5 Steps of building an effective team culture

Introduction

It is very important in a business environment to maintain a healthy and effective team culture. Team culture, according to Oxford Dictionary, is ‘’the attitudes, beliefs, and norms of a team. Team culture is concerned with how the team operates including its selection procedures and power structure; how rewards are given, acceptable behaviour and dress code. Team culture often depends on the traditions, or lack of them, of a team.’’

Importance of business teams

In the current organizational norms, it is almost impossible to survive or progress individually. According to recent surveys, companies with better employee engagement generate 2.5 times more revenue than the competitors with low management and coordination. According to another statistic, companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%.

In the current organizational norms, it is almost impossible to survive or progress individually.[/tweet_box]

Different organizations rely on work teams to get the job done. Work teams have many benefits such as:

•         It provides the chance to build trust and develop employee skills.
•         Projects get completed at a faster pace.
•         Increase in overall creativity and effectiveness.
•         Generation of new ideas and opportunities.

Team members

It is very important that every member of the team adds value and works in coordination to achieve goals and objectives of the team. While a team can do better than individuals, a single uncooperative member can destroy the entire purpose of business teams. A single uncooperative member affects the overall effectiveness and the other members of the team. According to stackhands.com, unhappy employees take fifteen more sick days each year than the average worker.

It is very important that every member of the team adds value and works in coordination.[/tweet_box]

It is therefore very important for the team leader to take notice of the uncooperative member. A manager or the leader should follow the given steps to address the issue: 

• Help the member recognize the characteristics of the team.
• Obtain feedback from all the members to get a better idea of the issue.
• Explain responsibilities of the member.
• Hear out the person and try to solve the problem.

These steps can be used for new members to get settled in as well. By following these simple steps, the uncooperative or the new member feels important and useful. It is important to do so, because according to the research, only 21% of the employees feel strongly valued at work while the rest struggle to add value and compete with their self-concept in the work environment.

Only 21% of the employees feel strongly valued at work while the rest struggle to add value and compete with their self-concept in the work environment.[/tweet_box]

5 Steps of building an effective team culture

Here are five steps to building an effective and healthy team culture:

Develop a team-oriented organization

You should make ‘teamwork’ the essential part of your core values of the company. Every employee should work in coordination to employ better results and nurture a healthy environment for the entire organization.

You should make ‘teamwork’ the essential part of your core values of the company. [/tweet_box]

Assign strict team goals

Give your team members achievable yet strict objectives and goals to keep them on their toes and at 100% performance, all the time. Moreover, by doing so, the team members will develop a strong, coordinated, professional relationship.

Encourage informal team relations

According to latest surveys and researches, informal groups and teams create better levels of trust, commitment and coordination among the group/team members. Increased trust is then reflected in their performance results.

Cross-Train employees

Instead of investing more in the training of new team members, the team leaders should use the experienced members. These experienced members of the team can supply their experience and knowledge to train the new members. This way, human resources can save costs and there is a better coordination among the members.

Instead of investing more in the training of new team members, the team leaders should use the experienced members.[/tweet_box]

Provide clear team resources

No matter how experienced or talented the team is, a team cannot survive or progress without a proper allocation of resources. The team members should be able to recognize the place, resources and capital invested in them. This helps them in the decision-making process.

The team members should be able to recognize the place, resources and capital invested in them.[/tweet_box]

Analysing the team

There are different online and offline tools to measure the overall human resource capital of a team or a company. One of the top personality surveys for team analysis is PSI (Personal Strength Inventory). PSI is a simple, yet very in-depth web-based personality and behavioural strengths assessment inventory.

More than 50% of the time, team leaders fail to analyse their team members individually which shows the importance of analysing a team. Before assigning the tasks and objectives, it is very important to know the overall skills set and the individual level of expertise to get the most out of a team. Analysing a team gives the proper idea and standpoint for the leader to make major decisions.

More than 50% of the time, team leaders fail to analyse their team members individually[/tweet_box]