What is effective team management?

Every organization is made up of people organized into teams. Teams form very important aspect of every company and organization. Teams, however, do not produce the same results when given the same task. This may be due to a lot of things. The atmosphere in and around the team is a vital aspect which determines the success of any project. This leads to the questions: why would a particular group of people become a team while another set of people will only become a crew? Why are the teams different from one another? The most important question, however, is: what team management strategy is most effective?

The Intelligence level

Different people have different levels of intellect. It also happens that most often than not, a team consists of members who have different intellects. A lot of people are of the notion that if a team is made up of highly intellectual people, it is a guarantee for success. This notion is however very wrong. The members of a team may possess different mental abilities but every member may still be gifted. The real thing to look at is the way you define the talent of your worker and how you use it.

Members of the team should also know the special skills of their colleagues. By doing this, every member of the team gets carried along, they all get to contribute and nobody feels left out. With this team management method, members are free to contribute equally without feeling less confident about themselves. These ideas and opinions from all team members help spur the team into success.

Atmosphere of respect

It doesn’t matter who is the best member of the team, who is the team leader or who is the newest person at the office, everyone is supposed to respect each other. It is important to note that all team members and workers are human first and then developers.

Another important point to look at is fear. There should be a total absence of fear. A safe environment would spur people to work better. This was properly described and treated in Google’s Project Aristotle research. Charles Duhigg referred to this phenomenon as a Psychological safety in his book. He proved that members of a successful team are happy of presenting their ideas, no matter how the idea may seem.

We all felt like we could say anything to each other. Charles Duhigg

Respect is not fear, even though some people have likened them to produce similar results. If a team leader enters an office and all team members are scampering to pretend like they were doing something that is fear. However, if a leader enters an office and all members of the team are immediately attentive to the message he or she wants to pass across, that is respect. Learn the difference between those two and you will be able to build a successful team. In my view, something very similar to a perfect team is the brotherhood.

Communication is key

Every team should communicate regularly, whether at work or after work. Teams should organize a weekly meeting with workshops. Every member of the team is advised to present ideas that are related to his or her line of thinking. The team members we are speaking about are developers who do not like to speak to the audience often, but they will, however, speak to the group of people found in the office or inside the team. This type of team building activities will aid in the improvement of personal communicative skills and strengthen the bond of any set of people. This also provides an opportunity to learn something new. To improve communication, teams should employ the use of a communication channel synonymous with them and which is readily available to every group member.

Inner culture

The company culture is also very important is very difficult to underestimate. A particular group of people may be less self-confident than others and this manifests in different ways. You can notice this by using bad words, in overtaking or isolation. This is actually very dangerous to the well-being of the company. However, communication can solve this problem. Employ the use of different words in a different situation. You should think about every worker individually and you will be able to determine the right words for every person. Deal with the cause of the problem and resolve the whole issue.

Another example of culture is traditions. Embed traditions in your team. It forms an interesting part of the team management. It also may be the main reason why some workers happily come back to work every day.

If you have no ideas on what traditions to implement, these are some examples:

1. Food: Provide regular Chinese food or vegan days.
2. Tournaments: Organize table tennis or counter-strike monthly tournaments.
3. Small presents: Provide a small personal present to everyone. For example, at Mageside this year, every person celebrating his or her birthday receives an individually customized cup with a picture of the most related superhero.
4. Regular picnics in the same place.
5. Board gaming days: Ask about favorite board games and bring team members together to play monthly at the office.

These traditions will create great memories and mental binds that will linger for a very long time.

The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team. Phil Jackson

Wrap it up

Every team is different from the other. The best team management strategy to employ is to love your team and care equally for every member. Spend time with your colleagues and pay attention to all their needs and they will love you for it.