Building a Team Builds Results

Building a strong, cohesive team that pulls together to accomplish its job is one of the most important roles of a manager. Many times leaders fail to realize the importance of building a cohesive team into a strong working team.

Whether a team consists of only two people or many, the way they work together may be as important as their knowledge and skill. The truly effective manager understands the importance of building a cohesive team and takes the time and effort to build relationships and interdependence. A leader must not only do his or her work, he must create and lead the team as well.

Having a cohesive team affects not only are the quality and quantity of work, but also other elements such as safety, customer satisfaction, and sales. The actions of one team member dramatically affect other members. Carelessness, lack of follow-through or mistakes by one team member can come back to haunt the entire team.

Relationships between team members have a strong effect on job satisfaction. Experience has shown that the manager who builds a cohesive team retains team members. No one wants to work in an environment where there is strife, conflict, and bickering. By building positive relationships and increasing the competence of the team, a manager can make difficult, tiring, or even mundane work much more enjoyable. As a result, team members will want to stay.

There are simple steps or actions that a leader can take to build a cohesive team. They start with treating members fairly and equitably. Nothing will divide a team quicker than some of the members thinking others are receiving preferential treatment. While it is impossible to work closely with people and not form relationships, leaders must realize that when they are acting as managers it is a business relationship, and they must follow good leadership principles and be fair and equitable.

Fair treatment includes equitable distribution of the workload, including both "good jobs" and distasteful tasks. While it doesn't have to be exactly equal, such as a specific rotation schedule, it still must be equitable or reasonable.

It may be appropriate to have a newer team member do simpler tasks and have more experienced members do the more difficult and challenging ones. But if a manager continually dumps the 'dirty' jobs on new members, they will get the message that they aren't really important or aren't full members of the team.

Take the lead and occasionally do some of those distasteful jobs yourself - and make sure they are occasionally assigned to more experienced and senior team members.

One of the common problems that leaders have is, they do not separate personal and business relationships. If, for example, you have a relative or friend on the team, it would be easy to sit down at lunch and talk about things that only you and he know about or are interested in. But as a manager you should not give too much attention to any one person. Be sure to talk with each member regularly and involve him in what is happening.

Another way to create a cohesive team is to build personal relationships after hours. This is an excellent way to develop trust and dependence on each other; however, it must be done with caution. So if you set up after-hours activities, pick something everyone can enjoy. Managers have to remember that even after hours their behavior is representative of themselves and the company.

The best approach is to value each individual, treat him fairly and equitably and help him become involved in creating the success of the team. A strong, cohesive team is the key to productive performance and profits.