How to become a united team. Building a Successful Team

Any organization needs to have good employees who can make it successful, but employees cannot do everything on their own because... also need help. Today there is a wide choice of employees who have different types training, various education and work experience. By bringing together people with certain types of backgrounds and experiences, you identify a team that is well positioned to influence the success of your organization.

By definition, a “team” is a collection of individuals attempting to succeed as a team to achieve common goals and objectives. It is a group of people, each of whom has certain talents, prejudices, ambitions and fears. The outcome of the work depends on the interaction of team members.

The success of any team depends on connecting different work groups into a coherent whole. Sometimes many companies have problems with their teams because they do not understand that every person, regardless of gender, has strengths and weak sides. For a team to be successful, its members must feel led, motivated, and cared for. You can't just put together a team because... it is not a mechanism that can only be activated by pressing a button and then walking away.

A successful team starts with having a good leader who can inspire team members to be creative and innovative. For this reason, the best team leaders are independent and able to propose and develop potential ideas. They are active, energetic and emotional when solving problems. Successful team leaders don't sit around, they are also workers and good listeners.

One of the primary tasks of a leader is to help others understand the significance of the outcome. A team that knows the importance of its goals will be inspired to work hard. By opening up your team to new perspectives, you will not only inspire its members, but also push them to work more efficiently. A broader perspective helps the team find different possible ways to achieve her goals.

It is important to understand that a defined goal begins with the leader presenting a task that is desirable and achievable. For example, you want your organization to increase market shares, focusing on attracting more clients. You know that other companies have already done this and become more competitive.

Your task is to convey your vision to the team. You must make the team believe in the goal and its achievability. For example, you could say the following: “Based on your experience and knowledge, think about and answer what we can do or change so that our team is ahead of the competition in finding a client. This is your task.”

Successful teams work and are driven by the challenges of today. They also think about the future, consider longer periods, but act in the present. Therefore, always start with the main goal that your entire team is fighting to achieve. Then break that goal down into simpler, shorter-term, and achievable steps.

The most effective goal setting involves long-term goals, which should not extend beyond 6 months, and short-term goals, which should not extend beyond one month. If achieving any of your goals takes less than six months, then you should disband it and set aside a shorter period to achieve the result.

By working on tasks over short periods of time, your team continually defines new goals while actively working toward the intended course. Short-term goals also take into account possible adjustments. Changes in things, circumstances or some new information may require correction of goals. Changing the course of a given task is more easily achieved if it relates to short-term goals.

To be a successful team leader, you must understand that people are imperfect and have a whole set of biases, ambitions, and relationships that bind them to other people. In fact, there are clashes between team members, and these can be both talented and noteworthy people. Keep in mind that internal conflicts destroy many teams.

One of your most important responsibilities and greatest challenges as a team leader is your ability to establish relationships with all team members. For example, if you are dealing with a person who approaches problems analytically, then you should forget about intuition and emotions. You must present your case analytically, clearly, supported by logical considerations, so that after talking with you, this person will be satisfied.

On the other hand, expressive people also need to get used to the project. They must be emotionally involved in the process. If you are dealing with this type of person, be open and honest. Doing things quickly is considered normal because expressive people perform better when they are in a hurry.

No one can please everyone at once. So don’t try to be some kind of chameleon, adapting to the character of each person. Just always keep in mind what type of person the person you're talking to is.

Change happens every day, it is always around us. In general, a person is a creature that is resistant to change, but still does not like it. Teams are no exception. Because they are a diverse group of people, teams generally don't like change.

To allow your team to accept and get used to the inevitable changes that happen constantly and suddenly, you must plan for change. Make sure that change doesn't take the team by surprise. Allow the team to participate in planning how the change should happen, at what time according to the schedule, and with whom among its members.

Sometimes teams cannot affect change. For example, if an organization is purchased by someone or merges with another company. In this case, communication is the key. Team members will start asking questions like: “What happens next?”, “How will we be informed?”

It happens that the time comes for a change in leadership, and this moment is significant. You must provide the vision and set everyone's expectations positive. The team will support the replacement if positive results and changes are explained clearly, especially if you continue to motivate and support the team in every possible way.

