Building teams
OUTBOUNDS abound. Though they do a great deal to bind people together as a team while in the field, unless it is amply demonstrated to the participants that it is of benefit to them, personally, the best outbound will be hidebound! It is essential for the need to be perceived.
Our world today has veered from the generalist team player to the specialist prima donna even though heads of HR everywhere rue the pain of administering to droves of Bright Sparks. The same HR honchos, will institute awards for individual merit and performance and then wonder why teamwork has taken such a body blow in their organisation.
Teaming is togetherness
Companies today think of their employees as individuals and design their reward system to honour the top dogs. Unless they wake up and understand that teams pull wagons while individuals can only push them, the organisational productivity will suffer. It is only when teams are rewarded for working effectively together that companies succeed. When only individual effort is noted, companies only have flashes in the pan! To have an organisation that motivates team effort, it must be a sustained daily exercise, not a one-off event mentioned only in despatches!
What's in it for them
Today, organisational goals take second place to individual goals. So to make teams work, individual benefit has to be highlighted. Motivation is what is needed in large, unstinted doses. There are several triggers to motivation. Money is one, and perhaps quite high on the list but then so is the `feel-good' feeling. When people feel good about themselves, they work better and when they see the benefit of depending on someone else to hold their end up in their absence, they do better.
For a start, teams need to admit that they are integral to each other. That done, `together activities' need to be highlighted. Depending on the size of the team, several activities can be conjured up. Team news can be posted at team watering holes. Out-of-office experiences are a great way to do things. Team PERT charts keep teams focused on their tasks and deadlines.
Even high-performing individuals need to be shown that they cannot precede their wonders to perform without the active support of their teams. Typically salesmen are the face of the company and live life in the fast lane, but without the back end team they would amount to very little.
It must be made plain to everyone that they cannot do without the others. It is, in fact, the story of the congress of body parts discussing their individual importance!
Pushing to pull!
It's important that managers set stretchable goals for their teams and encourage their teams to consistently over-perform. There are instances when team leaders have sneaked out to get their entire teams a double sundae each just because they put in that little extra to get a job done before the deadline. The whole team celebrated individual events; team members visited a fellow member and inundated the couple with flowers on their anniversary. The result? Members were happy to belong to such a caring, high performing team where members looked out for each other all the time. There are all sorts of things a team leader can do, such as arranging inter-team contests and sporting distinctive clothes, but these are not really necessary. It all depends on each individual team and the level of maturity of the members.
One team leader went a step too far; he made it a crusade to beat every other team with the result that his team was marginalised in the company!
Team leaders need to have their fingers on the pulse of their teams all the time.
Knowing their teams well and knowing what will motivate and what won't is essential. Innovation is ideal and will lead to powerful performance!
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com
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