Action plan to build a winning team
Building a team in an organization is complex. One way is to have a plan to build and strengthen your team and takes into account many factors.
Steps
- Define the mission
- Quantify the existing shared characteristics of the team
- Define unique team experiences
- Identify team improvements
- Identify team weaknesses
- Define the leaders monthly activities
Example
What follows is the actual team building results from a division of a business to illustrate what these steps mean. This is the team building plan at one point in time, not a static plan. This is an illustrative example.
Mission
Mission: To commit to a process which will develop a focused, committed team of quality people who will work together with intensity and creativity.
Winning Teams – Shared Characteristics:
- Skilled in many areas – Variety in Groups
- High level of energy
- High expectations of team members
- Able to think outside the box
- Ability to find new solutions, i.e. “flexible thinking”
- Shared common mission/goal to solve difficult problems
- Great communication above and beyond the call
- Pride in group product
- Group feels vested
- Trust among members
Team Experiences
Unique Team Experiences:
- Cross lines of Responsibility
- Experienced members configured in a new team
- Learning experience
- No roadmap of experience
- Vast knowledge of senior mentors – shared with younger inexperienced members
Team improvements
Team Improvements Identified:
- Retention of employees to keep experienced team
- Educating the “Team” concept
- Communication between team members
- Leadership skills improvement of team leader
- Challenging the team
- Cross training across strengths
- Focus on details & follow up on the plan
- Confirmation of understanding of the plan
- Getting Team involved more in the planning
- Continuity in team meetings before crisis stage
Team Weaknesses
Team Weaknesses to Repair
- Operate in isolation / together alternative
- Lose focus
- Varied work ethic & focus level in team
- Familiarity – take things for granted
- Finger pointing
- Lack of professional training
- Too competitive among selves
- Not understanding team goals
- Lack of trust
- Team too small – need diversity
- Lack of communication
Monthly leader activities
- Most Important Monthly Activities for the Leader:
- Pride in workmanship “Team Building”
- Communicating to the team the “Plan”
- Making sure it all gets done – All divisions
- Define Mission, Goal, Success criteria to the Team
- Take care of the employees
- Look ahead 3 months to succeed
- Budgeting – Tracking major projects & Key Costs
Related Best Practices
Other Resources
- “6 Ways Successful Teams are Built to Last” Forbes, Oct, 2012; Glenn Llopis discusses leadership techniques that build a team.
- wikipedia : Team building Wikipedia page discusses more generally team building in multiple settings.
- “Guide to Managing Human Resources, Chapter 14: Team Building”University of California, San Francisco – review steps to building and effective team and organizational benefits
- “Build a Tower Build a Team”, TED talk by Tom Wujec – lessons learned from teams building a tower from simple materials.
Author
The author of this page is Terry Gardiner
Terry Gardiner is the founder and President of Silver Lining Seafoods and NorQuest Seafoods - a medium-size Alaska seafood processing company; and currently a Board member of the Anvil Corporation, an employee-owned company specializing in oil and gas engineering.
His co-operative experiences include member director of the Commercial Fishermen Co-operative association; creation of legislation for the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank; and advisor to the US Dept of Health and Social Services for the state Health CO-OPs.
Terry served ten years as a member of the Alaska House of Representatives -several legislative committee chairmanships, Speaker of the House, Chairman of the Alaska Criminal Code Commission and board member on various state and federal boards and commissions.
His non-profit experiences include National Policy Director for the Small Business Majority in Washington DC; working with the Herndon Alliance and ForTerra.
Terry authored the leadership book, "Six-Word Lessons to Build Effective Leaders: 100 Lessons to Equip Your People to Create Winning Organizations".
For more check: Terry Gardiner Long bio