Collaboration is very important to the success of any organization. Being part of a team is a natural part of most people's lives. Most employees receive material and spiritual satisfaction from the team's work process. People are social minorities who prefer to work together in teams rather than individually. By being a strong and effective leader, you will help your team succeed.

A good startup team can build a successful company. But how to assemble such a team or grow it from an existing one? Appster startup Joseph Humphrey tells the story.

Building a strong and effective team of people plays a huge role in opening a successful business. A study by CB Insights showed that 25% of startups fail because of a bad team.

“The most important thing an entrepreneur must create is good team. This is what I spend all my time creating.”

Co-founder of the Y Combinator accelerator Paul Graham also warns that building a startup alone is extremely difficult:

“Starting a company is too difficult for one person. Even if you can do everything yourself, you still need colleagues who will suggest ideas, ask stupid questions and encourage you in case of failure... But do not forget that very often conflicts arise between startup founders. In 20% of the startups we worked with, one of the founders always left. Most of the disagreements could be avoided if people initially thought about who they were going to start a startup with. People are the most important component of a startup, so there is no compromise here.”

So, colleagues determine the future fate of your business - how to choose them correctly and grow them into an effective team? Here are some tips.

1. Set an example for others

If you are the leader of a startup and want others to believe in your idea and think like you, you will only succeed if you apply good example.

The following diagram clearly shows how one person's attitude and behavior affects others:

Your attitude influences your behavior, which in turn influences the attitudes and behavior of your colleagues.

You must serve to your team correct example. The way you talk, act and think directly affects the confidence, commitment and enthusiasm of your people.

2. Team building activities only work when done correctly.

Few employees like team building activities, but, as analysts have found, they can really have an impact. positive effect on the team, in particular to improve the level of trust, coordination and communication.

There is no need to engage in team building in unnatural situations. If you've ever told your team that next weekend you'll be doing team building in the woods and seen people roll their eyes, then you know what I mean about unnatural situations.

Good team building activities take place in a normal and familiar environment. Volunteer work, sports, recreational trips, lunches together are all examples of suitable conditions for natural team building.

3. Meetings kill productivity.

» Alexey Barinsky spoke about his approaches to working relationships in the team.

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One way or another, I have been managing people for a short time – about 15 years. During this time, I tried to be authoritarian and democratic, engaged in micromanagement and management by objectives, used the HR practices adopted in the company and went on strike against them.

I experimented quite a bit with motivation, goal setting and organizational structures. And, probably, I could write a separate column for each of the above points.

But today I would not like to talk about choosing any individual of the listed parameters, but in general talk about such a very difficult situation - you enter a room, there are five (ten, one hundred) people standing there, ready to move mountains, and now it’s your turn .

I'm not the smartest person in the room

I negotiate this with myself from the very beginning. Because if that statement isn't true, then what the hell are we even doing? If I don't have the best people with me, then why are they with me?

In fact, it's not that simple. It always seems to me that I know everything better than others, I always have an opinion, I am good at negotiations and with a high degree of probability I am able to ensure that my decision is made.

But the point is to choose the smartest solution, not mine. In practice, this means that I have to take the personal off the table and frame the discussion from the perspective of the position, not the person. I'm just a CEO looking for the best solution possible, and that solution will most likely come from someone in the room.

I listen very carefully (not as usual), delve deeply into the essence, probe with questions to the most obvious things, and so on. Because I'm not the smartest person in the room.

My goals are only interesting to me

The fact is that the guys in the room have two things on which they all most likely disagree. The first is how they see the future of your company, what you are striving for. And the second is their own reason for being in the same room with you.

This always throws me off balance. It seems to me that I spend so much effort talking about the vision, our strategy, principles, I try to talk a lot about values - and still. Very often I ask “what is a “Dump”?” from three employees and I get three different answers.

As a solution, I made the following - we just sit down and honestly tell each other what we associate with work. Financial success, thirst for fame, the opportunity to realize your desires or “work off karma” - whatever.

At the same time, it is important to set the degree of discussion yourself. I'm usually the first to be open about my goals and how I'm going to implement them in the project. After this, it is important to support the next speakers and help them speak openly.

After this, we together find what we have in common in our personal aspirations, and unite not around each other, but around this common goal. And it has never coincided with my personal one. In general, during such a dialogue, it usually turns out that what I want does not bother others at all.

