5 Rules of a Successful Team (2024)

If employees do not produce the desired results, a business may collapse. To prevent this from happening, in this article I share five principles that will help you to develop a strong and productive team.

The fundamental purpose of forming an effective team is to unite individuals into a single collective entity capable of identifying innovative ways to meet the company's objectives, whilst also increasing productivity.

What is a successful team and how to build one

A successful team can be considered one in which all working and communication processes are optimized and efficient, where the number of losses (personnel, financial, etc.) is minimal, and where all its members are focused on achieving a common result and moving towards it systematically and quickly.

Seems easy? Not at all! If you think you know everything about this subject, then you are mistaken. Even if you are the big boss in a large and successful company, managing, in your opinion, a highly organized team, this does not mean that you should stop there. After all, the question always arises - how can you make it even better and more successful? Here it is useful to accept the idea of ​​continuous improvement. Keep looking for ways to perform even better every day.

In this article, you will learn about the essential traits and attributes of high-performing teams, as well as recommendations on how to improve a team's performance.

Why teamwork is important

Any team consists of two or more members who work together to achieve a common goal. In any joint activity, sport, business, strategic mission, or military campaign, people will not succeed if their teams are not effectively organized.

Team spirit opens doors, overcomes obstacles, and solves even the most difficult tasks. Even when failures occur or individual team members make stupid mistakes, the team is able to pull together, identify the causes of failure, and act purposefully.

Nowadays, more and more people understand the role of an effectively organized team. A recent study of 4,000 workers surveyed by Slack found that the top three things they value most about their job are efficiency, autonomy, and being part of a team.

What helps a team work well together?

The success of the team is determined by its cohesion in achieving the goal. In fact, effective teams differ from regular workgroups:

• A workgroup's principal purpose is to share information and make choices that allow each team member to fulfill their unique job goals.

• People in a productive team not only exchange knowledge but also share accountability for the team's work. This type of synergy (cohesion) allows team members to accomplish more collectively than they could individually.

One of the most crucial roles of every team leader is to motivate their members to improve their performance. A project manager or a product manager, for example, may fill this function in a software development company.

A cohesive, competent team will always outperform a disjointed workgroup where "every man for himself" is the norm. As a group leader, you will have several obstacles to overcome in order to form an efficient team.

Here are some tips on how to put together a strong team.

1. Hire only strong people

The whole team suffers from one weak employee. For example, you have a quality product and strong salespeople, but an inefficient employee responsible for marketing. In such a situation, you will never attract customers. It also happens the other way around: your marketer attracts a huge number of customers, but the product is made so poorly that all customers leave.

If you have no time to do this or you do not have your own resources for high-quality hiring, you can always turn to outsource services. This is especially important if you have plans to expand your business abroad - in this case, EOR services will help you. Such companies take over all the operational work of hiring employees abroad and supporting personnel issues, including salaries, insurance, and many others. In addition, they allow you to significantly save your potential costs compared to doing it all yourself.

2. Direct the work of the team to achieve the goal

Employees should know what the goal of their activities is, and what the company is going for. It is the responsibility of the business owner to set this goal and keep reminding them of it all the time.

It's important to talk about goals all the time because complexities and distractions can make people forget what they're working for. Then they will have no reason to try hard, and their results will drop.

Have regular meetings and coordinations to remind you of your goals, announce plans, and set new goals.

3. Set roles for each employee

In order for the team to work effectively and smoothly, each employee must know what he or she is responsible for in the company. Then there will be no bottlenecks, and there will be no work that is not done by anyone. All functions important for the company will be supported, and the team will work as a single mechanism.

Sometimes the owners themselves cover many areas of responsibility. As a result, they are overloaded and cannot fulfill their direct duties: to think over a strategy, develop new technology for creating a product, and set goals.

To avoid this, develop an organizing chart and assign employees to areas of responsibility. Explain what functions they should perform and with whom they should interact on the command line.

4. Write the rules

You should have instructions outlining what is acceptable in the company and what is not. For example, how to dress, how to communicate with colleagues, etc. The owner personally develops these rules and implements them in the company. If everyone does what they want, the team will not work smoothly and produce results.

5. Be a leader

A strong team must be led by a strong personality. Set goals, motivate staff, and introduce new tools. You must always know what to do and how to lead your subordinates to success. The team will take an example from you and increase efficiency.

How do achieve authoritative leadership?

• General vision. This is when all choices are made transparently and with a global view in mind.

• Delegation of tasks/responsibilities. Senior and middle managers should not overburden team members with tasks, providing plenty of free time for others.

• Definition of clearly defined tasks. Knowing your team's goals will help team members understand each other.

• Be sincere and approachable. It's never too late to demonstrate to your staff your "human" side; they'll be more ready to follow your lead if you do.

Conclusion

Recent trends show that team process management should be a priority for companies of all sizes and industries. Building an effective team is not something that you can get instantly with a series of specific actions. This process requires great attention, constant and regular evaluation, and regular interventions.

We hope that the tips above will help you build an effective team that will lead your company to profit and customers to value.