I feel we all will agree that we live a team work oriented life in our day-to-day journey. Team work happens between husband & wife for a happy married life, between parents & their children, between teacher & students, Doctor & patient and, who can deny that friendship is a true team work indeed. Professionally, we are expected & supposed to work in a team & deliver as a team. It should be easy to work in a team & lead a team professionally, when we are consciously & subconsciously living it daily in our respective personal lives. However, I still observe a plenty of leaders & managers finding it difficult to manage their teams. Reason could be a plenty and vary too but from my own professional experience below are key ingredients to build & run a successful team.
Respect Individuality : All team members will be different with each other in one way or another, it is imperative to understand this variation as this diversity turns out to be a huge asset to a Leader. Everyone will have a number of positives & areas to improve upon, embrace this diversity and plan for them to enhance their positives and improvise on lacking areas.
Appreciate : Do not ever ignore or miss a single chance of appreciating your team members. There is no better reward than appreciation to a working team member. A timely, well deserved and authentic appreciation brings such a pride, honour and, self-belief which even a recurring monthly pay check can never bring. Did you notice a person getting confident & bringing a self belief when he/she got his salary credited to his/her account or it happened when you appreciated him in front of whole team/client? Appreciation is always the key.
Treat them personally well : Although team members are working & collaborating professionally but always try to reach to them personally.We all are working professionally to take care of our personal needs hence personal life tend to take precedence over professional life (Most of the times, if not always). Respect team member’s personal life – be it their special occasions, festivals, travels, parents, families, sickness, emergencies. As a leader if you will give them a shoulder & a helping hand in their testing personal times and space of celebration in their happiest times, your project work will never be impacted & deadlines will always be met. It’s a tested formula 🙂
Team as a family: “Our team is like one single family”, I have heard this statement uncountable times but only to a level of meagre statement. When I lead my family, I always remain available to them, even if I am physically not present my family knows I am a call away from them and esp. in tough times. This is exactly the kind of feeling required to be honestly propagated and displayed to team members. Once you have won trust of your team, project deadlines; deliverable; challenges they all can be won since your family (your team) is supporting you. Do not forget you will be required to take some tough decisions in family and that will be the case in team as a family too.
Back your team: A father backs & support his young daughter when she is taking her decisions as it helps her to own it without getting much worried about consequences & impact.Back & support your team members exactly in similar fashion as father does to his daughter. Back them when team succeeds, when team falters, and very importantly when they fail. Learn them to fail however, to fail early, as this will be a key ingredient for team’s consistent success. Failures will always challenge the team and more they will face challenges ideally they will become better, consistent & productive and ultimately the project/assignment too.
Definitely, there will be plenty of other ingredients to build & grow your team. And, I will be very happy & honoured to know & utilise them.
