7 Fundamentals of a Winning Team

Understanding the fundamentals of how to development a winning team is one of the keys to developing a highly successful and profitable business:

1.  Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

“A team is nothing more than a reflection of its Leader(s)”…

Leaders of today must develop a broad range of skills and competences in insight, innovation, connection and engagement. To influence others to follow the path they are on in alignment with the organisation a strong leader must see and be able to articulate that path and its destination. A leader must gain an understanding of how and why people are inspired and learn how to engage their team in creative growth as they journey along the path…. They must be able shift paradigms, such as:

• It’s not about communicating; it’s about connecting.
• Responsibility means managing your emotions so as not to ‘React’; thus retaining your ‘Ability to Respond’.
• People who report to you are not there to serve you; your purpose is to serve them.
• It’s not about aspiring to be great; it’s about being a source of inspiration and inspiring others to be great.
• You cannot motivate other people as motivation is an intrinsic function of one’s self; you can only influence, challenge and incentivise people whilst driving the collective emotions of a team in such a way that individuals feel motivated to take creative action through commitment to their team and company purpose, over compliance to do what it takes to get paid.
• Instead of waiting for ideas from your team; give them challenges and empower them to be creative.
• It’s not about being different; it’s about making a difference through your service to others.
• People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
• People don’t remember what you did for them; they remember how you made them feel.
• That said… There is no place for emotions in critical business decisions; but an abundance of room for empathy once made.
• Never compromise in hiring the right people to the right positions; hiring is done through good marketing.
• Great Leaders do not build great businesses; great leaders build great people who build great businesses.
• The true essence of leadership; is not being required to lead. 

TIP:

Stop doing stuff; and start doing stuff that really matters.

Stop asking yourself how I can get my team to perform better and start asking yourself how can I become a better leader? ENGAGE in 'personal' leadership courses, read books on the subject and engage a coach.

2.  Cultural Framework (Common Goal - Direction):

“The Foundation of a Great Business resides upon its Culture; It's Core Values, Envisioned Future and Clear Definite Purpose”

If a team does not know what the business is trying to achieve over a certain time period how can they truly contribute? If they don't know 'why' collectively you all want to achieve this, how can they be inspired to engage? Developing a cultural framework with your team, defined by vision, purpose, values, goals, policies and procedures will ensures business credibility, continuity and consistency.

Common business goals offer direction to keep the team focused on the core purpose and business vision. Accomplishment and achievement depends upon measurement and appraisal of individual and team cascading performance objectives. 

TIP:

Create your framework to influence and clearly define and communicate your primary business goal(s) for the next 12 months. Be as specific as you can and ENGAGE your team by following the steps below...

3.  Accountability (Clarity on Roles and Responsibility)

“The only way to deliver to your people who are performing, is not to burden them with those who are not”

Do your team members take ownership of the roles and responsibilities that 'you' have defined through contacts, hand books, job descriptions, procedures, core values, and do you hold them accountable to these? Imagine if you can your favourite sports team where the players (team members) did not know their positions, were not taught how to play the game properly and are not continually developed in order to improve. Do you think that team (YOUR TEAM) can succeed?

TIP:

You must never employ a process of selection by the company to hire the right candidate(s); You must employ a process whereby those who are not the right candidates will de-select themselves as a result of the process.

Once you have the right people, clarity is Power - Individuals in a team cannot truly ENGAGE until they clearly understand their own and other team member's responsibilities. Start by getting some senior team members to write their own job descriptions. The simplest procedure is a flowchart, get the people who work the process to hand write it, and train someone to produce it on a PC. Clearly set and reinforce expectations of what and 'why' you want this and they will amaze you.

4.  Strategic Planning (Developing the Potential)

“You must continually disrupt & challenge the norm in order to create a platform for a new better norm”

Would you ever build your own house without a clearly defined set of plans? Then why would you try do so with your own business? A strong strategy plan answers a simple question; who does what by when and why do we want it? It must be visible and understood by all team members identifying how the business goals' will' be achieved by breaking them into smaller specific goals or actions. It will assign ownership, identify resources, set completion timelines and how it will be measured. According to research a good action plan can increase productivity and efficiency by 25% without increasing spending... and that goes straight to the bottom line.

TIP

Take at least one day out of your business to define the strategies that will get you to your business goal and vision. Once defined ENGAGE your management team or your entire team by getting them involved in prioritising those strategies in alignment with your goals. Contact YOUR Business Academy Coach and come along to our next Growth Academy 1 day strategic planning workshop or we can run one internally for you..  

5.  Engagement (Interest)

“Provide a platform for peoples voices to be heard that focuses ‘Attention’ on discovery of the current reality and on the ideal reality; then focus their ‘Intentions’ on action to close the reality gap toward normalisation of the ideal,, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat…”

The art of engagement is very powerful and driven by open communication mechanisms that are safe to provide inclusion through awareness and voice, (express the brutal reality) and involvement through creativity and desire, (express suggestions for improvement). By providing 100 percent inclusion you will inspire 100 percent involvement as an expectation of the organization's culture, which will lead to trust and a comfort level for you to effectively practice Time Intent (not time management, which as a concept, is out dated).

TIP:

ENGAGE each team member by asking them to list 3 suggestions for improvement, review and publish an action plan of them, and where possible empower team members to implement the changes.

6.  Empowerment (Commitment)

“You cannot delegate responsibility; you can only ever delegate autonomy in such a way that people feel inspired and empowered to take responsibility… Commitment over Compliance”.

Without being open to some degree of healthy risk, it is impossible for a team to flourish and push the limits of creativity and performance. To experience a breakthrough it is sometimes important to break from convention and habit and get out of the comfort zone and into the risk and reward zone by empowering your team. It is truly amazing what can happen when you stop telling someone how to do things and tell them what you want to accomplish ’and why’, empowering them with the autonomy and support to ENGAGE their own creativity in achieving it, whilst reporting progress…. Self-growth is key to a balanced, motivated team.

TIP:

Whenever someone in your team asks for advice on a decision they need to make, 'don't give it!' Instead continually ask them, "what do you think you should do?" Then steer them by asking questions about the desired outcome and 'empower' them to ENGAGE by taking action.

7.  Synergy (Performance)

“If you focus only on results you will never affect change; if you focus on change and Engage your team in the process, measuring progress, you will achieve massive results” 

Great leader drive collective emotions… They focus peoples shared attentions and intentions on something, anything, though preferably CANI (constant and never ending improvement) through the fundamentals above.

Only then can you focus on the underlying ‘vibration’ of social and emotional energy beneath every defined culture that defines the emotional intelligence of that team or organisation. If you and your people are not attuned to it and raise the frequency of that vibration you will not achieve the synergy required to maximise commitment, potential and performance.

To move from a vibrational state of dissonance, (difference or indifference) to a state of resonance, (alignment and enthusiasm) and the key to creating an ‘Emotionally Intelligent Organisation’ is to ENGAGE the organisation at every level through an established process designed to shift the norm. Whilst simultaneously cultivating and dispersing emotionally intelligent leaders (not only those people in management or supervisory positions) throughout the organisation who will long term maintain that positive ratio….

Together Everyone Achieves More (T.E.A.M.)