Author: Cyle Moore

Step 1: Start with active leadership and reflection

Before we can build great teams, we have to know what we want to achieve, and we have to

understand the challenges to success. When we know what we want to achieve, we can

communicate a clear path and articulate a vision for the future. When we seek to understand the

challenges, we ask questions, do research, and identify what is working and what is not. Once

these core and fundamental building blocks are in place, we can then become active leaders, and

start building the foundations and framework for the future development of our team.

What happens when team building is reactive?

If we are not proactive towards team building, it can become a

reactive process in which team members protect themselves by

becoming individually self-serving. When leadership fails to plan

and build teams, individuals self-assemble into cliques where

help is provided in a barter or quid pro quo manner. This will

result in a decrease of trust and collaboration and an increase

in resistance to any change.

Step 2: Build teams that work together

A team at its base level is two or more people working together towards a common goal.

However, this brief dictionary-type definition falls well short of describing team building as a

system. As a leaders and team builder we have to see team building systemically.

Systems within a team

1. The first and most important part of any team is its team members

2. Teams that are successful have mutually understood values

3. Team builders increase team success by investing in individual development

4. Team builders align communication and information systems to the needs of the team

Step 3: Create a common goal

Creating a vision for the future will align management, teams, and team members to long term

goals and the importance of specific tasks in regards to those goals. For leadership, this is an

opportunity to show consistency in regards to the overall message and symbolism used when

developing teams.

What is the message we are communicating?

1. Clarity to the end vision

2. Create drive

3. Provides a laser focus

4. Integrates accountability

Author: Cyle Moore

Step 4: Encourage creativity and diversity

Team leaders who build trust create environments that foster creativity and imagination which

can create surprisingly new solutions to organizational problems. When team members, no

matter their position, are integrated into organizational problem solving, they become

empowered and invested in the solution. If the expectation that both achieving results and how

those results are achieved is weighted equally, we can not only lowers the resistance to change

but also increases team happiness, retention, resilience, and productivity.

Step 5: Have a disciplined methodology

The last step in the team building process is extremely critical! There are many dynamic

demands that can challenge even the best of teams such as adding or losing team members and

sudden environmental or organizational redirections. It is not enough to just know how to build

teams; we have to build-in discipline and values to our team framework to protect and sustain

our team building process. These rules and values should be consistent with the goals of the team

and should reinforce the behaviors that we want to maintain teamwork.

Seven essential practices to sustainability

1. Expect collaborative behavior from each team member

2. Require people to build collaborative work relationships

3. Practice collaborative problem solving

4. Demonstrate collaborative leadership

5. Build a collaborative work environment

6. Put people first, not tasks

7. Manage conflict, immediately

Conclusion:

Team building starts with leadership; we have to be unafraid to reflect, ask questions, and take

responsibility. Once a genuine commitment to the success of each team member is recognized a

foundation of trust will be created. As trust and confidence increase, people will become less

individually self-serving and more dedicated towards the common goal of the team; they will

become commited to each other, not just a goal. When people feel they are part of a team and

valued, they will add more input, exponentially increasing the organizations ability to creative

problem solve.

If leadership follows the five steps patiently,

allowing people to fail, learn, and develop they

will eventually build the critical mass needed to

overcome any fear or resistance to change. As

fear decreases, and trust increases team members

become highly productive and collaborative,

creating a culture of success.