Develop Guidelines For Team Building in the Workplace
Well-developed guidelines for team building in the workplace help to increase goal achievement, process efficiency and worker satisfaction. Clarifying group goals, setting up clear structures and roles, and establishing clear channels for communication and task completion are important steps. When workers have clarity about their roles and feel confident about their contributions to the overall goal, workplace tasks tend to progress more efficiently and effectively. Here are some strategies for developing guidelines for team building in the workplace.
Contents
Steps
- Establish a clear goal and mission. Your team's goal might be to release a new version of a product by a specific date. Or the goal might be to conduct market research in order to create a marketing plan. Be as specific as possible about the eventual goal.
- Distribute the goal in writing to all team members. Ideally, you'll do this in person in a team meeting so that you can answer any questions and concerns. A goals meeting also helps the group to develop consensus on the direction of the team or company.
Set Up Effective Communications Systems
- Establish communication rules for team meetings. Rules might include listening when other team members are talking, contributing during team meetings, speaking honestly and refraining from using belittling or offensive language.
- Decide how to increase individual contributions during team discussions. Whether over email, during conference calls or in person, team members must feel that their opinions are important. You might call on individuals to contribute during meetings, or email them ahead of time to ask that they prepare and deliver a team report.
- Define all relevant language and terminology. For example, you might agree as a group to use acronyms to increase efficiency in communications. Give team members from different departments a chance to ask questions and gain clarity about unfamiliar expressions and terminology.
- Prevent the same 1 or 2 people from dominating team meetings. Set time limits on how long each person speaks, or specifically ask quieter team members to present or lead a discussion.
Establish Clear Structures and Roles
- Develop a task list. Clarify all processes and plans in writing, and specify the roles and responsibilities of each individual.
- Rotate roles to increase skill building and team effort. When team members work in a new role, they gain an appreciation for the responsibilities of others and learn new skills. For example, when working in small groups, a different person can facilitate group meetings each week or present to the larger group.
- Clarify deadlines. Each team member must have clear guidelines on when specific tasks are due.
Encourage Collaboration
- Inspire team members to work together. Pair up workers with compatible work styles to achieve a certain task within a specified timeline. Ask team members who can learn from one another to work together.
- Minimize competition by rewarding group effort. Avoid excessive highlighting of individuals in a team. Reduce individual competition by establishing group incentives for completing a project. Examples include rewarding teams with half a day off or distributing group gift certificates upon successful completion of a project phase.
- Increase motivation for group work. Plan social activities for the team to increase group camaraderie.
Establish Mechanisms for Problem Solving
- Frame conflicts and problems as an opportunity to grow and innovate. Emphasize the overall team goal, and explain that a clash of viewpoints is useful because it often allows rich and innovative solutions to emerge.
- Institute mandatory brainstorming sessions. As problems arise or on a weekly basis, gather team members to discuss team conflicts, difference of opinions and stumbling blocks.
- Give team members a break when they reach an impasse. If the group cannot devise a solution, encourage team members to momentarily step away from the problem. Solutions sometimes occur to people when their minds are on other things.
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