What are the characteristics of a successful team?

A strong and successful team is the underpinning of a high-performing business, and a healthy team ethos can be held largely responsible for the success and smooth running of an organisation. 

Teams are made up of individuals that possess different knowledge, experience, skills, and talents. Each team member brings unique strengths and capabilities to the table to achieve a common team goal. Efficient teams regularly have a unique set of characteristics that help ensure their success by contributing to increased productivity. 

However, ineffective teamwork can often lead to poor productivity which diminishes the bottom line. So what can teams and their leaders do to ensure that they are cooperatively productive, efficient, and driving the company forward? Here are some qualities that a successful team possesses. 

Define Roles and Responsibilities 

It’s important to remember that your team cannot be successful if they don’t know what’s expected of them. Therefore, it’s essential to clearly define roles and responsibilities for everyone on your team. By doing this, your team will experience a handful of benefits and minimal confusion. 

When you properly detail staff roles and responsibilities you should see increased productivity and staff morale within your team. Take the time with your employees to go over their roles and responsibilities in detail. Ask them how they perceive their role, go through what your expectations are, discuss their career goals, and outline what needs to be achieved to accomplish those goals. A clear understanding of one’s role and a definitive roadmap to advancement is essential to development and a successful team. 

Effective Communication  

Communication is a vital factor in successful teamwork. Regular and consistent communication helps the entire team to work better together. Weekly one-to-one catch-ups with team members can be beneficial. But effective communication goes beyond just having meetings. It also means setting an example by remaining open to suggestions and concerns, by asking questions and offering help when needed, and by doing everything you can to avoid confusion in your own communication. 

Another important feature of effective communication is the feedback process. Giving feedback to your team in a way that is kind, clear, specific, and sincere provides a clear outline of what they are excelling at versus skills they can work on building. Doing so can also show that you care and are invested in your team’s success in a way that gives your team an outlet to learn and grow. 

Encourage Brainstorming 

Brainstorming is considered an effective tool for teams to come up with new ideas. 

Therefore, as a leader, you should encourage healthy debate and brainstorming within your team. Team brainstorming inspires creativity, which drives growth, innovation, and motivates your team. Team brainstorming can produce solutions and transform organisations at a rate greater than the sum of everyone’s individual contributions.  

However, one of the main benefits of brainstorming is when teams work together to solve problems, they also build stronger relationships. Group brainstorming generates a great synergy between workers, that brings everyone together. And when a team works well together, they feel more comfortable offering suggestions and ideas. 

Delegation 

Delegation is essential for a successful team – it not only helps get tasks done, but it also empowers employees by giving them greater autonomy. 

Effective delegation will improve your teams' productivity and professional growth, while also supporting your employees in identifying and developing their strengths, and working on their weaknesses. It utilises workers’ existing capabilities while also allowing them to gain new information, learnings, and abilities during the process. As a result, your team becomes more adaptable. 

When you delegate efficiently, you will build employee commitment and trust, boost productivity, improve performance, and ensure that the right people are completing the tasks that are most appropriate to them. 

As a leader you will need to be available to provide support when needed, but the more you trust your staff, the more confident they will become. Empower them to make decisions and to handle the responsibility of their roles. 

Provide training and development  

Providing training and development opportunities to your team is vital for a successful team. It’s also important to remember that training and development doesn't apply only to new hires – employees need training, development, and support throughout their careers. This applies to individuals and teams – to develop their skills and to continue to work effectively. 

Depending on your employee’s current skills and capabilities, you should customize their training and development needs to ensure they understand how to be successful in their current role. As a leader you should continue to offer additional development tools, training, and assignments to employees throughout their careers, so they can build upon their experience and knowledge, and shape their competencies for future roles. 

Team Building Activities 

Team building activities are a great way to get your team working together successfully. It’s the process of boosting the bonds between a team to help them accomplish their goals more efficiently. This usually involves team activities or events that occur outside of the typical workday. During team-building activities, employees get the opportunity to learn about their teammates and develop skills to help them interact effectively. Team building is important to help employees work more effectively. When team members develop positive relationships, they may feel more comfortable sharing their ideas and solving problems creatively. 

Unfortunately, a lot of companies overlook team-building exercises because they can be costly and time-consuming. However, the most successful companies that encourage development of skills and collaboration will reap the rewards long-term with a happy, collaborative, and successful team. 

There are so many benefits to team building activities, here are some of the main ones – 

• Better communication 
• Increased productivity 
• Boosting motivation 
• Improved morale 
• Encouraging creativity 
• Increased collaboration 
• Identify leaders 
• Discovering strengths and weaknesses 
• Connecting remote teams 

Teamwork is an essential ingredient of a successful organisation. If a team isn’t working well together problems such as missed deadlines, conflict, poor communication, etc can easily arise. Therefore, understanding what makes a group of individuals work together as an effective team is vital to company success. 

If you need help building out your team, please feel free to contact us!