Team Spirit

One of the overriding factors that helps a team to work synergistic-ally is team spirit. This is the extent to which people are motivated by their team environment. How much do they trust their colleagues ? How strong is their collective identity ? To what extent are they prepared to contribute to the team and support their colleagues ?

Every high-performing team I have ever been a part of has had this in abundance. If there were a magic  ingredient for developing great team spirit I'm sure I could bottle it and become super rich on proceeds. Leading a team according to the principles suggested in this book will certainly help you with developing a good team spirit but there is something more required. It is about getting the team to think as team rather than as a collection of individuals : For them to develop a team identity around a collective vision and mission - a team brand if you like. Achieving this is more challenging than stating it of course, and I would pinpoint the following factors as potential tools that will help you develop an excellent spirit within your team.

Expectation : 
The Leader must provide some expectations for the team in much the same way as individuals need clear expectations to perform. A team vision and mission is fine but it is more important for team members to have a set of ground rules and some collective goals (objective and target) around which they can measure their performance.

Motivation :  
Individuals within the team need to be motivated. This in itself is not a collective action but demotivated individuals will detract from a good team spirit. If there are tensions between team members don't bury you head in the sand hope they will go away - address there issues proactively.

Contribution :
You have responsibility to ensure that each team member is contributing to the team's performance and that any underperformance is addressed swiftly. Carrying unwilling passengers can be most damaging to morale within the team and , worse still, left unattended will cause long lasting resentment.

Collaboration :
Team members have to understand the benefit of collaborating with each other rather than competing. There is no place for one-upmanship in high performing team and, in this respect, individual goals and reward systems need to work in favor of collaboration.

Something Extra : 
Team members should be encouraged to do things as a team. This could be anything from socializing as a team to having their own fantasy football mini - league or book club. Most importantly though, this must come from the team members and not the team leader. You can only support the process by perhaps making the budget available or joining in.

Team away days :
A well-structured, well-run team away day can be a really powerful medium for accelerating team spirit. A shared experience is one of the most powerful ways to bring a group of people together and regard themselves as being part of a team. Typically, an away day should have a combination of serious business and fun activities.

Team Meeting and Briefing

One of the areas where a brilliant leader can have a massive impact on their staff is via team meetings and briefings. This provides you with an excellent opportunity to motivate and inspire your people. Being able to run an effective team meeting or briefing is a key skill that you should develop. The format and key principles are relatively straightforward but, as with most aspects of effective communication, the skill level required is high.

Clear Objective:

Your should make it clear at the beginning of the meeting (or even beforehand) what you are trying achieve as a group. Your objective should be clear and specific without being over engineered. For example, developing an actions plan to solve a particular issue is a good objective but to have decided in advance what that action plan will be is likely to be over engineered as it does'nt take into account any good ideas or inputs the team might have. Clear objective provide the group with focus and are a tool that you can use to keep meeting on track.

Preparation :

Most of the time you should ask your team to do some preparation ahead of a meeting or briefing. As a minimum this should include thinking about issues, under discussion but could also extend to research or presentation tasks.

Agenda :

An agenda is a plan of how your meeting is to be structured. It should be regarded as a flexible document that is , you should only move away from agenda if it helps you to achieve you objective.

Facilitation:

Your Primarily role as a leader of the meeting is to guide the group towards achieving the objective. You do this by facilitating discussion and making skilled interventions. To start you should start what the problem, issue or opportunity is and then challenge the group to find a way forward by asking questions that encourage relevant inputs from them. Everyone should be encouraged t speak bu only if they have something relevant to say. There is a balance to be struck between team members who contribute enthusistically and when this spills over to become dominating. When a member begins to dominate you can usually control their contributions by asking other if they have any comment to make. If this does not work, you might need to curtail the dominant contributor by pointing out they need to give others a chance to contribute.

The other aspect of facilitation is to ensure th meeting keeps progressing. If a contributor starts to go off at tangent, bring them back to track with a question. Once a point has been made or agreed, move the group on to the next point. If there is a blockage or disagreement, summaries the state of play and pose a question to move the group on.

Action :
Most of the time, team meeting and briefings results in actions (except where the objective is merely to inform). All actions should be summarized, responsibility allocated and deadlines agreed. These should then be confirmed in writing as soon as possible after meeting.