No managers needed

I believe in the power of the sum of intelligences. I admit that one person can lead a company to success, if it’s Steve Jobs, for example, but I’m definitely not Steve Jobs. For me, this means, in part, that the traditional vertically oriented structure does not suit me. I want as many goals and votes as possible.

At the company, we diligently get rid of appointed managers, job descriptions, planning and management by objectives. The task comes down to ensuring the norms and hygiene of communication and enabling the team to organize independently in any suitable at this moment organizational structures, departments and divisions.

Instead of appointed managers, the team itself chooses those who will be responsible for the results in the areas, and it itself records agreements between people in a convenient form and normalizes work processes. This replaces instructions for us. Instead of setting KPIs, there are general meetings, an open declaration of what a person plans to do, and feedback from everyone. As much feedback as possible.

Open salaries

This is a fundamental point. We want everyone at Svalka to know how much this or that person receives, without exception. This incredibly raises awareness, makes people more open, removes the ability to manipulate it, and has a bunch of other positive effects.

In addition, this is a very cool marker for making personnel decisions, and it makes planning our development much easier. I know that this is not accepted and even illegal, but I am ready to pay a fine if I have to. Open salaries make our team healthier, and I feel serious support from people in this matter. I think they feel more justice in this.

As many conflicts as possible

We love conflict. They turn us on, develop us, make us think, give rise to unexpected solutions, and so on. If in a conflict both sides fight for the smartest, fastest and easy way to promote the company, and not to realize personal ambitions, then this is not a problem, but a gift.

Let opinions and people collide as often as possible, let there be a lot of feedback, let there be areas for development and problems uncovered. I appreciate that everyone can come up and argue with me about my not-so-smart decision. It is important to me that others are ready to participate so actively in my development.

I don't have to make decisions

The more decisions are made without my participation, the better. The sooner we make a decision, the sooner we will begin to act. We must make a lot of mistakes in order to be smarter and stronger. Every person on my team has the right to make any decision.

When hiring, I promised each employee the right to make mistakes. And I continue to constantly encourage them to make as many different decisions as possible, including those affecting the entire team. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort, and sometimes I just flat out refuse to solve something. After all, I also had a wagonload of pretty lousy ideas. I don’t think any of my colleagues will surpass me in this.

Be responsible for words

If I promised, it means I will do it. No options or excuses. Anyone on my team knows that they can take my word for it and respects that. As a rule, this always becomes mutual.

Strong external enemy

If I have gathered talented, smart, strong, active and ambitious people in one room, I must find them an external “enemy”, otherwise the war will inevitably start inside.

Vision

I have to know where to go. If I don't know, I have a responsibility to find out. There is nothing more tiring even for very strong man than aimless activity with an unclear aim.

Even worse is constant maneuvers without achieving any clear results. This is terribly depressing. I even read somewhere that something similar was used in Nazi camps to suppress the will of prisoners. I readily believe that it worked.

Success

Is it necessary to write about how invigorating victory is? Having tasted and celebrated overall success once, I will do anything to repeat it. These people in the room are no longer colleagues or friends, these are the guys with whom you went through a lot, broke big and important guys, earned money, became famous, lost everything, fixed it, cursed, put up with, despaired, got mad, loved, missed, tired.

It's a great sense of community, a feeling of being supported, a feeling that you're not alone - a feeling of being in the best team in the world.

At the very start of my business, I once attended an event where a successful entrepreneur spoke. He was asked the standard question: “What is the most important thing in business?” Without hesitation, he answered: “The most important thing in business is to create a Real Team. Cohesive, creative, competent, dynamic, well motivated. Everything else is secondary: ideas, resources, infrastructure, etc. If you have a good team, you can do any business, promote any idea, even an ineffective and banal one - the Team will still “pull” the business. “He’ll bite his teeth into it” and make the project a leader!”

First, let's define what we will call a team in this article. In a broad sense, a team is everyone who works in one company, and it’s good when, no matter the size of the business, everyone feels like one single team (few people succeed in this, a good example is Virgin or early Google).

At the startup level, the team is all your key employees and specialists.

With the growth of the business and the number of people involved in it, the team is now managers responsible for key areas of the business and key specialists who are directly involved in developing the strategy and tactics of the organization, on whom you can rely and with whom you move together towards the intended global goal . These are no longer employees, these are comrades. It’s about this kind of team we're talking about in the article.

