5 Ways to Invest in a Solid Team Structure

1. Communicate Strategies to Your Team

Strategy can reasonably be boiled down to the timely alignment of resources and structure of a team. Communicating strategies and expectations from the start are vital in aligning teams to accomplish a common goal and creating an ideal team structure and culture of accountability.

2. Treat People as Your Most Valuable Asset

Remember, the hearts and minds of your people are “the” key resource in your company. Every person has a unique background, perspective, and experience. Encourage your employees to value, respect, listen, understand, and learn from others’ perspectives. As individuals feel valued for their unique abilities and backgrounds, they are able to contribute towards developing a unifying culture and creating innovative solutions for your company.

3. Create a Culture of Accountability

Everyone wants their organization to be filled with accountable employees. To obtain this, business results are shared, discussed, and understood by everyone. When a mistake is made, the response is focused on solving the problem and learning from the mistake rather than pointing fingers and making accusations. When employees feel a sense of ownership for organizational results, they will take individual responsibility and accountability to achieve them.

4. Learn, Align, and Apply Individual Team Member’s Strengths

Time and effort are usually best spent aligning and applying individual strengths. Investing in this area usually requires; 1) a shared understanding of those strengths; and 2) a system (structure, process, and context) to timely and efficiently apply those strengths. Knowing one’s strengths can provide a better understanding of how one personally impacts the team and where one can contribute the most. Here are some tools that help identify strengths: Clifton Strengths Finder and Myers Briggs Personality Test.

5. Provide Tools to Increase Effectiveness

There are many tools you can provide your teams to help make them more effective. These can be both job-specific tools and general tools. Both types will help employees work most effectively. Some resources we have found to help teams become more effective decision-makers and to help stay engaged at work are Z-Model (Myers Briggs applied), Gallup 12 Questions, Traction/Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS)

To conclude, investing in a solid team structure by communicating strategy, putting people first, creating a culture of accountability, aligning and applying strengths, and providing tools to increase effectiveness will always yield great results.