Transform a Group to a Team

CREATING HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TEAMS

If you're a business owner and your business is supported by a team or teams, you may be familiar with how much time it takes to transform a group of individuals to a highly collaborative team. 

How much time do you spend communicating to your team the vision and values of your business? 

In the first 6 years of running my skincare business, I spent so much time repeating myself, my frustrations ran high and I kept asking myself - what do I need to do to help them understand? Bringing a Business Coach into my business helped me build my communication skills, create awareness and coached me on how to train my team to collaborate and work together to deliver a service that was consistent and at a high level of customer satisfaction.

When you bring together a group of people, you have as many needs as you have individuals and you also have unexpected needs that will come up for the group as they are becoming familiar with each other as a team. This raises questions:

• What needs will drive and connect this group as a team?
• What do the people in the group need?
• What does the group need to build trusting relationships with each other?

When people come together as a team, there are always concerns in the back of their mind. 

• Will I fit in to this group?
• Will I like the others in the group and will they like me?
• What will be expected from me?
• Will this be worth it?

Effective teams don't just happen, they are coached into existence. They are developed nurtured, trained, empowered refined and maintained. And they are rare. Throw into the mix that some teams are no longer working in the same environment - some may be working from home a few days a week or in a different city. 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has - Margaret Mead

The vision for your team begins with you as the business owner. What is your vision for the business - why did you create it? What is your dream? How did you visualise the outcome? What is important to you? What are the behaviours you're demonstrating in your business, to your people, clients and suppliers? All of these questions will create the vision you share with your team and set a standard of behaviour that is related to the success of your business.

The idea of bringing people in to grow your business can be daunting, all of a sudden you have the extra task of managing them as well as doing all the things you already do. Without a team you can't grow your business and all business is about people - learning to manage people is totally different to running your business - Caution Humans Approaching

So, what do you need to do to bring your vision to life and build a highly effective team? You need high level leadership skills that will develop a group of individual superstars, whether it's two or three or thirty. The quality and character of your leadership is that of coaching and supporting your people - a visionary leader knows how to bring a group of people together, enables them to organise in a way that brings out the best in them, helps them synergise their energies and together create incredible things.

Start by becoming crystal clear about the values of your business or organisation. The values will be become the compass that will help you align the culture and behaviours that touch every aspect of your business. The image below will help you identify the values that you would like to consider for your business.  The Barrett Values Centre has adapted their model from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Work from the bottom level up - this will help you identify the values to care for your peoples needs first, working towards transformation and collaboration.

If you haven't done a personal values assessment you can take a test HERE  with The Barretts Value Centre - It's a 10 minute exercise and worth the time.

I am passionate about working with business owners and growing their teams. My experience growing my own teams across different businesses and learning how to do it well, enabled me to triple my business in three years. I spend the majority of my time working with Business and Group Coaching to share my knowledge and experience with others.

For more information on how to create and work with your team - sign up for my weekly Monday Motivation Blog or contact me HERE