Whether you’re helping your family create their mission, or you’re coaching your soccer team, or you’re a team leader at work dealing with teams and building effective teamwork is essential to success in life. No one is self-made, and everyone works with others in one way or another.
Create a Common Purpose and Vision
If you’re a family creating a family mission statement is invaluable in helping move everyone to the same page. It creates a united front that every member can get behind. Plus, the mission statement also serves as a guide to follow when making decisions on a value or moral argument.
Allow for and Respect Individuality
This is especially important in workgroups and school groups and teams but is also vital for families. If you really want to create a very solid team it’s imperative that you accept everyone for their differences and individuality. Don’t try to make people be different from how they were born. Otherwise, it will create a rift in the team that can not be overcome. Remember you cannot control thoughts that are not your own even if they are your kids.
Develop Open and Effective Communication Between Members
Along with the rest of the team, develop the rules and guidelines to follow when communicating with each other. Ideally everyone should be able to provide their ideas without judgment. However, you can make some rules about them based on your vision statement and values and morals you’ve agreed to follow.
Deal with Problems Immediately
When a problem happens, don’t toss it under the rug. The problem with ignoring issues is that they don’t go away. They just get bigger, at least mentally. When a problem arises take a moment to deal with it using open communication. If you need a third party to help mediate do that too.
Build Trusting Relationships Among Team Members
Work on trust-building and relationship building at all times. Do things together outside of the main project you’re working on. Get out in nature together and learn to like and trust each other outside of work or homework or “real” life.
Accept That Perfection Does Not Exist
One issue that hinders teams is the notion of perfection. No matter what type of group you’re in, perfection doesn’t exist. Yes, you want to work hard and practice so that you can do an excellent job at whatever it is, but if you focus too hard on being perfect it can block your ability to do it good enough.
Let Everyone on The Team Shine
Even if you have a team leader, it’s a better idea to let everyone on the team lead. When you put other people in the lead for a day, or during a meeting, or even by giving them charge over a certain process, it helps build their confidence and makes for a much better and stronger team.
A team that has a shared vision and purpose who have built a trusting and close relationship can accomplish more than the individuals who make up the team. A close-knit team can work together to reach goals higher than you may have considered before you discovered the power of a united team.