team management

Building and Leading your team

What is a TEAM?

T •Together
E •Everyone
A •Achieves
M •More
Building your TEAM
Building a team – what are the steps?
1. Changing a group of people into a high performing team

2. Get to know your team

3. Set a team vision & goals

4. Agree on roles and responsiblities

5. Planning & tracking

6. Team identity
 Changing a group of people -> high
performing
team
• Even with the best players, a team doesn’t start great, but
goes through fairly predictable stages until it performs on its
best  “Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing”

• Team building is a constant everyday process. Every action the

team leaders takes (or does not take) shapes the team culture
and what is acceptable or not as behaviour.
 Get to know your team
• IMPORTANT: don't confuse Some tools that you can use
team bonding with team
building. Bonding is just
one aspect of team • MBTI Test
building. Remember that • Belbin Test
team building is not an • Competency Assessment
event, but an everyday
process. Everyday, the
team is being built. Remember that no test is
100% accurate so don‘t rely
ONLY on the test.
• Informal moments – do not
forget that having informal
fun moments with the team
(and it should not only
happen in the beginning).
Set a team vision & goals
• USE a team vision – building a vision is quite easy, but
it’s also very easy to forget it afterwards. You as team
leader should constantly bring the team vision to make
decisions and track the progress of the team towards the
vision.

• One example of doing it is each quarter painting the

vision sentences in red, yellow or green, depending on
how close of being true on the present moment.
Agree on roles and responsiblities
• This means
understanding each individual job description
& what is the link between my job description
and the team’s vision and goals
& how different people in the team should work
with each other.

• JD!!!
 Team rules
• Team rules puts everyone on the same page of what is acceptable and what
is not (example):
– What is the periodicity of team meetings?
– Are the team meetings required (what is an acceptable excuse to skip one
meeting)?
– Can I be late (how much time is acceptable)?
– Can I interrupt others when they are speaking?
– What is our involvement in certain rojects?
– How is the planning being tracked?

• USE the rules –It’s the team leader’s role to call early team members’
behaviours that are not following the set rules. Other good action to do is to
remember periodically the team rules, evaluate their effectiveness and see if
the team wants to add, remove or modify some of the rules.
 Team meetings
• Team meetings – one of the most common problems on
team processes is poorly managed or not frequent enough
team meetings.

Some Golden Rules

• The team meetings should have a clear defined PURPOSE
• The team meetings should be REGULARY
• The team meetings should be EFFICIENT
• Idea, when you have team meetings if also to assign some roles in the team:
• Time keeper – that will let you know how much time you still have to discuss different subjects (based on the
agenda set before)
• Output keeper – that will note down the discussion points and main decisions taken
• Meeting leaders – who runs the meeting and has the overview on where you need to get

• The team meetings should be used for:

• Updates on each area
• Taking team decisions
• Planning
• Allocating resources better in the team
 Planning & Tracking
• Involve your team in the team planning and setting deadlines.
After allocating individual responsibilities, ask your team
members to build their individual plans.

• Sit with each team member and evaluate their planning progress,
as well as the team progress. If necessary, adjust the planning to
keep on the right direction.

• Milestones and recognition – it’s important to have not only

end goals, but also milestones to achieve, so your team can see
if they are on the right track. Don’t forget to recognize people for
their achievements and also celebrate these smaller
achievements as a team.
 Leading by example

• As a leader, you should act as you expect your team

members to act. If you follow all the rules, if you are an
example, people will see that as important. If you miss
deadlines or break the rules, for sure they will do the
same. Do you want your members to offer
feedback to each other? Start offering feedback
yourself.
Team identity
• Having team logo, motto, t-shirts,
roll call is something that can
create a sense of unity, being part
of something :)
Leading your TEAM
Take in consideration
where each member of
your team is in terms of
their development…

You can use the

Situational Leadership
matrix

By using this, you know

which leadership style you
should have with each of
your team members
• Telling / Directing (S1) – Leaders tell their people exactly what
to do, and how to do it.
• Selling / Coaching (S2) – Leaders still provide information and
direction, but there’s more communication with followers.
Leaders “sell” their message to get the team on board.
• Participating /Supporting (S3) – Leaders focus more on the
relationship and less on direction. The leader works with the
team, and shares decision-making responsibilities.
• Delegating (S4) – Leaders pass most of the responsibility onto
the follower or group. The leaders still monitor progress, but
they’re less involved in decisions.