Six ways to build a winning team

Your business is growing, you are building a team, how do you ensure that everyone is working together for the good of your business?

There are six steps that you need to follow when creating a strong team.

1. Focus on strong leadership. Having strong leaders within your business is vital, whether it is just you, or you and your management team. You need to be someone who everyone trusts and is inspired by, as a leader should inspire others to go that extra mile. Businesses that have strong leadership display the following behaviours. Solving problems effectively. Operating with a strong results orientation. Seeking different perspectives. Supporting others.

2. Set common goals. You need to ensure that you have Common Goals.

Your team need to have a clear understanding of the direction your business is taking, what the goals are for the next month, quarter and year, three and five years. Most importantly of all, they need to understand their role in your business and how they can help you achieve them.

3. Rules of the game. It is important to ensure that your team know what your core values are and what is expected of them. It is also vital that they all understand the reason for the rules, and that by sticking to them they are helping you to reach your end goals.

4. Develop an action plan. It is all very well having a great company culture, with a set of common goals but you will not achieve your desired results unless you have an action plan that sets out WHO does WHAT by WHEN. This plan needs to have a list of logical steps with tasks and deadlines assigned to you and your team.

5. Support risk taking. I am not suggesting that you throw caution to the wind, I am advocating that you allow your team to take calculated risks, particularly where it might lead to innovation.

You are not going to make progress unless you take a few risks here and there. This is a really good way of motivating and developing your team.

6. 100% involvement and inclusion – You need to ensure that you have the

Involvement and Inclusion of all the people in your team, no bystanders. In order for this to happen you will need to lead from the front and encourage the complete commitment of your team.

You include them and they contribute 100% – get this commitment from them.

This might mean that some members of your team decide to leave, so be it, don’t be afraid as ultimately the success of your team may need this to happen.

7. W.I.F.L.E. Point 7 of 6!! What

I Feel Like Expressing – actively encourage people to feedback. You are not the only one with the good ideas.

to grow your business the whole of your team needs to be engaged. Whilst this may sound simple, getting it to happen effectively can be quite a challenge

If you want to grow your business then the whole of your team needs to be engaged. Whilst this may sound simple, getting it to happen effectively can be quite a challenge. You need to ensure that your team has not only heard and understood your vision, but that they have bought into it too, so that your vision also becomes theirs. If you think about some of the household brands we love today such as Apple and Dyson, what marks them out is the way in which their senior leadership team have been able to instil this sense of ownership in the whole of the workforce. This common purpose results in motivated people who have a real connection with the company they work for.

As a business coach I regularly spend time with clients running team alignment sessions that enable the team to come on board and see the owner’s vision for the future of the business. These sessions are an opportunity to get you the director(s) together with your team to look at where the business is currently, where you want the business to go and how you can get there, together.

Remember Together Everyone Achieves More and there is no I in TEAM – you cannot do it on your own, you need your team.

Kathy Bassett ActionCoach

Kathy’s passion is working with owners of successful small to medium sized companies. She can help you to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you really want to be, whether it be to grow your business long term, or to implement an exit strategy.

07952 112432

kathybassett@actioncoach.com

actioncoach.com/kathybassett