5 ways to build a team quickly
It takes time to build a great team. Trust is earned between people, over time. Successes are realized, lessons are learned, personality quirks are understood, and the second, or third, or tenth project that a team does together benefits from the team’s past experiences.
And yet, many of us– project managers and consultants– don’t have the luxury of time. We inherit a new team with each and every project. It isn’t ideal, but it is often the reality.
Here are some ideas Terra Soma and I developed for bringing your team quickly through the forming and storming stages and into the higher performing collaborative stage as quickly as possible.
Focus the team on a common goal, and vision of the project’s “why”. All of the research around high performing teams that we have reviewed shows this as the #1 most important element of high performing teams is that they have a common goal. People love to know why they are working on something, and the more important your project’s success is to the success of the organization or customers, the stronger this goal will motivate the team to quickly become productive together.
1. Find out the BIG WHY, not just the first why. When you take on a project, interview stakeholders and executives to find out why this project is important now. How does it fit into the organization’s overall…
