5 Essentials for Teambuilding

In my post "Do you have what it takes to get the job done?" I emphasized the importance of having the necessary elements in place for effectiveness, Authority, Responsibility and Means. In fact, I would suggest that any person lacking one of these three elements has become a consultant and any team lacking one or more of these essential elements is a committee.

But, assuming that responsibility, means and authority are all in place what are some essentials for healthy and effective functioning. Below are some of my essentials. But before you keep reading, stop and list at least 3 essentials for healthy and effective team functioning. If one of your three isn't listed below, please post a comment and enlarge our understanding and practice.

Team requires a shared purpose - this isn't rocket science, but it can be as rare as rocket science. I don't care what you call it, a mission, a purpose, a goal, you have to have it. An effective team is about getting something done. Name that thing in a sentence that everyone can understand and you have established a solid launching pad.

A Team requires a team leader - Leadership is not about control or power, it is about accepting responsibility for helping the team achieve its purpose. In the absence of leadership team members become distracted from their role on the team, they may be angling for leadership or trying to avoid it, regardless they are misdirecting their energy. Often leaderless teams experience the disappointment of not realizing their purpose. And even more frequently team members drop out or disengage from participation because the team climate is not a safe place to exercise their giftedness. A last note - people are often hesitant or resistant to joining leaderless teams.

Team requires clear roles - Teams have many and varied makeup’s, in order to ensure that responsibilities are carried out with greatest effect and least confusion each team member should understand and be able to articulate what their role is. In like fashion each team member should be able to accurately describe other team member’s roles. Think about a sports team, everyone knows what position they play in volleyball. It wouldn't do for every one to try to be the setter and every one try to be a blocker. Clarity of roles is essential to reaching our goals. (I didn't mean for that to rhyme)

Team requires clear boundaries (what don’t we do)- in life and work there is often the temptation to venture into areas that are out of bounds. When we do this we usually get into trouble. Clear boundaries say where our team won't go, and what our team won't do. This is important as the team tries to stay focused on its primary purpose. Boundary creep (that’s a movement not a person) causes our purposes to grow beyond the responsibility and authority of the team.

Team requires relationship - This one is last because it is most important - if you remember nothing else remember this. Relationship is the oil that keeps the team working smoothly. Ask yourself a few questions
1. Do you intentionally build fun and joy into you work
2. Do you celebrate every time you are together
3. Do you encourage and affirm each other for WHO YOU ARE more than WHAT YOU DO?
4. Do you practice healthy conflict resolution?

In my experience true team work is rare. Imagine what we could get done if half of all committees where transformed into effective teams. Consider what it would take to transform a dysfunctional into an effective team.