team management | CEO People Management

To assist and evaluate team building efforts, here are 21 key questions you need to answer to make teamwork work.

You can work through the questions, either alone or with your team, and answer “yes” or “no”, jot down some notes about why you answered that way and what you can do to improve in that area.

Are you involving your team members in hiring decisions?
You live with a bad hiring decision for, on average, 18 months. And yet, what management considers a good hiring decision, and what team members consider a good hiring decision, may be dramatically different. Let team members meet potential new hires before an offer is made. Factor their feedback into the decision.
Do you know who your team “slayers” are and have you taken steps to deal with the problem?
Have you identified team “slayers” – those individuals whose behaviour detracts from team performance – and have you spent time with them diagnosing the reason and what to do about it?
Do team members understand the team’s vision, mission, goals, values and expectations?
These are the blueprint for the team’s success, so team members must have a crystal clear understanding of these important components.
Are team members committed to the team’s success?
This is a situation where simply asking isn’t enough. Look for an outward manifestation of commitment. More likely, it will be easier to spot a lack of commitment. Excessive questioning of why people are being asked to do what they do is one sign. Complaining, lack of performance, low morale – all of those would suggest that the commitment to vision, mission, values, goals and expectations may be lacking.
Have team members been trained in teamwork skills?
Is your teambuilding curriculum in place? Training should be ongoing, and whenever possible, team members should attend sessions as a group.
Have team leaders been trained for their role?
There are natural born leaders, but there aren’t enough of them for most organisations. Leadership skills must be developed. In addition to basic team skills, make sure team leaders get special skills training in areas like group facilitation and mediation.
Have you started relationship building with future team members?
Some day you’re going to lose team members. They’re going to quit, move away, or go to another team within the organisation. When you receive notice that they’re leaving, you’ll need to have potential replacements identified and, if possible, already thinking about joining the team. Relationship building with potential team members needs to be done well in advance.
Are you holding regular team meetings that participants find worthwhile?
Regularly ask team members to assess the effectiveness of team meetings. If they feel that team meetings are wasting their time, you’re either meeting too frequently or preparing inadequately. If they feel that they need more information to feel informed, you may not be meeting enough.
Do team meetings include both information and motivation?
You’ve got to have both. Use the analogy of the cherry flavoured cough syrup. When you buy cherry flavoured cough syrup your primary motivation is for the medicinal value – you want to suppress the cough. Because if you really just wanted cherry flavour, you’d buy a pop drink. So why do they put cherry flavour in cough syrup? To help the medicine go down more easily.
You should make meetings interesting, entertaining and motivational to help the information presented go down more easily. Team members need both “how-to” and “want-to”.
Is interpersonal communication effective?
Team communication should provide information that members can use: news rather than gossip, and feedback rather than criticism. Do team members share useful information with each other in an open, honest environment?
Do team members feel well informed about news of the larger organisation?
It’s important that teams don’t operate in a vacuum, but that they understand how they fit into the big picture and how they impact the organisation’s performance. Top managers and others outside the team should be utilised as resources.
What efforts has your team or entire organisation taken to create interdepartmental teamwork?
There is something harder than getting people on the same team to work together, and that is getting people on different teams to work together. Have you made some active attempts to teambuild with other departments within your organisation?
Is your team facing some of the same problems today that they were 60 days ago, and if so, why?
Ignoring significant problems won’t help. After two months, problems that are unsolved are either insignificant or overdue for attention. Deal with problems before they become a source of perpetual frustration for team members.
What feedback has your team given to management and how has management responded?
A team leader once told me that one of his greatest frustrations was that his boss was a “yes man” but that he didn’t represent the needs of their team to management. Does your team or team leader communicate ideas and needs to management? If so, has management responded appropriately and convinced your team that their opinions are valued?
Has the team leader taken time to understand the values, likes, dislikes and needs of every team member?
Because different people are motivated differently, if the team leader hasn’t done their homework in understanding what motivates different team members, they aren’t as far along in team building as they could be.
Does the team deal openly and effectively with conflict?
Have team members learned to use all available approaches to conflict resolution and has the team agreed on a system that allows you to deal with the problems that inevitably arise? The team vision should be the primary agenda being pursued, even in difficult times.
Are all team members open to feedback?
Or is feedback only accepted from the team leader? When a team member has an idea that will help another team member improve their performance, do they offer it?
Can you point to specific innovations that your team has made in the past quarter?
Are you innovating or simply doing things the way you’ve always been doing them and maintaining the status quo? Make sure to reward any attempts at innovation, even if the outcome isn’t successful. Challenge team members to try new things.
Are you operating with a team calendar year?
Teams must be accountable for producing results in time. Have you identified top team goals for the current calendar year and do team members know what those goals are? Use action planning at every team session to translate ideas into results.
Do team members feel there is linkage between individual success and team success?
Do you reward people and recognise them, not just for what they accomplish, but for their contribution in helping the team accomplish its goals? This linkage is critical and must be present if team work is going to work.
What celebrations, formal and informal, have you undertaken to demonstrate appreciation and create camaraderie?
Evaluate results periodically. Regularly and creatively celebrate the team’s efforts and victories. If you’re lucky, you’ll receive accolades from others, but you can’t really control that. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to celebrate your own success.

