An effective team of coworkers has the means to be more successful than employees trying to tackle responsibilities solo. So, why doesn’t everyone work in teams to easily boost performance? Unfortunately, team building is often not as easy as it seems—there are several hurdles that must be avoided or overcome in order to work effectively with a team. Let’s take a look at some of these hurdles so you know what to avoid when attempting to build your team.
Team members lacking proper skill and experience for their role on the team is the first hurdle to avoid or fix. Jill might get along well with everyone and always support everyone’s ideas, but if there is someone else that has better productivity or experience, they might be the better person for the job instead of Jill.
The second obstacle is a lack of significance and motivation for the goals that have been set. If a goal asks way too little or impossibly too much of your employees, they may not take it seriously. This may result in future reasonable goals also being ignored just out of habit or due to the assumption that they will also be unreasonable. Establish goals that effectively challenge your team without pushing them over the limit.
Another team building obstacle is failing to establish a set of norms when it comes to disagreements. Oftentimes, teamwork suffers because the team members cannot find a healthy balance between being overly critical of others’ ideas, and missing out on new opportunities and ideas due to a level of apathy put in place by colleagues to avoid conflict. You want your team to be able to critique and share new ideas without it reaching an unhealthy level of conflict.
Finally, diversity is often neglected or improperly utilized within the workplace. These days, it is based on more than just race; coworkers can be underestimated due to age, gender, or cultural preferences. Just because Jeremy is a young intern doesn’t mean he can’t be helpful—in fact, he may have insight on how to appeal to younger generations. Don’t let your team discredit or ignore a promising idea just because the source of the idea is female. Understand that just because someone practices a unique culture doesn’t mean they can’t develop a useful idea that appeals to all audiences. Accept all ideas and efforts, regardless of the personal differences among the ideas’ sources.
Teamwork is an effective and efficient method for tackling projects in the workplace. Be sure that you avoid these blunders so your team building efforts result in quality teamwork and success.