Is it possible to do without a team completely? Yes, sure. The project has not yet reached a certain scale. I myself have small (but quite successfully earning) Internet projects, where the entire team is myself. But in a serious project designed for a large audience, there is no way to do without a team. Here, for sure, one in the field is not a warrior.

Why do you need a team?

A team is needed, first of all, to develop strong solutions. The collective mind is always stronger and the collective experience is always wider. As a result, the team almost always makes a stronger and more informed decision than one person. Or it strengthens an already thought-up good solution by an order of magnitude. The larger the team, the more knowledge and experience it has, and the stronger the decisions it makes can be. But the larger the team becomes, the more difficult it is to manage.

And of course, the main members of your team will take over and oversee key areas of the business. Everyone will have their own areas of responsibility, but in fact you will become a single integral mechanism.

How to select people for your team?

The stage of selecting people for a team is very important for any manager. But, as you know, “Personnel decides everything.” Therefore, we must try to make as few mistakes as possible. Here I can recommend the following:

1. It is best to invite people to your team with whom you have already had experience working or collaborating in various ways. It’s very good if you have seen this person at work (and on vacation), you know what competencies he has and what feats he is capable of :)

2. You should not start a business with close friends and relatives and, accordingly, take them into the team. There are a lot of negative examples. Close personal relationships will hinder business, and joint business will threaten the relationship itself. Take it better than people, with whom you know, whom you respect and who respect you.

3. On initial stage You probably won’t have a lot of money to hire super-specialists with super-fees. But it is not particularly critical yet. It is important to find good and promising specialists in their fields and give them opportunities to constantly learn and build their competencies. And they will grow with you and with the business. If you still need a super-specialist, you can try to motivate him in another way (more about motivation below).

4. As the business grows, many managers begin to entrust the worry of hiring employees to the HR department and deputies, and at best, they themselves look at resumes. But a good manager always controls the process and always conducts personal interviews with all key employees and especially with managers. And he has the last word. Twice in my life I have met with such leaders and I think that this is a very correct approach.

What kind of people should a business team consist of?

At first, I was confident that the team should consist of people similar to you (in character, temperament, reaction speed, etc.). Now I have reconsidered my views. This gives only one imaginary advantage - such a team is easier to manage. But the real one strong team must consist of different people, with different views and beliefs, with different positions, with different temperaments, with different life habits and priorities.

Risk must be complemented by caution, optimism by pessimism, creativity by pragmatism, “sloppiness” by administrative abilities. It is in such a seemingly “motley” team that those golden, average, balanced, strong solutions are formed. the main task The leader here will act as a moderator and collector of decisions.

But at the same time, team members must respect each other, be “saturated” with the idea and share it, have common values and, finally, be well motivated.

Each team member must be clearly positioned and solve a clearly defined range of tasks, for example, finance, sales, technical support, marketing and promotion, etc. But at the same time, all team members must always be in a single information field. The team must have a constant synchronization of understanding of current tasks, meanings and short-term/long-term goals. Everyone should have the same and unambiguous understanding: who we are and where we are going.

How to motivate team members?

Of course, one of the main motivators is decent wages, i.e. good money, received regularly and with progression in size. At the stage of starting a business, this is not always feasible. Therefore, it is necessary to build expanded motivation. For truly smart, active (in short, people who are most useful to you), in addition to money, there are other significant motivators that can and should be actively used.

1. Interesting thing

If your project is interesting in itself and also brings together interesting people, this is a strong motivator. This is generally very important - that the work is interesting and that you want to go to it.

2. Strong mission

If your project has a strong goal, a mission, this can be motivating in itself. Change the world for the better, solve a difficult problem, correct a significant mistake, etc.

3. Potentially large business scale

If your business can potentially go beyond the boundaries of one district or one city and the project can have a national or even global scale, all this is also a great motivator for work.

4. Increasing personal competencies

If participation in a project involves acquiring new knowledge, competencies, new opportunities for professional fulfillment is a strong motivator. If a project provides a rare opportunity to gain or increase unique competencies, that’s generally good. This is the baggage that a person will need in life in any case, even if the current business does not work out.

