The mark of a great team is the results that they deliver above everything else, this is something that Mark Gilbert ATN founder and close friend of mine taught me when I first started working for him. Mark also told me that you can measure how good a manager is based on the team which they are able to create, and this is something that so many managers and leaders fail to get right. If you are creating a team at work or for you own business, it is vital that you get it right first time, and here is wha you should be looking for.
Sum of Parts
A team of 5 people with mid-range abilities who can work in perfect unison with one another is always going to perform better than a team of 5 outstanding individuals, who don’t work in conjunction with one another. With this in mind it is important that when hiring people for your team, that you don’t just base it on their abilities, but rather their characters and their personalities. You need talent of course, but along with that you need to hire people who offer similar character traits in order to get a team which operates as one.
Team Roles
Both you and the candidate have to consider what roles are important in a team setting, and you need to ensure that you are hiring people who can adopt different roles. When we think of a great team you need people who can step up to be leaders, you need people who know how to listen, you also need people who can make sacrifices for the good of the team and you need workhorses who understand that their small role is of great importance to the team ethic. The key here is to hire people who not only understand these different roles but also people who can play different roles within the team setting.
Motivational
Asa leader you need to be able to motivate and inspire your team and in order to do that you need to identify how each member of the team needs to be spoken to or treated in order to get them firing on all cylinders . With this in mind you need to be able to ‘get’ those who you hire to be in the team, if you can’t put your finger on what gets them going then they could cause you problems when it comes to getting the best from them.
Ambitions
There is nothing wrong with having strong individuals in your team who have ambition, but you must ensure that their own personal ambition is not bigger than their desire to be part of a well functioning team. If you hire people with this altruism then you are going to have problems in the team that could hurt its chances of being great.
These are the keys to look for when you are putting a team together.
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