Recently, I have been thinking about an article I wrote almost a year ago titled What Makes a Great Team. I wrote the article during a time of transition, and after reflecting on what made working for one specific team so great. The article shares my thoughts and ideas about what is required to create great teams which I define as:
In great teams people are authentic, take risks, have fun, and can contribute in meaningful ways. I believe it is because of these characteristics that great teams produce great results.
I now return to this topic after building a new team at a different company. With this new experience, I can confirm that leaders can build teams in a thoughtful and systematic way. A leader always has a choice about the kind of team he or she wants to create and has the opportunity to direct their team’s culture, systems, and norms.
I choose to lead teams that:
- Build confidence
- Encourage teaching and learning
- Establish trust so that it is okay to call each other out, question, and debate
- Provide support — especially when life gets complicated and hard
- Have fluid roles — people can step in, step up, or move to the side when necessary
- Come up with crazy ideas and try them
- Celebrate work and personal accomplishments
- Recognize the strengths of each team member and are thoughtful about how to put these strengths to good use
- Create fun and encourage laughter
- Work really hard and know what they are working towards
- Choose kind, direct language that encourages forward action
At their core, my tenets are unchanged from what I shared a year ago, with one important addition: In great teams, people choose kind, direct language that encourages forward action. When reviewing my original list, I realized while the importance of communication was implied, it was not explicit enough for its importance. Communication norms can ignite team performance or can cause unnecessary distraction and harm. Even with the same intent, two outcomes of the same decision can be wildly different based on the way they are communicated. It is the language we choose each day that creates reality.
I am not suggesting building great teams is easy. If it were, the amount of office drama and conflict would be much smaller, and the level of output and employee engagement would be much larger. But building great teams is possible. Through intention, focus, and practice we all have the power to build great teams.
Intention: Think about and ask others to share with you the characteristics of strong, high-performing teams. Consider the team culture you want to create and what you want to be known for as a leader. Then, grab a pen and begin writing — or more likely, a keyboard and start typing! It is important to first define the characteristics of the team you want to create; this is your intention.
Focus: Knowing what you want to create is the first step, and then you need to focus on determining what these qualities look like in action and identifying important team behaviors. One simple suggestion is to talk with your team about how it operates and how work gets done. You should also be very clear about your expectations. If you have ambitious goals for improvement, then focus on making improvements in one or two areas at a time. Change often happens with small steps.
Practice — Recognize that some days your team will function better than others. Conflicts will arise, your team will get stressed out, a project will fail, and you will get tired and may find yourself doing or saying something that is not in alignment with your values. At least, this has all happened to me. But because I have defined the type of team I want to lead, when I notice things are steering off course, I can direct the team back to more positive outcomes. I can return to my ideals and can continue to practice.
The approach of intention, focus, and practice gets results. I have applied it successfully in my work and have even seen its results on my yoga mat. My hope is you find this approach helpful too. I encourage you to get intentional about the kind of team you want to lead and to take control of the decisions and actions you make each day. As commonly said in leadership research, change starts at the top, and while we can always look up, we can also look within to intentionally create great teams.
