Building Your Dream Team: The Path to a Successful Organization

What do successful companies have in common?

The answer?

Happy employees and strong teams.

But what’s the path to get there?

If you’re striving to make your organization the best that it can be, focus on your people. How your employees interact and cooperate can determine the success of your organization. Here’s some information you can use on your journey to creating your dream team.

Traits of an Ideal Team

Strong teams function best when each component knows its position and its purpose and trusts others to successfully complete their functions, as well. Members of well-functioning teams:

• Operate cooperatively
• Trust in each other
• Respect each other
• Honor everyone’s ideas
• Support each other
• Believe in the overall success of the team

Members of strong teams build each other up, rather than tear each other down. While some competition is healthy, good team members are respectful and honor the needs of the team in addition to their own aspirations. A healthy team environment is supportive and encouraging, allowing each team member to share and grow.

How to Build a Strong Team

If your team is currently not functioning as well as you’d like, you can build members up and improve interactions. Whether you’re a new organization starting out with a fresh crew or an old group needing to refocus, it’s never too late to start creating that dream team environment. Here are three steps to get your team headed in the direction of success:

Get to know your team members. Begin by looking at the individuals — see those trees before you focus on the forest. Using tools like the True Colors Personality Profile Indicator can help you and your employees learn about their needs and tendencies. By having each member complete the Profile Indicator, you will get them to learn about themselves and one other to help them best function within the team. You’ll identify your leaders, your organizers and your creatives and be able to help employees communicate and find their most appropriate roles.

Offer leadership training. Next, pull out your leaders and offer specialized training. Leaders set the tone of your organization. Outside trainers can plan day-long workshops or create shorter sessions as needed. How about a Friday Lunch and Learn over the course of a month? Organize your trainings to best fit your team’s schedule.

Work with your leaders to identify areas in which they need to build their skills, and be sure to have the trainer spend some time on the skills you feel are most needed, as well. Perhaps your leaders need more guidance in providing effective performance reviews, or maybe they need to focus more on staying in tune with their team. A qualified trainer will help you assess your needs and tailor the training.

Hold team building activities. Once your team is in place, your leaders are motivated and employees have obtained a better understanding of how to work together, keep the comradery going with team building. These activities can be exercises provided by a qualified facilitator, as well as social opportunities outside of work. Use a mixture of the two to build your strongest team.

Building an effective team takes time, patience and dedication. If you’re motivated to bring out the best in your group, contact The Marlo Company for information on True Colors Personal Success Workshops, leadership training and team building sessions.