We’ve all been on teams that hit a snag at some point. Someone didn’t communicate properly, or poor working relationships caused an escalation, and the team’s performance took a dive or slowed to a crawl. Hopefully, your team was able to break through its roadblocks on the way to greatness.
Top-performing teams conquer problems that keep lesser ones from achieving their potential. Here are five of the most common team development hurdles and how your organization can overcome them.
Team Development Problems
Communication
Ineffective and infrequent communications are team-killers. Your organization can overcome communication problems in part by recognizing teams and team members for their achievements. Good news is always welcome, and making company-wide announcements about team successes can help increase team morale. It’s also an opportunity for ownership and senior management to praise teamwork and encourage good team communication.
Trust
Every relationship depends on trust. When teams lack it, it can take a severe toll on morale and efficiency. Lack of trust is a problem common to many organizations that are developing and sustaining high-performance work teams, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
Everything’s easier when you know everyone on your team has good intentions and is working toward the group’s goals. You can build trust in part by recognizing team members for supporting each other and being reliable colleagues. Recognizing when teams hit their collective goals also helps build group morale and promotes cohesiveness.
Lack of Clear Goals
When team members can’t see how they are contributing to the team’s strategic goals, they may fail to be completely engaged in their work. This means they won’t have the emotional commitment to the organization required for top performance.
Your organization can overcome this problem by setting clear goals and communicating them frequently. You can drive the point home by praising teams and team members when they reach targeted metrics and milestones.
Work Atmosphere
Top-performing team members need to see the connection between their individual work and their organization’s broader goals. They also need a transparent work environment that encourages openness and long-term thinking.
You can encourage a positive, results-oriented work atmosphere by establishing clear, objective requirements for rewards. Don’t leave that up to managerial judgment; to ensure fairness and transparency company-wide, you need to avoid even the smallest possibility of favoritism.
Team Development: Building Successful Teams
So what separates high-performing teams from those that never gel and overcome their problems? Google’s Project Aristotle studied hundreds of its teams worldwide to find out. They learned that individuals’ traits were far less important than how team members felt about their workplace, team structure, clarity of managerial communication, and other working conditions. In an ideal work environment, employees would feel safe and are encouraged to offer ideas and learn the “why” behind what they do.
You can help create that type of atmosphere and overcome many of the most common team development problems with a professional, custom-designed recognition and rewards program.
Inproma’s programs help build successful teams and are proven to increase employee engagement and motivate teams to do their best work. If your workforce is running into team development issues, or your current team-building strategies aren’t producing the results you need, we should talk.
