Creating an effective and successful project team – one that works well together to meet the project objectives – is a combination of a number of factors. Certainly, as a team leader, understanding the five stages of team development and how those stages impact the team is essential to you developing a high performing team. Read my post about The 5 Stages of Team Development, Part I and Part II prior to reading this post for some background information on effective team development.
Factors that are conducive to creating effective teams that have a better chance of success in reaching their goals include:
Strong team leadership. Teams need a strong leader. This doesn’t mean someone who will take charge and make all the decisions. On the contrary, a good team leader will bring out the best in the team members. They will know the individual strengths and weaknesses of the team and utilize that information to ensure the team composition has the right combination of skills to be successful. In fact, a good team leader will find a way to ensure that team members have opportunities for development so those weaknesses can eventually become strengths. A strong leader empowers the team members to work through issues and make decisions, but knows when to step in to keep the team moving forward.
Common goals and objectives. It is common that when individuals first come together to form a team, each individual members has his/her own goals and objectives. The role of the team leader is to ensure that the team focuses around common goals and objectives. He/she does this by getting the team to agree on the goals for the project and develop a strategy for reaching those goals. Agreeing on a common goal does not mean individual goals need to be pushed aside. A strong leader can help marry individual goals to the common goal to benefit the individual team members and the team as a whole. Following a common goal helps provide direction to the team and sets the stage for moving forward.
Processes for getting things done. A team must have a way of working together. There must be processes that the team members follow to make decisions, assign tasks, manage conflicts that arise, and achieve their goals.
Diversity among members. Diversity includes not just race, gender or cultural differences; but also diversity in experiences and skills. Diversity among team members is essential to ensure that members have the skills and experience necessary to manage the tasks they are assigned and meet their goals. A diverse team in the sense of race, gender and cultural differences, especially for global projects, enables a broader perspective on the project.
Time to learn about each other. Take the time, before the project kicks into gear, to enable the project team members to spend some time together and get to know each other. This helps to build trust which is needed if a team is going to be effective. The more the team members know about each other, the more comfortable they become working together, challenging ideas, offering suggestions and in helping each other out to ensure goals are accomplished. See a past article, Kicking off the Project Team, for suggestions on how to get the team members acquainted with each other.
Your thoughts? What are factors do you find are essential for effective team work? Share with others in the Comments field below. Thanks!
Thank you for your reply and your valuable contributions Suresh – greatly appreciated! Tell me more about #4: Do not ignore money? Are you considering bonuses for work well done?
Best regards,
Gina
Indeed the ideas /arguments of Gina and the contribution of John are very contributive and explicit.
Kindly pleae allow me to submit my humble opinion and accordingly I propose to add the following:
1.Use goals and these goals should be perceived as attainable.
2.Use rewards and link rewards to performance.
3.Check system for equity.
4.Do not ignore money.
Thank you Gina as it is just a coincidence that I came to know you and your other articles which are as interesting as this one.
Hi Ibrahim,
Thanks for your comment. Yes – all of this is part of Tuckman’s stages of team development and, frankly, much of it is not a surprise that it helps to develop effective teams.
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Gina
Good articles,wonder if it have tulkman four stage or five stages as you developed that!
Excellent! Thanks for the additions Robert. I especially like “ability to read the air” – perfect. Thanks for reading!
Best,
Gina
Trust
Non-Verbal communication. “Ability to read the air”
Willingness to ask for help and help
Hello John,
Outstanding additions! Many thanks for including them here for the readers. I have no doubt they will find them of value. And thank you for reading. Have a great week!
Best,
Gina
An excellent post – very solid and useful information – thank you Gina!! Because this is an area I’ve done quite a bit of work on over the last 15 years, I thought I might add some additional ideas that I hope you will find of value. In doing high-performance team workshops with more than 100 companies I have developed a general competency model that seems to be a good foundation for creating a high-performance team. Here is the model:
DIRECTION: high performance team needs a clear, vivid, compelling – – and most importantly, shared – – vision and direction for where the team is going and specifically what they’re trying to accomplish.
MEASUREMENT – as part of the shared vision it is critical to establish a set of very specific, quantifiable, measurable and binary goals and objectives for exactly what the team needs to deliver.
COMPETENCE – to create a high-performance team it is essential to get the very best, most competent and collaborative people possible on the team.
COMMUNICATION – a high-performance team is typified by robust amounts of open, honest, transparent and frank communications.
MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY – this is the fulcrum point where a workgroup or team moves into the realm of being a high-performance team. Mutual accountability is when every person on the team holds themselves both personally and mutually accountable for achieving the measurable goals established in the team’s vision. Regardless of rank, title, seniority, pay – – – everybody on the team holds each other and 100% accountable at all times.
DISCIPLINE – lastly a high performance team has the discipline to do the five things I’ve just listed – consistently. They bake it into the culture of the team and are disciplined in ensuring that the team is following their vision, measuring their important outputs, bringing competent people on the team and increasing the competence of the people already on the team, communicating with high levels of transparency and honesty and holding each other at the highest levels of mutual accountability.
I hope these additional ideas will be helpful to your readers. Thanks so much – John Spence