Defining a Successful Team

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Success is determined by a wide range of factors. When we are given a project or an assignment we are also usually given a metric to which we can gauge the success of it. Having a strong team will benefit any organization and will lead to more successes than not.

What is a Team?

A team is a group of people formed to achieve a goal. Teams can be temporary, or indefinite. With individuals sharing responsibility, the group as a whole can take advantage of all of the collective talent, knowledge, and experience of each team member.

Team building is an organized effort to improve team effectiveness.

An Overview of Tuckman and Jensen’s Four-Phase Model

Educational psychologist Bruce Wayne Tuckman, Ph.D. was charged by his boss at the Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda MD with a review of 50 articles about team behavior. From this body of work, Dr. Tuckman conceived his theory of group developmental processes in 1965.

The Forming Stage: Groups initially concern themselves with orientation accomplished primarily through testing. Such testing serves to identify the boundaries of both interpersonal and task behaviors. Coincident with testing in the interpersonal realm is the establishment of dependency relationships with leaders, other group members, or pre‑existing standards. It may be said that orientation, testing, and dependence constitute the group process of forming.

The Storming Stage: The second point in the sequence is characterized by conflict and polarization around interpersonal issues, with concomitant emotional responding in the task sphere. These behaviors serve as resistance to group influence and task requirements and may be labeled as storming.

The Norming Stage: Resistance is overcome in the third stage in which in-group feeling and cohesiveness develop, new standards evolve, and new roles are adopted. In the task realm, intimate, personal opinions are expressed. Thus, we have the stage of norming.

The Performing Stage: Finally, the group attains the fourth and final stage in which interpersonal structure becomes the tool of task activities. Roles become flexible and functional, and group energy is channeled into the task. Structural issues have been resolved, and structure can now become supportive of task performance. This stage can be labeled as performing.

Successful Teams Use SMART Goals

If your team cannot achieve their goals, there is a chance that they are not creating the correct goals. Whenever your team is creating goals, they will find that following the rules for SMART goals will be easier to achieve. SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. When they combine the elements of SMART goals, your team will have a greater chance of success.

Team Goals Must be Specific

Goals need to be specific. Your team will not be able to reach their goals if they are broad and general because planning will be too difficult. For example, “Improve our performance” is too broad. The team cannot work towards this general goal. Specific goals explain what is necessary to complete a goal and guides the team as they try to reach the goal. Specific goals may also identify location, requirements, and the reasoning behind the goal.

Build Successful Teams by Motivating Your Team Leaders

Effectively managing and motivating your team leaders is an essential part of building successful teams. A team that feels motivated and inspired will perform better. Every team leader is different and different personality types are motivated differently. While some people are motivated by financial gains, others require personal recognition. The key to motivating your team leaders is to find out what is the way to best motivate each team leader.

Provide Team Leaders with the Necessary Resources

Making available additional support and resources that the team leader needs, is a very effective way of motivating the team leader. Team leader cannot manage their team effectively if they do not have the necessary resources that they need. Team leaders need plenty of encouragement and personal support. They should always know that if they need something that they cannot find on their own, you will do your best to help them acquire it.

Offering support and resources can be in the form of:

Emotional support and encouragement
Coworker and other management support teams
Additional training times and materials

Successful Team Building Events

It is important to the success of your team building events that team building activities should be integrated with real-time goals in the workplace. Systematic workplace integration and follow-up processes need to be planned and established before team building events take place. Good feelings and positive outcomes need to last beyond the events.

The success of a team building event starts in the planning phase of the event. The team that will be planning the event needs to be carefully chosen, keeping in mind that they will be modeling how to work together as a team.

Successful organizations incorporate annual team building events into the overall company structure. The cultural framework, philosophies, values and practices of an organization should be designed in such a way that it builds a concept of team and team work. In such a framework, team building events will produce supportive results in a group of people that already operate in a team environment.

More Team Building Articles

Types of Teams
The Forming Stage of Team Development
The Storming Stage of Team Development
The Norming Stage of Team Development
The Performing Stage of Team Development
Effective Team Building Activities
Making the Most of Team Meetings
Solving Problems as a Team
Encouraging Teamwork
History of Team Building
Team Building Coordinators and Facilitators
Benefits of Team Building
Types of Team Building Excercises
Team Building Methods
What is Team Building?

TBAE Team Building Events in South Africa