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

1. Define the mission
2. Quantify the existing shared characteristics of the team
3. Define unique team experiences
4. Identify team improvements
5. Identify team weaknesses
6. 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.

Shared Characteristics

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

• Building an Effective Management Team
• Building a Team
• Building a High Performance Team

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