Building a strong team is probably the biggest challenge for business owners in many industry sectors today.
With a tight labour market and competitive pressures, it’s hard for businesses to attract and retain staff, and ensure an effective and stable team is in place to support the business’s market offering and vision.
A mismatch in business owner and employee expectations, the competing interests of personal, career and business priorities, workplace culture and flexibility as to how and when we work, are all factors that can have a huge impact on business efficiency, operations and value.
There are no silver bullets, but the challenge is not insurmountable, even in today’s difficult labour market.
Actions/remedies/tips:
There is no set formula for building a team, because ultimately every company has a unique set of ‘ingredients’, i.e. people.
But there are some key elements of successful team building:
1. Assess your existing capability
Work with your existing team to develop a shared understanding of where you are in terms of your capability (as individuals and also as a ‘working team’).
It’s important to involve the team in this process as they may well have a different view of their capability than you have as the team leader.
2. Identify and fill gaps
Once you’ve identified capability and skills gaps determine how to fill them.
If it’s a matter of improving individuals’ capabilities or performance, consider training and professional development, reward and recognition opportunities, and performance management.
If it’s a matter of improving team performance, consider the current team culture and practice. Get the team talking and ascertain their view on the culture and how the team really operates e.g. do they have each other’s backs, do they feel the team is a safe space to own their failures and learn from them, or do they fear they will be persecuted for mistakes?
Changing a team culture is a very deliberate process and it won’t be achieved by simply holding a team barbecue once a year.
3. Align your recruitment processes to ensure they mesh with the team expectations and culture, and the capability requirements.
Related resources
How to get good staff and keep them
Managing staff for high performance
Training and professional development advice
Surfer dudes, janitors and the Ritz-Carlton – Lessons in leadership and business culture
This blog comes from our ebook: How to overcome 6 business pain points. If you need support dealing with pain points in your business, we’re keen to help you. Feel free to get in touch by calling 02 6360 0360 or 02 9893 1803 for a confidential, obligation-free discussion.
