How To Build A Winning Business Team

Starting up a business may not be easy, but building it up is even much more difficult. When starting a business, your focus is much on your product and the customers. It is about how to provide a service in a way that no one else does. It is hardly about the people who will catch the dream that you have and run with it. It is hardly about the team that will make your dream come true.

So you set off hoping that all those working for you will have the same passion towards the goal and success will follow. You begin with one person but as the work keeps increasing, you consider adding two or three other persons. Then in a few years, you have 5-10 employees working for you. 

You begin to entrust the business into their hands, with the hope that they will do things right, and indeed, they are doing their best. But before you can realize, your employees begin to get distracted and the sense of belonging they use to have, gradually dies. The next thing is that they leave at the slightest better opportunity they come across, while those who stay just stay because they have no better choice. Levels of input and commitment drop, attitudes of disloyalty and dishonesty gain more grounds and the business soon starts suffering. 

This is the case with many failing businesses. The success of a business to a large extent, depend on the people who hold the business up. They are the pillars of the business. Any business that succeeds is very much as a result of a winning business team. You may own a business but those who work with you have the ability to ruin it. I know you don’t want your business ruined, so what do you have to do. Build a winning team. How?

The following tips will help you build a winning business team:

1.    Hire the best

Your success in building a winning business team lies very much in first of all making sure that you hire the best persons to work with you. When hiring new staff, think of how well they will fit into the team you already have, and form a very good compliment. It is like a football coach, hiring players that will serve all the different areas on the pitch and not just a particular position. If he has a good forward line and a poor midfield line, his team will still be very lacking and will likely not be a winning team. Read my piece titled: “Who to Hire for A Winning Business Team” and you will see the things to look out for when hiring for your business team. 

2.    State Clearly, Your Expectations

As soon as a new staff joins your team, make very clear to him, your expectations from him. When people know that even though they are members of a group, there is something particular they bring which is needed, they get motivated to work. This is because they feel important and needed. Don’t hire someone you don’t have a definite need for. Don’t hire someone you can do comfortably without. They will soon notice and it will make their output to drop and that of the entire team, to drop. 

Tell each individual what you expect from him and tell the team as a whole, what you expect from them. Help them to see how meeting their individual expectations in the right way, will help the team to meet its collective expectations. You could also make it a culture to sit down each member of your team at the beginning of the week, him your expectation from him for the week. Call the team together at the end of the week for individual and team evaluation.

3.    Motivate your team

If you are the manager of your business, you are more like the coach of the business team and you need to be very skillful in motivating the members. If you are the owner of the business but not the manager, you too need to motivate the team and the coach from time to time.

Everyone loves motivation. When you are motivated, you get this on-top-of-the-world feeling that makes you want to do more. In the corporate world, motivation can be done in many ways. Even the smile on the face of the leader when a team member does well, is a big motivation. There are so many ways to motivate a team. Some of them are: 

-    Praise your team always and correct them with love

-    Appreciate a member in front of the rest of the team, as soon as he does a good thing.

-     Call each team member at the end of every week, and congratulate them openly in front of the rest. Be specific to mention something they did well.

-    Create time to talk to each member of the team, at least once in a month. During such a time, mention some things the person did well and thank him for them.

-    From time to time, write a letter of appreciation to your team as a whole.

-    Give a team member, who is outstanding, more privileges in the business.

-    Financial compensation and promotion will always be wonderful, when possible.

Whatever you do, make sure the impression you give is the right one. Let it be so clear that anyone who works hard will always be rewarded without discrimination.

4.    Create an exciting business environment

If you have done business long enough, you would have known that a very big proportion of a business man’s day is spent on his business. Even when you are not literary on the business site, your mind is there. And so, the business environment is a big part of the business and creating a wonderful environment for your business is very important in building a winning business team. 

The business environment comprises the physical environment, the people and their personalities, and what happens on the business every day, when the people come to the physical environment. You need to create the kind of environment that will make your team perform at their best. You can do this by following the tips in my piece titled “How to Create An Exciting Environment for Your Business”

5.    Get Involved In their Private Lives

There is no better feeling than the one that you get, when you know that your leader is very concerned about your personal welfare. You feel honored and want to do your best. Unfortunately this is lacking in many businesses. In most cases, the business owner is after the money and hardly concerned about those making it. 

The output of your team members depends so much on their personal happiness and their happiness depends a lot on the happenings around their lives. The greatest way you can touch their lives is by getting involved in their lives to the extent that they build trust in you and become more willing to share with you all that happens to them. When it gets to this level, they will see you not just as their leader but a father who cares. This feeling is very powerful and can convert even the weakest team member to a huge resource. Your team members will be more willing to die for the business. 

Take time to find out about every team member’s family background, relationships, fears, worries, past failures, future expectations, strengths and weaknesses. Built friendship with them one on one and make them see you as a big part of their lives. Listen to their complaints/ concerns, find out their worries, call them and ask how they are finding their work, share in all their joys and sorrows, etc.

6.    Show them the bright future

A good leader sees the future, paints it for the followers, and leads them there. When the followers see the future and it is a wonderful one, they will want to follow the leader there. How bright the future is to the team member, is a matter of how the future of the business will change his life personally. So he will follow you if he knows just what he will become when you both get to that desired place. 

When you don’t hide the plans you have for your team members, but share it with them, you can get the best out of them. Let them see how the success of the business will change their lives and you will see how much sacrifice they will be willing to make.

Your business can witness great success if you understand just how much impact the team you build can have. Use the above tips to create a winning team for your business and see how the face of your business will change.
 

I hope you have gained something. Please share with us your impressions, below.

 
By Kadzem Claude

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