What Makes Good Teams Great?
This is a question that vexes business managers just as much as football managers and fans. You can assemble all the right ingredients and have, on paper at least, a world beating team. But what happens when that team does not perform as well as you thought it would- if it does not gel or feel right? Star players who shone as individuals in one environment simply fail to prosper in another. Given the time and money spent assembling the team in the first place, you are unlikely to get much sympathy from your Managing Director when it fails to work.
So, how do you ensure your team is more Real Madrid than Ackrington Stanley? What is the vital missing ingredient, aside of course from David Beckham?
- Is there too much of one skill and not enough of another?
- Is the management style overly intrusive?
- Is it bad team dynamics or a combination of all the above?
- Is there a personality clash?
The possible permutations are endless and fixing it could be down to trial and error. Shooting the referee is not the answer, so what is? A team needs to analyze its structure – how it works, what its strengths and weaknesses are and the role each individual plays within it. You need to quickly get to the root cause of the problem and plan remedial measures from this. Self awareness plays a huge part in this. People often don’t know how other members of their team see them. One guy might see himself as an assertive leader but in reality he is an autocratic dictator. He might have a low opinion of the quietly spoken back office people. Everyone needs to appreciate that both types of people are essential to the success of the team.
Team Audit enables an organization to identify ideal team culture, assess the actual team members and provide a gap analysis in terms of behavioral and role shortfall. The audit also predicts a team’s reaction to change, allowing an organization to plan with confidence. Its unique strength is that it gets to the root cause of the problem in hours rather than weeks.
The team audit can be used when:
- Company strategy calls for a cultural change
- An organization is not performing
- Team membership changes
- Teams are not performing as well as they should be
About Thomas International
Thomas International is a global leader in the provision of on-demand behavioral assessments and reporting used to recruit, develop and retain top talent. Thomas International's DISC-based behavioral assessments are delivered software-as-a-service (SaaS) and are designed to meet the unique requirements of small, mid-sized and enterprise level companies in every industry. For over 25 years Thomas International has enabled its clients to more effectively manage their human capital and with a presence in 60 countries and availability in over 56 languages. ThomasInternational is one of only a few truly global on-demand human resources solution providers focused on behavioral assessment. More than a million Thomas International software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivered assessments are completed each year. www.thomasinternational.net
What Makes Good Teams Great PDF