trust each other to fulfill their responsibility, they will all be able to more fully attend to their specific roles. The decrease in distractions gives an increase in efficiency.
upgraded unit — The more each member of a team trusts the other members, the stronger the team assumes. This unit strengthens the commitment of the team to fulfill its purpose.
Mutual Motivation — When two (or more) people trust each other, each consciously and subconsciously strives to maintain the others’ trust. This motivation stimulates each member of the team to seek maximum performance.
So how do you build confidence as a critical team possession?
Here is the short answer: build a clear structure and process to promote trust. Team members want to trust each other from the start. However, if they lack specific tools and tactics to build trust, they will have a hard time building that trust.
Below are three traits that establish a foundation for trust between team members. Notice how each trait focuses on interactions between teammates.
open expression — Each team member needs ongoing opportunities to express their thoughts about the team’s purpose, process and procedures, performance, and personality. From the beginning of the team, the team leader can initiate the opportunity for each individual to speak about the team’s actions. A truly effective leader makes sure that even the quietest member is heard (and thus becomes increasingly comfortable speaking up). The more continually all members of a team have opportunities to express themselves openly, the more they will get used to speaking freely and being listened to. Open expression quickly becomes everyone’s pleasure, and not just the leader’s responsibility.
Stock Information — When it comes to information relevant to the team and the team’s role, the rule should be “all for one and one for all.” Information available to one team member must be available to all team members. The secret of this trait is in its process. Standard practices for sharing information equitably are simple. A few minutes configuring a Email address and holding a five minute update each morning are two examples. These can establish patterns of behavior of the type “everyone gets to know what everyone gets to know”. The level of trust increases when no one is afraid of receiving less information than the others.
performance reliability — We trust the people we can count on. We have people who do what they say they will do when they say they will. Conscientious work on the first two traits produces results on the third. Open expression and shared information improve the reliability of team members’ performance. Open communication can put everyone’s performance cards on the table: strengths and weaknesses, confidences and fears. Equitable reporting allows everyone to know what and how each other team member contributes to success. This knowledge produces shared support, praise, and assistance. What’s more like a team than that? When each team member’s expectations are sincere and open, each team member strives to perform at their full strength for the good of the team.
TIPS FOR TEAM CONFIDENCE
The following five tips support the idea that Open expression, fairness of information and reliability of performance they grow from how well a team communicates within itself. These tips are for the team leader and all team members.
1. Talk the talk. Take responsibility for modeling Open Expression. Don’t be afraid to share information about yourself. Encourage others to do the same. Follow it.
2. Build the pattern. In team meetings and water cooler talks, establish the tell-ask pattern. Share information about your work and ask questions about your teammate’s work. A bit of repetition is needed to anchor the pattern. It’s worth it.
3. Distribute to Discuss. Get the team to believe that one reason for distributing information to everyone is so it can be discussed. “New data” can be a constant item on the meeting agenda. “What do you think?” can be a constant question among team members.
4. Give good news. Typically, people want to complete work rather than fulfill roles. There is not much to say about one’s role. Much to share about one’s work. Create opportunities for people to comfortably share good news about the work they do. (Bulletin board, email news, lunch discussions, for example.
5. Use a constructive question. Have your team adopt a specific question that does two things: draw attention to the team’s purpose and stimulate communication. The question can be an icebreaker in team meetings, a common follow-up to “Hello! How are you?” in the corridors, a regular item in team reports. Sample questions: What progress have we made? What have we done that makes us proud? What obstacles have we overcome?
