Building Your Best Team-5 ways to Assemble (and keep) the Best

Everyone wants to be on the winning team. Just go back to grade school gym class when we had to pick teams for kickball: the agony of the choices; picking the best kicker or the fastest runner; being left for last pick. Bring back any memories?

The same feelings and choices are present today in the workplace, but the stakes are higher. How do you build the best team, the winning team for your company, division, or project?

It takes more than mere skill to make a great team. It takes:

• Synergy (overused word, I know), but necessary nonetheless
• Balance (too many queen bees and not enough worker bees and the honey will never get made)
• Leadership (the good kind-not the kind that barks orders, or micromanages)

How do we go about assembling the best team that has all of these elements, and more, leading us to success? Start with these 5 basic tips:

1. Hire on Attitude, Train for Aptitude: Just because a potential teammate has a desirable skill, doesn’t mean they’re best for your team. Attitude counts. Someone can have all the right skills, but a poor attitude will bring your team down, and leave you as the team leader spending your time playing Super Nanny instead succeeding.

After reviewing the resume and skill sets, we ask applicants a series of questions that reveals their attitudes towards their work, their life in general, co-workers and bosses. It doesn’t take long to see if someone has the right attitude, and such an exercise has saved us many headaches.

Give me someone with the right attitude and I can teach them anything. Give me some one with the wrong attitude and there’s nothing they can learn.

2. Develop a Culture of Appreciation: The saying goes, “A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected.” If people on your team don’t feel appreciated for their efforts you will have a hard time motivating them. You can read more on how to develop this type of culture here.

• When people feel appreciated, they’re inspired to work harder
• When people feel appreciated, they’re likely to stay longer
• When people feel appreciated, they’re likely to recruit others

Show and tell your team you appreciate them, their hard work, and their contributions. This simple act can go a long way towards keeping your best team at their best.

3. Agree to Disagree: Being a team doesn’t mean you see eye-to-eye on everything. There will be differing views on how to handle a project, a customer, or a strategy. Disagreements won’t necessarily destroy your team. They can actually make it stronger.

Diverse views and tactics can bring ideas and innovation that can launch your company to the next level and beyond. Surrounding yourself only with people who agree with you can and will bring more damage to your team than disagreements will.

Make it a point to hear and consider all points of view. Ask the opinions of others on your team that you know won’t just tell you what you want to hear. As long as your vision, mission, values and goals are intact, it is perfectly acceptable to take a different strategy than you originally planned. Don’t make it a “my way or the highway” culture. You’ll get more contributions from teammates who sense their opinions and ideas are valued. Who knows? It could be the best decision your company makes.

4. Cutting the Dead Weight: Let’s face it, sometimes we get it wrong. We choose someone to be on our team that just isn't working out. Maybe their attitude changed. Maybe they’re just showing their true colors. Either way, as soon as you discover you have a team member who is causing strife and division within the team, you need to cut them loose.

A team member who is dead weight will halt progress and sow seeds of discontent within your team. Start by having a conversation about the seriousness of their actions. Give them a second chance to make it better. But, if any measures of discussions do not result in prolonged improvement, cut your losses and let them go do something else. You cannot afford to sacrifice the whole team for the sake of one who really doesn't want to be on the team in first place.

Yes, it’s hard. The hardest thing we have to do as leaders is let people go. But keeping them around because you find it unpleasant to fire them, will destroy the great team you have built and send many of your team members running for the door.

5. Model your Ideal Team: “You teach what you know, you reproduce what you are.” -Leif Hetland.

You can teach and mentor your team all day long, but if you aren't living it, they won’t follow it. If you want a great team, you have to be a great team member. When you as the leader model the behavior you want your team to have, and you do it in a humble and authentic way, they will respond. The adage, “Do what I say, not what I do” does not build a great team. And once you preach but don’t practice, you lose credibility with your team. When they see you compromise, they’ll think it’s acceptable for them to do the same.

Be real. Own the team’s failures, share its successes. Choose the higher way every time in every interaction with your teammates, your vendors, and your customers. Your team will follow what you model.

Think isn’t an exhaustive list. What would you add to it?

What has made you successful in building and keeping the best team for your organization?

What mistakes have you made in the past that we could learn from?

Share your insights, successes and failures and let’s all purpose to build the best teams!