TEAMS

Twelve Tips for Building Successful Work Teams:

Twelve Cs for Team Building

Executives, managers and organization staff members universally explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Few organizations, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce. Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following. 1. Clear Expectations: The executive leadership must clearly communicate their expectation for the team's performance and expected outcomes. The team members must understand why a team was created in the first place.

2. Context: The team members must understand how the strategy of using this team will help the organization attain its communicated business goals. Each member must be in a position to define their teams importance for the accomplishment of corporate goals. 3. Commitment: Team must understand their teams missions and they must be committed towards accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes. The team members must perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers as well. The team members must expect their skills to grow and develop on the team.

4. Competence: The team should have members with the appropriate skills. (As an example, in a process improvement, there should be members with the adequate skills for each step of the process). The team members should have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed. 5. Charter: The team must assign responsibilities and design its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. The team must communicate their goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task. The leadership team or other coordinating group must support what the team has designed ?

6. Control: The team should have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its goals. At the same time, the team members must clearly understand their boundaries. The teams reporting relationship and accountability must be understood by all members. 7. Collaboration:

The team must understand team and group process. The team members should understand their roles and responsibilities. The team must be in a position to approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly. The team members should cooperate to accomplish the team charter.

8. Communication: The team members must communicate clearly and honestly with each other. They should bring diverse opinions to the table. If there are any conflicts it should be raised and addressed. 9. Creative Innovation: The organization must reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements. The organization must provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking and innovation. 10. Consequences: The team members must feel responsible and accountable for team achievements. When the teams are successful rewards and recognition must be supplied. Reasonable risk must be respected and encouraged in the organization. The reward systems must recognize both team and individual performance.

11. Coordination: The teams must be coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success. The priorities and resource allocation must be planned across departments. The teams must understand the concept of the internal customer- the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service. 12. Cultural Change: The organization must plan to or should plan the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, motivates and manages the people it employs. The organization must plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk.