6 Steps You Need to Do to Create a Successful Team

6 Steps You Need to Do to Create a Successful Team6 Steps You Need to Do to Create a Successful TeamMany times when youre hired or promoted to a leadership role, the gruppe is already there. You have to adapt your ideas and plans to fit the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the existing gruppe. But, sometimes, you get to create your own kollektiv. This can happen on special projects when youre pulling people from different departments or when you are creating a new department. If youre in the situation where you getto create a team from scratch(or have the opportunity to add headcount to an existing group), heres how to make the best team possible. Steps in Putting a Work Team Together 1. Clearly identify the task at hand. If your task is nebulous, you will have a tough time knowing what skills you need to find. Youre likely tempted to jump right in and hire people with the general skills that fit your overall department. (I need marketing people I need creative people) But to paraphrase an old adage, hire in haste, repent at leisure. If you start out with the wrong people, youll regret it. 2. Identify the skills needed to complete the project. You need to identify the soft skills as well as the hard skills you need. Will the employee need to communicate results and progress to senior management? Are there skills that you need that arent going to be obvious to you without deeply thinking through the issue at hand? For instance, if youre putting together a team to implement a new software system, you obviously need system designers, programmers, and project managers. But, you also need a person who can talk to the end users to get a clear understanding of their true needs. You need a trainer who understands the technical side of the implementation and can explain it to the non-techy people. If you know you need super smart and independent workers, you know that you also need a person who can bring those independent workers together. Of course, you do. (Tha ts generally the manager or team leaders job, but knowing your own limitations is critical to team building success.) 3. Identify the people. If you want to build an internal team, you have advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that you already know the people from whom you are choosing. You know their strengths and their weaknesses. You know who is good at technical activities. You know who is creative. You know who is whiny. You know who can sell ice cubes in a blizzard. The disadvantages are that youve got to pull the team together from your existing staff members, so you cant fix any of the potential team members weaknesses that already exist. You have to deal with the politics of pulling someone from another groups staff. You cant ignore the fact that you can damage relationships if you steal too many of the best people from other departments. Additionally, you may know that John is the best possible person, but John has no interest in being on your team or Johns man ager wont let him join. You may find pulling together an internal team super frustrating. If you have to hire from the outside, youve got to think long and hard about budgets. Sometimes youre tempted to throw all of your money into the superstar but then you have to hire entry-level people for all the other positions. They may not balance out your superstar. Other times, you may think that the best path is to hire cheap help and get as many people as possible for the smallest salaries possible. This doesnt work either. While you have to work within your budget, you may want to hire a superstar, or you may need a whole bunch of worker bees. Give this careful consideration. when you select your team members 4. Hire in the right order. Dont hire the administrative assistant first. You may think, Okay, Ill get this out of the way. But, theadmins job is to help the rest of the team and support them. If you hire this person first, you need to find additional people whom she can work with, instead of the other way around. Start with your most senior person and work down. You want your most senior person to help you with the additional hiring- either internally or externally. 5. Be honest in your hiring. Dont just extol the virtues of working on this team. You need to state the challenges honestly. Well implement a new software system. You will work hard and put in long hours. Well experience pushback from senior managers and I will fight for the team, but it will be difficult. In this way, youll help staff members know what to expect. Dont lie and say the teams task is a bed of roses unless you really think it will be. 6. Remember to manage the team. Once you get your team together, youve got to manage it. Great teams seldomrun well without a great leader. Thats your job. Make sure you work to make the team cohesive and hard working. Dont ask more of them than you ask of yourself. If you do all of this, youll have a great team and a successful project. More About Team Building How to Build Powerfully Successful Work Teams12 Tips for Team BuildingHow to Build a Teamwork CultureThe 5 Teams Every Organization Needs - Suzanne Lucas is a freelance writer who spent 10 years in corporate menschengerecht resources, where she hired, fired, managed the numbers, and double-checked with the lawyers.