Job Seeker Blog - Spark Hire

What Makes a Good Team?

Almost everything can be done faster and more efficiently as a team. Remember doing a big project for work or school and thinking how much better it’d be if you had some extra help? Teamwork is essential to a productive work environment. An effective team in the workplace can offer great rewards for the company. A team that can work in harmony, be creative, resolve conflicts and deliver good results is what managers strive to have. Establishing a good team isn’t easy. Left unsupervised, teams can self-destruct without proper leadership, trust, and commodore. Here are some components that are essential to having a good team in the workplace.

Good Leadership
Someone in the team needs to take the reins and become the leader. More often than not someone will step up and take the role, but other times it can be a matter of drawing straws. Employees shouldn’t fear the leadership role; it doesn’t mean that they’re solely responsible for the outcome of the project. Rather they are the ones that are there to keep everything in sync. They should assign roles to everyone else and ensure that everyone understands what they need to do. They can also work as mediators when problems within the team come up- whether they’re personal or work related. They are the person that people in the team turn to if they have a problem or need something cleared up. Also, keep in mind that your boss will recognize how you stepped up to the challenge of becoming the leader of the team, so it’ll give your performance at the office a major boost.

Have Clear Objectives
Your team should discuss and answer the following questions: Why are we here? What is the ‘perfect ending’ to this project? What is our deadline? How often will we meet? What is our budget? Who is in charge of implementing our ideas? What roles and responsibilities will each of us have?

Establish Trust Among the Team
If your team doesn’t like each other then you’re bound to fail. If your team hasn’t worked together before, have a quick introduction session where each of you can get to know each other a bit more. It’s important that everyone in the team can trust and respect one another because that will lead to better communication in the group. If someone has an issue and doesn’t trust anyone in the group, they’ll lag behind the group and become a weak link. A team needs to be strong and that demands hard work from everyone.

Effective Communication
Sure, everyone can talk and discuss the project at hand, but can everyone listen to everyone’s ideas and opinions? Listening is one of the more difficult challenges of communication. It’s key for everyone in the team to be able to listen to each other and consider what everyone has to say. This will prevent anyone from feeling left out. Another part of communication is being clear and direct with directions. This will ensure that everyone shares the same objective and prevents anything left unclear with instructions. The purpose of effective communication is to effectively resolve conflicts. Conflicts shouldn’t be feared because they can result in positive outcomes that create growth within the team.

SOURCE: Yahoo!
IMAGE: Courtesy of Frankie

Hanna Guerrero

Hannah is an intern writer here at Spark Hire. She is from the northern suburbs in Chicago and is currently studying journalism at DePaul University. She has always had a passion for writing which is why Journalism has proven to be the perfect career for her. She has written for the DePaulia Online on various topics such as fashion, music, movies and television. She loves living in Chicago because it offers exciting events to write stories on. In her free time she enjoys going to music concerts, watching movies with friends, cooking vegetarian food and walking her adorable Cocker Spaniel Coco.

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