5. Ambition and ambition

If a person can realize his ambitions (for example, as a leader), this is a good motivator for many. This also includes the fact that a person must see that his opinion is listened to in the team, his decisions are made by the leader and other participants, that he really influences the business and its development. And you also need to learn to give team members more independence in making decisions, using certain budgets, etc.

6. Flexible work schedule

If you want to increase the productivity of your team, give all its members a free work schedule. This will only make people work harder, more productively and with much greater impact. You just need to set clear tasks and give the person the opportunity to decide for himself when he will be engaged in their implementation.

7. Mobility

Another effective way to increase team performance and at the same time motivate is to increase its mobility. At a minimum, as soon as possible, buy good laptops for all team members. Then the work will “move” in space along with the person :). Plus, you will also increase loyalty, as you will show additional care.

8. Workplace

Create normal working conditions for people. A normal office with a place for lunch, for discussions and relaxation, a comfortable work desk, accessories necessary for work, kitchen utensils, etc. All this greatly affects loyalty and motivation.

9. Joint recreation

Have informal evenings together, celebrate birthdays and events, don’t forget about outdoor corporate events and clubs. All this brings people together and creates additional horizontal connections in the team.

10. Collaborative learning and strategy sessions

Periodically organize strategic sessions with your team, joint trips to conferences, and joint training. Firstly, it takes you out of the routine, Secondly expands consciousness and competencies, and thirdly, unites the team.

11. Include stakeholders

A very powerful motivator is the inclusion of key team members as owners. It is clear that this should be done only with the most important and trusted team members. The share may not be large, but after that the person already perceives the business as his own, the mood and degree of responsibility changes. At the initial stage of business development, this is sometimes the only way to attract a super-specialist to the project.

12. Give a percentage of profit

Key team members can also be well motivated by including a real percentage of the company’s profit in the salary and bonus formula, even if it is not at all large. But this is a very good motivator, as it potentially allows a person to receive an irregular and constantly growing salary. And he does everything possible to increase his contribution to the joint business and influence the increase in profits. I wish you good luck in creating strong teams! I will be glad to receive any feedback on additions and just thoughts on this topic!

This and other topics are discussed in more detail in my books in the series "The Phoenix Code. Technologies for changing lives."

The importance of a team can hardly be overestimated, because it is people who determine the success of the company in which they work. Let us recall Jim Collins's study in the book Good to Great, where the primary task of successful companies was precisely the formation of an effective team.

“Those who have created great companies understand that the main accelerator of growth is not the market, not technology, not competition, not products. The factor that is more important than all others is the ability to find and retain the people the company needs.” J. Collins

Today we will talk about how to create a dream team in your company, looking in detail at the key steps to success in team building.

Without which there is no dream team

Before you claim that the perfect team is a myth, we suggest checking your company for the following elements, which, as a rule, are the components of a dream team.

1. Proper distribution of roles

The famous business consultant Itzhak Adizes identified 4 key roles in the management process. This model is so universal that it can also be applied to team building. Let's look at the key roles that team members can perform:

The producer of results is the performer. Actually the one who creates the product (or services) in the company. He perfectly knows the nuances of development and technology, follows the latest inventions in his industry, so that he can successfully implement them into his own work.
Administrator - controller. He is also a manager. Often a perfectionist. Monitors all details of the process. Analyzes the situation and plans for the future. Organized. Asks a lot of questions about the case, looking for pitfalls.
An entrepreneur is an ideological inspirer. Generates new ideas and is not afraid to take risks. Develops a strategy for the direction of the company’s activities, its development, and the development of new prospects. An entrepreneur has a kind of “gift of forecasting” - he senses trends and market sentiments, as a result of which the company creates projects that are “high-impact”.
Integrator - “superglue”. The team unites. He will always listen, understand, try to help, convey the team’s ideas to management and do everything to bring them to life. As a rule, he is a mass entertainer who organizes all kinds of corporate events, collective meetings and meetings.

2. Interesting tasks and projects

People are interested in showing their abilities and discovering something new in themselves. They like to work on something that excites them. And when projects are completely carbon copies and do not require new knowledge and self-improvement, in such cases the routine not only extinguishes the light in the eyes of employees, but also kills the team spirit, and as a result, the company itself.

3. Clear goals

Vagueness is the enemy of results and efficiency. Before setting a task for your team, formulate your goals. They must meet four simple requirements: be specific, measurable, time-bound, and consistent with the overall concept of the project. And, of course, the goal must be achievable - otherwise, why waste the team’s time on a doomed project?

