Teamwork is a driver of success in your organisation. It is important now more than ever to nurture an empowering teamwork culture by working collaboratively towards a shared vision and goals with collective responsibility. Teamwork takes work and planning to achieve but reaps huge rewards if it is done right – it divides the tasks and multiplies the success.
A real team does not just happen – you have to work at it, create it, maintain and sustain it. If you do all of these then you stand a good chance of having an effective team – one that really works. Teamwork focuses on all of the skills and abilities of the people who are a part of that team. Diversity of thinking needs to be encouraged and valued. A high performing team that delivers results on an ongoing basis has common goals and values, aligning their efforts by working collaboratively on a shared team action plan. All the team should be invited to contribute to formulating the Team Action Plan through group brainstorming, discussion and evaluation.
Utilising the following questions will help you to compile your Team Action Plan
- Who are we? “What values are important to our organisation? What values do we as a team aspire to have in order to serve our clients?
- Currently where are we? What is our current situation? What are we doing well? What is our Unique Selling Point? Where is there room for improvement?
- Where are we going? What needs to be achieved? What work processes/systems need to be in place to optimise the current resources to meet the changes in the operating environment? How can we perform better than our competitors?
- Looking to the Future: How will we get there? What performance is necessary? Where can activities be streamlined and where are the pressure points? What can be done to meet the challenges? What behaviours do we have to adopt? What should our Team Charter (guidelines) be?
Action owners should be appointed to all identified tasks as well as target and review dates. Risks and opportunities should also be assessed.
Discussing and agreeing what KPIs (key performance indicators) will be utilised is important. Building in an evaluation mechanism to measure progress helps to keep tasks and commitments on track.
Celebrating all milestones and successes no matter how small needs to become a habit! These will re-energise efforts and motivation levels.