Having a team that runs like clockwork is a boost for any business or organization. The three principal elements that will make your team work well are clarity in the tasks it needs to complete and cultural and personality alignment.
Your team members need clear roles because ambiguity leads to poor productivity. They may work on the same tasks or in different directions if unsure. That is a waste of time and money. Setting clear roles is complex because responsibilities may change due to your business evolving, organizational shifts, and team growth.
How should organizers deal with this?
Create team-level clarity.
Leaders must align their staff to achieve team goals by clearly defining each person’s responsibilities and roles. Workers are more motivated, can make informed decisions, set goals, and create execution plans when leaders have made their responsibilities crystal clear. This is best done at the onboarding stage. When leaders provide clearly defined functions and responsibilities for new employees, they know what is expected of them and become solution focused and engaged while working toward shared organizational goals harmoniously rather than being distracted and confused. If this didn’t happen when onboarding an employee, do it as soon as possible. Implementing an open communication policy between yourself and your team members is an effective way to do this.
Team organizers can create transparency between themselves and team members so everyone knows what everyone else is doing, accepts their responsibilities, and becomes accountable while achieving the organization’s aims.
Your team’s culture, collaboration, and performance improve in line with the clarity you provide in defining their roles.
Align your team culture.
Every group, including communities, hobby groups, and families, has a culture, including workplace teams. When employees align with company culture, everyone benefits.
So, what is company culture?
A company’s culture is how values, expectations, practices, and processes work across the organization. This culture may develop organically (most do) but can also be intentional by leaders providing clear communication of specific organizational values and practices. These can include transparency and openness, flexible schedules, and organizational protocols. When employees can define the culture and know how to practice it, including unspoken preferences and rules, they become company culture champions who improve business outcomes.
This begs the question; how do I culturally align my organization?
The first and most valuable step is to define that culture. Having someone outside the organization assess it from their perspective and identify areas to improve and present strengths is often helpful. Once you’ve done that, strengthen the culture and plan how to improve it. This can include reorganizing people to align teams with the organization’s culture and improving transparency. These steps often take time, practice, and patience.
Personality alignment
All team members have distinct personalities and bring unique experiences, emotions, expertise, and skill sets to their organizations. Leaders need to align these individual qualities within their teams for team success.
That doesn’t mean forcing staff to march in lockstep or ignoring people’s individual initiatives. Instead, it means that all staff members have a clearly defined shared commitment to working as a team and achieving common aims that align with the organization’s overall mission.
Often that requires help from external resources such as consultants to align those qualities in a result-oriented manner that is appropriate to your organization’s unique culture. Several tools determine group effectiveness and interpersonal measurements that far outstrip the effectiveness of anecdotal evidence to provide reliable insights into personality and interaction between team members.
In a brief consultation, I can uncover patterns that damage team effectiveness and commitment to providing a bridge between group interaction and individual perceptions to define the root causes of non-alignment and team strength. Once completed, we can address challenging areas with team workshops, a cultural strategy, small group sessions focusing on critical issues, and priority behaviors to improve personal and team effectiveness.