“There would be a goal, and a chain of trial and error itself would lead to the desired result” H. Murakami

4. Comfortable environment

Labor productivity increases in cases where all the conditions for work are created: a cozy office, a pleasant atmosphere, unlimited access to coffee and tea, and, of course, snacks :-)

5. Equipment suitable for the task

You can, of course, try to develop something super innovative using outdated tools, but the result is unlikely to please you. Provide your team with powerful equipment that is a pleasure to work on - and believe me, your employees will thank you with impressive implementation of the tasks assigned to them.

6. Cohesion and “team spirit”

Naturally, the existence of a dream team is impossible without cohesion and unity, without a certain “team spirit” that unites and spurs employees to conquer new heights.

7. Understanding career development

Agree, few people are ready to come to work every day and mark time in one place, knowing that today’s position is the ceiling of their career. Therefore, it is necessary to give employees a clear understanding that they have room for growth.

8. Reward

The remuneration policy includes not only the financial part (bonuses, bonuses and other options for monetary motivation). Employees need to be praised, both privately and publicly. Most people are vain and really want their pride to be stroked and their merits to be recognized. In psychology, there is such a thing as “stroking” - all kinds of compliments, a smile, the same praise, as well as physical contact (for example, a pat on the shoulder, a shake of the hand, if appropriate, a hug).

Problems on the way to building a dream team

It’s not enough just to pick the right people and give them a job. Man is a complex creature, and the totality of people is even more complex. That is why not all companies manage to create their own dream teams, because a simple misunderstanding of psychology and needs, incorrect distribution of roles, as well as many other factors can force even the most highly qualified specialist to work carelessly. Let's look at what's standing in the way of your dream team:

1. Misunderstanding of task priorities

Confusion is your biggest enemy. When there is no clear understanding of which tasks need to be done first and which can wait, time is wasted, and this is terribly annoying. Free your employees from this irritation and help them manage their working time effectively - set clear priorities in the tasks assigned to them.

“Being able to manage means not stopping good people from working” L. Kapitsa

2. Wrong goal setting

“The slowest man who does not lose sight of his goal is still more agile than the one who wanders without a goal” G. E. Lessing

3. Wrong distribution of roles

Don’t assign an employee a role that doesn’t suit them! Analyze what a person does best and give him appropriate tasks. Develop skills, encourage abilities.

4. Lack of an influential, charismatic team leader

Giving authority to lead a team is not everything. It is extremely important that the leader is not just formally appointed, but truly enjoys authority among his wards. Management is an art, don't put it in the wrong hands.

5. Lack of understanding of career prospects

The career ladder should be transparent - employees should know that they will receive the desired promotion for their efforts, initiative and achievements.

6. Routine and boring projects

Not only creatives and other creative workers need to be periodically “fed” with projects in which their imagination and talents can run wild. Even techies to the core need variety and challenging tasks where they can show their abilities. The monotony and dullness will appeal only to robots or zombies.

7. Lack of motivating factors

If you don't reward employees for their efforts, good results and in general, if you take them for granted, rest assured that they will soon leave you. And if they stay, they will be extremely unhappy and stop trying. And certainly the dream team in this case will only turn into a myth.

8. Conflicts and disagreements between team members

Naturally, there is no need to require employees to communicate with each other in a “mimimi” style. It is normal if disagreements arise while working on a project - as Socrates said: “Truth is born in dispute.” But it is very important that these very disputes do not lead to destructive consequences and do not cause a split in the team into camps, belligerence and other negativity.

How to create a dream team?

Distribute roles wisely. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Combine business with pleasure - dilute your routine with exciting tasks and projects.
Specify the facts and focus on the main thing.
Involve in the process - involve in brainstorming sessions, consult with those who know technology better than you.
Hold unifying events - corporate outings, holidays, gatherings and conventions help bring employees together in an informal setting, which blurs boundaries and breaks down all communication barriers.
Promote growth - literature, trainings, courses. Train and nurture talent.
Promote the most profitable projects within the team.

And for dessert, we present to your attention the presentation of our Roman’s report “Dream Teams. Myth or reality?”, which he spoke at the WebCamp 2012 conference in Odessa.