Five Ways To Improve Your New Team

It?s not easy to be the leader of a newly formed team. It doesn?t matter if some of them have worked together before or even if you know them all personally, getting a brand new team firing on all cylinders can be difficult or feel nearly impossible. If you embrace these techniques, then your team will be ready to take on the world with you as their commander and chief. Once everyone has settled in nicely and everyone knows each other a little better these corporate team building activities could benefit you and your employees greatly.

Make Sure They Understand Their Roles and Goals

A team is like a machine and every member has their part to play to make that machine run as smoothly as possible. It?s important that everyone understands what role they?ll be playing and how their skills relate to the overall goals. By providing them a clear vision, complete with benchmarks, they?ll work better because they know what they?re working towards.

Be Patient and Understanding

A new team is filled with unknown personalities. Some will follow you blindly and others will test your mettle. It?s important as the manager that you?re patient and understanding with them, but don?t let them take advantage of you. Building a team from the ground up requires tact and strategy. You?ll get a feel early on for those that try to push your buttons and those that don?t.

You?ll also see personalities on the team that clash either with you or each other. There?s no way to avoid this, but you can learn to accept each person for who they are and for what they provide to the team. Don?t treat any team member differently because of a personality clash.

No Meetings for the Sake of Meetings

A team works best when it?s actually working. Many manager become dependent on meetings to get updates, discuss project changes, critiques, etc. It can get to the point where the team spends just as much time in meetings as they do working on the project. Unnecessary meetings demoralize the team and are just plain annoying.

Every meeting should have a defined purpose, be organized and make sure you allow feedback from the team. Plus, with the integration of project software that can help improve team collaboration, hopefully this results in improved communication between all roles within your company. Every company wants everyone to work well in teams as this can increase productivity.

If it?s something you don?t need the whole team for, then just grab the project lead and have a quick conversation. Let your team work and keep them out of unnecessary meetings.

Initiative Should Be Encouraged

Many times a project can have very defined parameters, but that doesn?t mean there?s not room for innovation. If one of your team members has an idea that?s outside the defined parameters, let them try it out. It may end up being a great idea that works well for the project.

Initiative should be encouraged because it often can bring about changes and improvements project developers may not have thought about.

Trust Your Team

Manager can sometimes get into a ?my way or the highway kind of mentality.? This ends up being detrimental to the team because it discourages communication and criticism. If you want your team to improve, then they have to feel that their opinion matters and you trust them. If someone on the team has concerns about how things are happening, talk to them privately and discuss their concerns. It doesn?t have to be in front of other team members. A little trust goes a long way.

If you?re interested in team building activities, then contact Upward Enterprises today.