Team building is both an art and a science. It takes great leadership to build a high-performing team. It requires leaders who aren’t afraid to make difficult decisions and establish standards of performance. And who hold their team accountable when those standards aren’t met.
To build an effective team, you need to understand people: Their strengths, weaknesses, and what gets them excited to work with others. Build your team by matching people’s strengths to their jobs and give them responsibilities based on their skill set, not who you like the most.
Alan Hall, contributor to Forbes, says he views a business leader as a coach. “The job of the coach is to recruit and hire the right people to accomplish given assignments."
He shares the most critical team members any organization must have to be successful.
The leader encourages, motivates, rewards, and provides feedback on job performance. They also aren’t afraid to correct mistakes and let their team learn and grow. “This leader knows if he takes care of his employees, they will provide superior service to customers, who will, in turn, continue to buy and tell their friends to do the same,” says Hall.
“Great business leaders succeed because they hire people who know the industry: The trends, the competitors, the market place, the customers, the products they sell, the vendors, and investors,” says Hall. Experts have experience and bring deep knowledge to projects, they guide the team on what works and what doesn’t, and they mentor others to learn the business.
Every successful business needs a talented and experienced financial officer. “No company can survive or prosper without a person who understands accounting, finance, strategy, and cash flow management,” says Hall. He also suggests having regular meetings between the financial officer and the rest of the team so everyone is aware of where the company is financially and what must be done to be successful.
Business owners are busy taking care of the day-to-day, so they need a strategist to report on the industry trends, changes in customer behavior, and new competitors. Someone who can comprehend and report on opportunities and challenges they see in the present and down the road.
This person is typically the chief operating officer. They own the responsibility to execute and implement company plans. They know what needs to be done, when, and how. They hire a staff of employees with specific duties to accomplish the company’s vision and goals. This staff is “the heart of the organization and deliver what customers want and buy,” says Hall.
Building and growing a company requires the know-how to build strong teams. If you want to be successful, you need to bring on others to help. You can’t do everything on your own.
Does your business have these five executives?
The people who comprise your organization will determine your success. In an economy where competitive edge relies on skills and knowledge, today’s leaders need to know how to find and unleash their team's talents.
“While many managers assume their team members would like to work less, the dirty little secret of corporate America is that many people would actually like more challenging jobs,” says Laura Vanderkam, contributor to CBS MoneyWatch.
A survey by Lee Hecht Harrison found an interesting trend: Sixty-two percent of respondents say they often feel underutilized in their jobs.
It could be because they are overqualified, says Vanderkam.
USA Today has even reported on a study led by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder. The study found nearly half of working Americans with college degrees are in jobs that don’t really need them.
Vedder says the problem is the stock of college graduates in the workforce has grown larger than the number of jobs requiring a college degree. For example, he says 15 percent of taxi drivers in 2010 had bachelor’s degrees versus one percent in 1970.
Even if you're leading an overqualified crew, you're best served by trying to match people with work that requires as much of their brainpower as possible. Unchallenged workers are often unhappy workers, and unhappy workers leave when they get a better offer.
She shares some ideas to find and use your team's talents.
Get to know your team. “In school, no one has to do their extra-curricular activities, so these side projects often give insights into the activities people enjoy for their own sake,” says Vanderkam. For example, someone who wrote for their college newspaper might enjoy writing or editing, while someone who planned parties or events might have a talent for staging them.
Keep a list of projects that would be fun and ask your team members to add their own. Then, Vanderkam suggests, pull these projects off the list and assign them to team members with talents you’ve identified in that area.
Say yes if a team member suggests a project that they would find meaningful or interesting. “Chances are he or she is itching for a challenge,” says Vanderkam.
Give people more authority with projects and hold them accountable. Vanderkam says, “Real responsibility —and the chance to fail or succeed– tends to bring out the hard worker in people.”
Work with your team to improve their skills. For example, if someone produces a lot of content, match them up with a more experienced writer or editor for feedback sessions.
People need leaders who understand and identify what motivates them, what matters most, and their strongest abilities. Leaders who can tap into their team’s hidden (and often valuable) talents and abilities will witness extraordinary results and have happier, more engaged employees.
How did you find your team’s talents?
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