A firm’s workforce is the driving power behind any successful organization. An employer who empowers the staff reaps more benefits and raises leaders who turn business around to realize growth. The best way to work with company employees is to work with their unique strength as a team.
When you assign tasks to the teams, it is critical to give them support such as enrolling them for agile coach where they’re equipped with remarkable performance models. Below are sure-fire tips for building optimally performing teams.
- Identifying training gaps
Team building becomes fruitful when you know where to begin. Conduct an evaluation to learn the developmental needs of the team. If need be, review, revise or update individual job descriptions. Visit them in their workstations, watch them as they work, talk to them about their challenges and gauge their responses.
Asking the right question can reveal skill, knowledge, and competence gaps in the team. Starting by identifying gaps is the best approach especially for teams with no history of performance management.
If the team has no appraisal performance culture, they may view the need to have one as a negative effort to disqualify them as competent employers. It is critical to brief them on the need for change from the beginning of a new leadership era so they can relax and see the team-building exercise as a worthwhile initiative.
- Empower them to make decisions
Your workforce is made of intelligent team members who can tell if their employer has a vested decision-making process on them or not. An organization will never reap the best from a team that’s aware that it’s decisions will soon be revoked by a higher-ranking manager.
On the other hand, a team with the authority to make decisions will give the best for the organization. When the teams are engaged the top management team has the opportunity to strategize for growth. Therefore, senior management concentrates on more critical issues about the organization.
However, you shouldn’t entirely sit back. Be informed about their progress and scrutinize the outcome. The team leaders are accountable to you.
- Objectively challenge your employees
It is critical to hold frequent meetings with your employees. During such seating’s encourage them to ask ‘what if’, questions. Create various scenarios with varying outcomes, however far-fetched the situations maybe give your teams leverage to prepare in advance for such encounters.
These questions allow you to see issues from an employee’s point of view. Since they’re less experienced, you can understand their challenges and help them accordingly.
- Do not overlook the team’s differences
Sweeping issues under the carpet is a time bomb waiting to explode. To maintain a united high-performing team, address individual concerns as they arise. While not all employees will agree with the decisions made, such differences mustn’t turn into stalemates.
The longer you take to resolve conflicts the more complicated the issues become. Soon, the negative feelings develop into attitudes that hinder performance. Explain to your team members to embrace the decisions made by top management even when the outcome wasn’t their preferred option.
- Ensure the department managers adhere to the team empowerment guidelines
Making decisions for a team is different from making them in a sole proprietor-kind of business. In a team, you need to consult and regard other people’s opinions. When all decisions take the top-bottom model, top management wastes a lot of time and also misses out on the employees’ input.
Learn to appreciate their opinion, input, and feedback. Give them the chance to find their solutions. Train the team leaders and managers to also do the same. Allow the managers to charge their team members with working out their problems, and to come up with creative ideas.
- Allow for consensus building
Consensus building is a fundamental pillar in a thriving organization. If you’ve never practiced consensus building, you can begin with the team leaders. Let every team member take a position at a critical challenge, then, develop a set of practical solutions. Later, share your thoughts and inputs.
Moving forward, coach the team to arrive consensus agreeable to all team members. Your employees will learn to appreciate compromises that work for the greater good of the organization. Repeat this practice for a reasonable period to build experience. From then, henceforth, the teams will run smoothly and efficiently.