Team Building
High functioning teams versus a group of people working on a project or department.
Putting a group together is a hard process, time and effort spent finding the best candidates with optimal know-how is a crucial part of the process. In time, you have found the perfect set of minds, given them their assignments, and now you can wait for the magic to begin. You wait, and wait a while longer. As time goes by, instead of advantages over your competitors, you end up dealing with petty arguments, discord, refusal to cooperate, and all-round chaos. The best minds should be clever enough to know what is at stake, right? So why isn’t this working? Something crucial is missing, that mindset of a team as one organism working towards the same goals. Many projects fail, not because of a lack of trying or inadequate skill sets, but because the essence of a highly functional team has not been developed.
Corporations spend millions trying to develop the optimal team. It’s one of the crucial pillars for success. Football, Rugby, Hockey, and any other team sport spend hours and many resources creating team spirit. There are many definitions for a team, but just watching a high-function team can draw people in, become infectious and have us longing for the same social and working environment.
Imagine being in at work, where things flow without hindrance, animosity is put aside, a feeling of your needs being by the others at every step, everyone instinctively knows what is needed to move forward. On this day, you leave the office feeling fulfilled, proud and can’t wait to go back to work the next day. Team members suddenly call each other for social engagements, a whole new feeling of support and loyalty now exists. Your assignments become more challenging, but with a small fist bump and grinning, your team takes it on without hesitation.
The feeling and imagery experienced from the passage above is enough to create motivation. This motivation must be fed, nurtured, and supplemented with dedication and accountability. A team coach is the optimal companion, bringing the structures required, tweaking weak spots, and concentrating on the integration of each individual into the team. The aim is not to become the leader of the pack, leadership is necessary and only optimized through a coach. The reason for hiring a team coach is so that all members of the team can effortlessly concentrate on their job, not waste time trying to figure out the dynamics of their team by themselves. Observing interactions, creating solutions for social interactions, and supporting the implementation process means working closely with the members without hindering their performance. Very few leaders and managers have time for these crucial development processes and can’t oversee all team interactions. Sometimes, without realizing, managers and leaders are the very thing hindering optimal team building, due to their own workload and strenuous working environments. Bringing in a team coach will support the leadership in developing their own highly functioning team, without compromising on productivity and quality.
