Take Your Team to the Top

The delegation of assignments to teams rather than to single individuals is becoming more popular in the workplace (Kokemuller, 2014). A major factor that contributes to the success of a team is the team’s overall effectiveness at accomplishing tasks. Today I will discuss a couple tips for improving your team’s effectiveness at reaching its goals. Two tips to remember are leveraging team diversity and creating relationships between team members.

First, for teams to work most effectively, they must leverage their diversity. According to Russ Osmond, founder of Change Strategies International, rather than randomly divvying up tasks among team members, teams should assign particular tasks to individuals according to their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses (R. Osmond, personal communication, February 13, 2014). For example, instead of having John, an accomplished writer, research a new software program the company could use, give him the task of writing up weekly reports. When the things that are required of an individual are aligned with his/her strengths, each task can be accomplished with the greatest possible effectiveness.

Second, good relationships between team members allows for effective communication. Many people feel uncomfortable working with people they either don’t know or don’t have any connection with. Having fellow team members get to know each other will improve workplace relationships and communications within a team. This can be done by encouraging chit-chat or even “spotlighting” a single team member before meetings. By doing so, team members can understand each other better and therefore more effectively communicate and productively work together (Hallett, 2014).

Remember that a team’s effectiveness at accomplishing tasks is a critical factor of its success. Leveraging team diversity and creating relationships among team members are a few tips that are sure to improve team effectiveness and help take your team to the top.

References

Hallett, T. (2014). Building good work relationships. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/good-relationships.htm#

Kokemuller, N. (2014). The advantages & disadvantages of teams in the workplace. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-teams-workplace-21669.html