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Building High Performance Teams
Back To Main Page by: Srinivasan R.G.
Your managerial success is tied to your team. Teams are the most valuable resource of an
organization. The times of lone leadership are over with Alexander the Great. These are the
times of the team leadership. If you can build a successful team and work as the leader who is
just a little more equal than others you may be able to pull off everything you do with great
success.

Successful team building requires a lot of focus and effort. Here are a few tips to build teams
that are effective and deliver results.

Define the Objectives: Does the team members understand clearly the expectations from
them? Have the performance challenges clearly been defined? Do they know what the
expected outcomes are? If there is a misunderstanding on the results expected from each
member as well as that of the team, you may as well write off the team. Great Team +
Challenging Objective = Extraordinary Results.

Define the vision: The teams realize that they may be able to survive only by delivering the
bottom line results. However they need something more than the key results defined to them.
They need a vision, something higher than profits and results. A higher ideal fires up the
team’s creativity and passion.

Empower to Create Ownership: Empower your team to be independent decision makers to

accomplish tasks and team objectives while defining their boundaries. Empowered teams and
members carry out its objectives faster as they do not need to wait for the leader to decide for
them. Empowered teams own up their responsibility.
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Train, Train and Train Some More: A leader has a large stake in the success of each team
member. Members of teams require different skills and the leader needs to be a trainer rather
than a driver. Identify skill gaps in soft as well as areas of expertise and keep training them to
produce better results.

Fostering Right Interpersonal Relationships: Make the team understand that there would be
differences. Difference in gender, culture, thought process and approach to work symbolizes
the dynamic and diverse members who have come together to achieve common goals.
Respecting the difference and valuing others experience and thoughts enable the team to
function with the right relationships.

Rewards and Compensation: As they say, first share the cash then the compliments.
Everyone talks about the value and benefits of team work. However benefits to individuals
must be clear along with the benefits to the organization. Set down the right monetary rewards
and incentives for so that the achievement and benefits for the individuals and organization
are balanced.

Lead by Example: A leader always leads from the front. Set example of discipline,
performance orientation putting aside personal ego to the team’s superiority. Give credit to the
others even though you may have contributed more. This nurtures the right team atmosphere
and spirit of togetherness.

Celebrate Success: Finally don’t forget to celebrate success. It must become a habit to
celebrate every achievement though small they may be. Constant celebration boosts the team
morale driving it to perform at higher levels and aim for bigger achievements.

Many of the business cultures and managements celebrate the lone hero leadership much
more than the team leaderships. In the modern interdependent world it is the teams within the
organizations and multiple teams all collaborating and contributing to the common corporate
objectives that really differentiate the dynamic growing organizations from the lone cowboy
leaderships that may collapse the moment the leader is not available to lead.

About the author:

R.G. Srinivasan is a Managerial professional, Writer and Author. He writes a regular blog on
 management thoughts available at http://management-thoughts.blogspot.comwith interesting
articles on management, managerial resources, strategies and experiences.

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