Guest Author

Mark Sanborn CSP CPAE is an acclaimed speaker, bestselling author and president of Sanborn & Associates Inc., an idea studio for leadership development. For more information, visit www.MarkSanborn.com, http://www.FredFactor.com and http://www.YouDontNeedaTitle.com

Republished from IIDM – your online business resource – www.iidmglobal.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of IIDM’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.iidmglobal.com/subscribe/

When was the last time that you or someone in your team had a disagreement, misunderstanding or conflict? How much are these workplace conflicts costing you in wasted time, energy, effort, lost productivity and lost revenue? Are you tired of spending so much time and energy addressing conflicts rather than growing your business?

Most workplace conflicts arise from misunderstandings and disagreements due to differences in personality and communication style. Some conflicts arise from lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities or from preferential treatment of one employee over the rest. Conflict can even arise because one employee overreacts to another employee’s comments or behaviour, as well as between a business owner and customers, suppliers and alliance and business partners. Regardless of how the conflict arises, addressing it quickly is critical to your business success.

Think about the impact workplace conflict can have on the morale of your team, their attitude when dealing with customers, and the impact on your revenue and business results. Unresolved conflict between two or more staff members, can result in the rest of your team taking sides, which has the potential of dividing your team and reducing team effectiveness.

The most dangerous part of that dynamic is that a lot of the disharmony will occur “under the radar”. Over time, this can subtly sabotage the team’s performance and your business results. This is why it is critical to work through issues, however small, as soon as they arise. If you ignore them and hope that they will go away, chances are they will come back even bigger or in some other form.

Here are seven steps to assist you to put a stop to workplace conflict, to assist your team to refocus on doing their jobs, as well as assist you to refocus your energy on growing your business:

Resolve any past emotions (eg. anger, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt, etc.), self doubts and limiting beliefs. For as long as these are unresolved, other people will be able to ‘push your buttons’. You will find yourself easily overreacting to other people, which will affect your communication and relationships with others, and your performance.
Understand what motivates your team suppliers, customers and partners, their preferred ways of communicating, their values and drivers. Then learn to communicate your message effectively, taking their preferences into account. This way your message will be heard loud and clear every time, and you will minimise disagreements and misunderstandings.
Be clear about your vision, goals, expectations, roles and responsibilities and those of the people around you. Agree and communicate these with everyone in your team, including your employees, customers, business partners and alliance partners. This will avoid much stress, disagreement, confusion, duplication of effort, errors, rework and under-performance.
Have clear agreements around roles, responsibilities and communication so that everyone in the team understands what is expected of them, and the type of behaviour that is appropriate.
If anyone in the team disrespects these agreements, ensure that they are aware that their behaviour is inappropriate and put a stop to that behaviour immediately. If the behaviour is not stopped it will recur and will become harder to address, as any lack of intervention will send the message that the behaviour is ‘acceptable’.
Work through issues, however small, as soon as they arise. If you ignore them and hope that they will go away, chances are they will come back even bigger or in some other form.
If you find yourself having challenges with addressing the above or if the conflict persists or recurs, call a professional to assist you with creating lasting harmonious workplace relationships.

Just imagine how much more focused and productive you and your team will be once you put a stop to workplace conflict. And how big a boost this will have to your business results and success!

Author Credits

Dr. Vesna Grubacevic is the Founding Director and Performance Transformation ExpertTM with Qt. She is the creator of breakthrough behavioural change techniques, holds a PhD, a BEc and has over 27 years’ business experience, including working directly with CEOs, senior executives and their teams to assist them to create exceptional results. For more techniques on fast tracking your business success and for your FREE gifts, visit http://www.qttransformation.com/ today, call Dr. Grubacevic on (03) 9653-9288 or email her at vesna@qttransformation.com