Iconic NFL coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." It’s a stellar line for two reasons: It addresses the need for dedication on the part individuals in order for a team to succeed, and it touches on how far-reaching those achievements can truly be. Whether you already have seasons upon seasons of wins under your belt or just a hunger to be better, a customized leadership team development program can be the turning point your team needs to reach the next level.
An effective team is a collaborative unit that's able to work toward a common goal successfully. If your team is dysfunctional in any way, you'll see a failure to meet your goals or a delay in meeting them, as well as fractured relationships and non-productive interaction between team members.
Turnkey Coaching and Development Solution's team development program focusing on the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team provides a highly useful metric by which to evaluate your own work team or leadership team.
Former professional basketball player Phil Jackson once said, "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." That quote says everything about the importance of working together and developing trust — each team member is weakened if the group isn't cohesive and working toward common goals. The team as a unit is strengthened when everyone communicates, works together and applies their unique talents and skills in logical, cooperative ways.
Louisa May Alcott, author of the classic book Little Women puts it even more succinctly. She says, "It takes two flints to make a fire." Organizations that want to light a fire within work groups must bring the right people together and help them understand how to strike against each other in positive ways to create the right flames.
Your team development program must include a way to assess whether your development efforts are working. The Harvard Business Review recommends paying attention to the team's output and the ability of the team to collaborate, as well as individual assessments of each of the team members.
The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Progress Report provides a template for just such an assessment, allowing you to pinpoint areas of improvement to celebrate and build on as well as those ways in which your team still needs to improve.
If a team is truly working together in a relationship of mutual accountability, the Progress Report makes that clear. It also shows obstacles to development and paves the way for team members to assess their own collaboration.
In many companies, teams exist within departments, and team members usually work in the same buildings. That type of setup isn't universal, and remote teams have become an alternative to traditional in-house groups. Maybe your team holds remote meetings via services like Skype and communicates largely via email, SMS, and project boards like Basecamp or Asana, for example.
Virtual teams face a unique set of challenges as they work toward shared goals. Still, according to MIT's Sloan School of Management, remote teams can outperform on-location teams if they have the following task-based and socio-emotional systems in place:
- Tangible Feedback
Because they work remotely, virtual personnel are particularly prone to feeling out of the loop; indeed, some work-from-home executives are forgotten when in-office staff plan events and meetings. To get the most out of your remote team, make sure you give each member regular personalized feedback. Calls and emails are fine, but videoconferencing is particularly effective because it puts you face to face with your manager. When remote managers feel appreciated and supported, they work productively as individuals and within the team.
- Project-Related Communication
Email might seem the easiest way to ask questions and handle feedback, but countless back-and-forth exchanges make queries and suggestions really hard to follow up. Instead, try hosting discussions on an online bulletin board or a well-constructed forum to streamline your virtual conversation. Predesignated hashtags make specific subjects easier to keep track of,
so team members feel less frustration and more enthusiasm about the projects they're involved in.
- Remote Organizational Tools
Consider building a platform for your team on Basecamp, where shared calendars and goals help keep your project on schedule. You can create tasks, set deadlines and distribute timetables to your remote team via email, so everyone stays up to date. Your virtual executives gain access to the tools they need to work seamlessly with one another and can view project objectives easily whenever they need to.
All teams, whether terrestrial or remote, benefit from honed training programs in which members first identify personal challenges and then find new solutions to help them overcome roadblocks. Business owners who need to form solid virtual teams frequently decide to set up team building retreats, where remote executives get the chance to meet and form relationships with their peers. Later on, they can use progress reports to efficiently track challenges and the team's cohesion (and thereby its effectiveness) over time.
Formulaic day-long or week-long training programs may seem like a tempting low-cost way to train staff members, but they provide far less value than a honed development program designed with your company in mind. At Turnkey Coaching & Development Solutions, we work with both small and large teams (or work groups) at a time to craft unique leadership team training programs and team development programs based around each client's business.
The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team leadership team training and development program is tailored to meet your organization's very specific and unique needs and culture. Through training, coaching and team development, you can facilitate trust, strengthen your team members’ ability to deal with conflicts, and their collaborative skills, all of which come together to produce the results you want your executive and work teams to achieve.
When you're able to harness the talents and personalities of your team members to work together cohesively toward a common goal, everyone benefits. Imagine your team making smart decisions together, tapping into each person's special abilities, and staying focused cooperatively to get results. That's the kind of teamwork that provides your organization with the ability to compete at its best.
Improving the understanding and connections between business team members is an effective way of increasing your organization's success. Committed, responsive employees function more readily as a unit. Our executive team development program and work team development programs provide the information and training you need to ensure your team is engaged, productive, and high-performing.
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