Whether you’re working remotely, or beginning to get back in the office, the value of working with a strong, reliable team cannot be underestimated. Whatever your business, you get used to working with people. The collaborative rapport you build up is not something you create overnight, or with just anyone.
Often frontline workers understand customer challenges best, so consultation with them is vital to get the right balance. Every team will have strengths and weaknesses and a strengths-based approach to building a team is the most productive. It’s all about seeing what strengths your team has and who does what well so you can fulfil the potential of the team as a whole and create that particular alchemy between individuals to achieve success.
Different perspectives
Managers give a great deal of thought to what different people bring to the team. Diversity is key. A team made up of exactly the same type of people, with exactly the same views and ways of thinking, will lack creativity. Everyone sees things differently and varied viewpoints are what makes collaboration and teamwork click. This is where frontline workers can be engaged to contribute their view out ‘in the field’. Ideas lead to other ideas, down different avenues to a new place. Changing thought processes is a good way to make team members think beyond the norm. It will stretch their abilities and will improve them too. Recognising challenges and dealing with them within the group are key aspects of good teamwork. Recognising where to step back, or to take the lead, are also talents that a good team will reflect. A diverse mixture of strengths and different perspectives makes for a strong, creative team.
Common goals
Whatever the makeup of your team, it’s imperative that you are working towards a unified outcome. Setting defined goals from the outset will mean your collaboration will get the most out of the process and that each process has a finite timescale. For project work this is straightforward, but long-term goals for a company can be less defined. In the day-to-day running of an organisation, such as a large office-based business, a local council or charity, there are often many management levels, to the point of having teams within teams. These can be both office and externally based. Some of these will be created by managers, while others will simply be natural groups of people who have found they work well together. Common goals will arise across the teams, along with wider goals across the business. How one feeds into the other is very much down to the efficiency and interaction between the different elements of the business. Effective internal communication is paramount.
How teamwork works
At C.Co. we work with communities, businesses and public services to develop insights into teamwork and delivering positive change in a valuable, collaborative way. Leadership is important in business, whether it comes from within the company itself or from an outsourced origin. Seeing the bigger picture is important in a team, as are the abilities to prioritise and delegate. Strong leadership will always deliver results and appreciating how to implement it effectively is part of the management process.
Change consultants can help organisations understand how to get the most out of their teams by looking at individuals and defining how they can work successfully as a whole. Having a sound approach to look at your teams and how they function individually – and as part of an organisation – is all part of good business strategy, whatever sector or level of management you’re involved with. The question is, have you got the right team members in place and are they collaborating to their full potential?
Contact the C.Co team to find out how we can work with you collaboratively to achieve your goals.
