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Building Team Spirit

Many modern organizations have accepted that the new way to be efficient and allow creativity in the organization is by promoting team spirit. Now team spirit encourages creativity because it allows diverse ideas from equal authority sources. However, every individual is responsible for his own specialized actions and shares the authority of his individual projects. Hence, they wish to do it their own way that best suits them. So how can an organization build team spirit? How can a manager motivate teams to work together and be productive and profitable? The answer is easy. All you have to do is follow a few simple rules and tips.

Common Ground

The first thing a manager must do is assign a common goal. When team members are assigned common grounds and goals, they are bound to work together as the fall of one is the fall of all. Now what effect this has is that every individual in the team will assure that every other member is on track. Every individual will try to assist the others that need help or assistance, in any way possible. This promotes team work and team spirit: all for one and one for all. This also means that teams should be allowed to work individually and decide on who their leader is. Sometimes a leader is not even required, everyone tends to work together perfectly and the manager only needs to ask for feedback on the project status every now and then.

Identify Non-Value-Added Work

Bureaucracy, rework, and inefficiency are all those things that destroy employee morale and create a feeling of not wanting to commit to the work. Make sure that all workers are involved in all of the work and decision making so that no one employee benefits from working less than the others.

Build A Strong Relationship

Bring in sessions and activities that strengthen the relationship between all the team members. Offsite activities, company retreats and training sessions on team building, all help build better relations in teams.

Autonomy

Autonomy should always be provided to the team manager to see creativity and commitment. If the team feels they have the authority to make all decisions and come up with their own techniques, they will surely work better and excel. Creativity requires freedom and the best way freedom is provided in a company is through autonomy.

Avoid Conflicting Interests

Never try to micro evaluate team members. If you place competition and try to figure out what individual of the team is responsible for failure, then you’ll end up watching team members play the blame game.

Bring the idea of unity in strength into the organization’s culture. Any work is not one person’s work but the work for all individuals to reach the company’s ultimate goal. With this perception and idea in mind, no matter what department an employee works for, he will always be there to assist a fellow colleague in need. One crucial factor a manager must always control is “Competition”. The lesser competition there is between members of a team, the better. Competition between teams can be healthy as individuals will then try to work efficiently as a team than as individuals.

Dealing with Poor Performers

We are working in a world where no one is perfect or equally talented in what he does. So some of us are sometimes left behind while extraordinary and hardworking performers raise the bar to a whole new level. Just because the performer is a little behind doesn’t mean that he is lazy or a bad worker. There are many factors that will determine whether the performer really did perform poorly. There are always simple steps and factors to analyze the true reason of poor performance and how we can change that.

Who is responsible?

Firstly, always make sure who performed badly. Sometimes we hire the wrong people to do the wrong work and blame them for unsatisfactory performance. For example, a secretary is not responsible for assuring that the manager’s computer and documents are properly working and arranged. His/her job is to assist the manager and it is the I.T department’s job to make sure all computers and systems are working efficiently and safely. You can always refer to the job description of a post to know what jobs you are responsible for.

Why?

Now that you know who is responsible, figure out the problem. Sales reps are usually dismissed because of not reaching quotas. As a manager we need to be smart and recognize the origin of the problem. Listening is the key here. Allow the employee to make his case and justify poor performance. Sometimes the reasons can be legit. It’s not the rep’s fault the market is falling and people are opting for substitutes of the product, or if the worker was not given specific instructions and training in what his quota really is and how to achieve it. The company must assure that all employees are effectively informed about their goals. Setting up better goals than before is not so easy, we must always figure out a game plan for them in the beginning so that they know what to do. Another key is not to compare the employee with other colleagues. Another rep might just have gotten lucky in filling his quota because one company bought all his supply.

SMART Goals

Set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely goals for the employee. Assigning the employee with immeasurable and unrealistic goals is pointless. Set for them new goals that you know an employee can achieve in a realistic time period.

Re-evaluate

Now that you have re-assigned the employee and set up new goals for them, you need to re-evaluate the performance. This must be done according to the goals set for them before. Of course any assistance needed would have been provided as discussed by the manager and the employee while setting those goals. If besides such efforts and motivation, the employee fails to reach the new goals, then he/she has failed.

Disciplinary Action

It now comes to down to company policy on what action to take. Most companies tend to dismiss while others provide more guidance and training for poor performers. It all depends on the company policy.

Any manager should always first find the root cause of poor performance and try to change it. Giving on employee can be very de-motivating and stressful for others and sometimes unfair for the poor performer. Reasons for poor performance can be legitimate and all we would need is a little understanding to see that.

Controlling Anger

Learning to control our anger is a much needed skill in the high pressure work environments of today. It makes for more harmonious and constructive atmosphere at work, resulting in more job satisfaction and better productivity. Although we cannot control the external factors that trigger our anger we certainly have a say in how we react to them. Below are some simple techniques that are helpful in anger management.

Identify the reasons for your anger and the underlying causes. Try to isolate the source(s) of your anger and address it. One at a time.
If you feel you are getting angry, remove yourself from the setting for while. Attend to the matter when you are calm.
Pick up a physical activity, letting out your stress somewhere else keeps you from pouring it out on people around you.
Practice breathing techniques, yoga has proven widely effective for anger management.
If your anger is out of control, seek help immediately. Talk to your friends or see a professional.

We must also recognize that there are times when anger is justified and needs to come out. The idea is to control it, divert it productively and not to let it get better of you.