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Forgetting to Create a Team

How much productivity do you get out of your staff?

In other words, how much of their time is spent efficiently helping your business generate a profit?

This is an extremely tough question for most business owners to answer. Regardless of your answer, doesn’t it make sense that if you were to increase the productivity of your workforce you would increase your profit?

Of course it does. So how do you do it?

There are tons of great answers including setting better expectations and providing additional management. However, one commonly overlooked solution is fairly simple – making sure that your staff works together as a team.

We all know that working as a team is more effective than individual effort. Then why do so few business owners create an environment that truly values teamwork?

Because, it’s easier for a business owner to manage individual efforts (a.k.a. – put out fires), than it is to create a successful team. Creating a winning team requires planning and other activities that don’t immediately improve the bottom line.

However, a solid team will help you achieve more than even the most talented group of individual performers. In other words, it’s worth the effort.

There are 6 keys to a winning team:

  1. Common Goal – Everyone needs to know where you are going.
  2. 100% Ilusion – Each member of your staff needs to be involved in the team building process. In addition, it is critical that everyone understands the role of each staff member.
  3. Rules of the game – The boundaries need to be clearly set as well as the consequences for breaking these rules.
  4. Strong Leadership – The team will not follow a weak figure that isn’t committed to the team and the success of the company.
  5. Support Risk Taking – Let your employees know that mistakes are OK, so long as you learn from them.
  6. Action Plan – You must clearly communicate a detailed set of actions that will ensure that your team reaches its goal.

This year, make the time to ensure that your staff understands and follows all of these rules.

  • Does your culture emphasize teamwork?
  • Do your employees enjoy working together?
  • How much more productive would you be if they did?