Team Development: Creating a healthy, trusting and productive team

Who do you want to spend 8-12 hours a day with?

You cannot always pick who you work with, but what if you could? Who would you want to work with?

A healthy team requires many of the same attributes as a healthy friendship. Good friends care about each other's well being, enjoy each other's success, are helpful and supportive, they are honest and desire to work through things patiently to help the relationship last through many challenges. Don't those qualities sound like they can also facilitate productive teamwork, cooperation, creative problem solving and personal accountability?

In reality, we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our family, partner or friends, so wouldn't you want to spend your waking hours with people that you actually get along with? That is what team building is all about, either you create a team of people that are cooperative and supportive of each other or you work with an existing team and try to help them learn to be cooperative and supportive.

Believe it or not, a good team has lots to do with trust, for example, in terms of my team I trust that they:

• will complete their assignments
• will get their work done on time
• will ask me for help or clarification if they need it
• are supportive of me reaching my or the companies' goals
• will try to do the best job they are capable of
  
• will not take on more work than they can complete
• will provide me with a consistent product or service
• will act in the best interest of the company
• desire to produce quality/ accurate work

Think about it, if you can really believe the above about your team, your stress level will likely drop in half. How much time do you spend worrying about what someone else is doing or if they are going to make you or your company look bad?

If you can create a solid team that treats each other with respect like best friends would, you can enjoy a powerful, formidable team that knows how to utilize the talents and trust of the group to move proverbial mountains.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens