10 Steps to Team Building

Building great teams requires a few very important things. First and foremost is that you are the right leader for the team.  Leadership is a gift given by your team members, and is usually a result of you offering trust and support, rather than exerting fear and power.  So now that you are the team leader, “How do I build a team?”

This is by no means a step-by-step to team building, but rather a consideration-by-consideration:

1. Take time early on onboard your team.  Understand that every time a new person joins the team your dynamics will change.  Take a few moments to welcome and introduce everyone (wether its your first time together or just one person is joining for the first time).  Creating a clear start or launch to team relationships are key to sustainable team building.
2. Establish a clear purpose.  A team needs to have a clear and undeniable purpose.  That purpose is like an umbrella under which all their activity happens.  As the leader, you need to protect the team from “other things” that will attempt to find space under your umbrella.  A team with a clear purpose will be more efficient and effective in realizing results.
3. Develop trust and cooperation amongst your team.  Trust is the cornerstone to an effective team. Trust is built progressively, so early on build in opportunities for team members to achieve outcomes.  Achieving these quick goals will demonstrate who is a productive member of the group and create trust (and identify gaps). These small achievements will also initiate momentum and energy within the team towards its purpose.
4. Develop interpersonal relationship understanding.  Team building is often achieved through “stickiness” of people.  This adhesion to one another comes in a bunch of ways.  One is adversity (gulp we don’t want that) and another is through the strategic development of interpersonal relationships. This can be accomplished by engaging in team building activities for fun, structured learning activities, and even through project based work.  Check out our store for some great team building activities that can help you achieve this outcome.
5. Establish group norms and expectations early on.  Always take time early on in the formation of your team to spend some time agreeing to ways in which the team will function.  Essentially you are building a team service level agreement around things like: how we communicate, time frames, how consensus is built, and what are the “ground rules” of being on this team.  In addition, team designers can spend time investigating and agreeing to behavioural expectations like: trust, listening, safety, etc.  A great tool for that is the Full Value Contract.
6. Develop a safe place to share ideas and information.  Communication is the lifeblood to your team.  Their desire to share ideas, knowledge, experience, etc is often the tipping point between a successful team/project and a flop.  As the manager or team designer it is your job to ensure that everyone feels comfortable with sharing and that the other team members respond appropriately. 
7. Authentic engagement starts with you.  It seems that humanity will always rise to the lowest common denominator.  When building a team you need to set the stage and pace for acceptable outcomes within your team. Setting that bar in a challenging spot (but achievable) in the beginning is vital.  Then as you progress and gain momentum challenge your team to inch the bar higher, and higher.  Engagement is not a destination, but rather a collective investment of pushing/pulling for more.
8. Get out of the way (after a bit).  Team building happens not exclusively by implementing great activities together.  It happens organically when you frame opportunities for the “team” to realize results, often through stress and adversity.  One of the ways that you can help to facilitate this is to lead as more of a consultant while your team is “problem solving.”  If the team always has you resolving the issues, they will not develop “stickiness” nor grow transferrable skills for future issues.
9. Keep track of the undercurrent it can rip tide you into very deep water.  Your team members are people.  People have feelings.  Not everyone is great at sharing their feelings.  Some people’s feelings will get the better of them and begin to cause issue for you if they get upset.  Keep track of how people are feeling, get to know your team and their individual feelings.  Being proactive in managing these feelings will pay long term dividends.
10. Time is a key measure for teams.  There are lots of great measures to know if your team is being successful (i.e. dollars sold, memberships achieved, etc, etc.).  But as a team designer “time” is your biggest consideration for team building. Understand when it is “time” to inspire your team, “time” to reign in your team, “time” to adjourn the team, etc.  Ineffective teams have had their time disrespected at some point within their development - right timing what you do as a leader will be the single biggest influence in your team team building success.  ​
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Learn more in Tyler Hayden's Book - The Business that Cared about People - A Leader's Guide to Team Building and Engagement Using Multiple Intelligences.

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