One thing we see far too often inside of the corporate teams is they don’t have the setup of the right structure in order for the team to connect and build trust. Open and honest dialogue internally is what we call “Real talk“, and without this, it’s hard to build an agile team structure.
Some interesting complaints that we often hear are:
1. My team takes too long to make decisions and productivity is suffering,
2. There is not enough collaboration occurring.
Now, these decision-making actions, as a team, are really important, and collaboration is obviously important. But what is required here is trust. We know that strong interpersonal relationships are required for these two things to occur, which is derived from the foundation of trust. Leaders do not give their players enough time to build those relationships in order to speak openly and honestly.
Tips for organising and building your team
Team building requires an all-hands-on-deck approach and must be done within the team and not undertaken by someone outside the organisation. As a leader, your behaviors under pressure will define you, so if you’re planning to overhaul your team structure, consider the following tips:
- Think of the how instead of the why. Reorient your strategic planning to think about how you’ll solve the problems you’re experiencing. Too often companies focus on revenue projects or other forecasts, instead of building a great product that solves the difficulties customers or clients are facing.
- Empower your team to make decisions on their own. Decisions are often made by management instead of specialists hired to carry out a particular role. Big decisions don’t always need to be made by managers and if you’re confident in your team’s capabilities, you should empower them to make decisions that can make a positive impact on the business.
- Don’t hire based on skills alone. You can always teach skills, but you can’t teach culture or smarts. Instead of hiring someone because they graduated top of their class or have high marks, focus on who will fit in seamlessly with your team and really think outside the box when addressing problems.
- Be mindful of seniority. Never determine hires, fires, and promotions by seniority. Instead, all decisions should be based on merits not because they’ve worked somewhere the longest.
- Don’t overlook obvious solutions. Obvious solutions are often overlooked or overcomplicated. While many people aren’t satisfied with simple solutions, in reality, they can be the most effective and least costly.