Whether you run a lean startup, a midsize enterprise, a Fortune 500 company or — most likely of all — a smaller unit within any of those, you deserve to have the strongest possible team at your disposal.
Easier said than done, of course. But it can be done. Experts like Kris Duggan, a serial entrepreneur and investor who has backed or helped build some of the best-known companies to come out of Silicon Valley over the past two decades, have been doing it their entire careers. They’ve made their share of bad hires and questionable management decisions, but they’ve also learned lessons from those mistakes and become better at what they do.
If you’re ready to build a better team, here’s what you can learn from them.
1. Recognize the Importance of “Real” Teamwork
Most leaders speak positively about teamwork because they believe they have to. Fewer actually appreciate just how powerful “real” teamwork can be when led by a capable, collaborative leader and advanced by team players pursuing clear, realistic end goals.
This UC Berkeley roadmap summarizes the most important elements of true teamwork. These include adopting a consensus-based process for making key decisions, establishing ground rules that govern how team members interact, and implementing fair but impartial processes to hold individuals accountable. As a leader, an important early step in building a better team is ensuring it truly operates as a team, rather than a collection of individuals working loosely toward a distant goal.
2. Set Measurable Goals
It’s always important for goals to be realistic, measurable, and achievable on a specific time scale (whether the deadline is a matter of hours or many months in the future).
It’s even more important in a team setting, where multiple individuals must work together toward shared ends.
As a leader, it’s your job to set measurable goals at a high level while holding your team members responsible for doing the same within their individual spheres of responsibility. If you don’t do this, your team is unlikely to perform at the level you expect.
3. Hold Individual Team Members Accountable for Specific Metrics
It’s also important that you hold team members responsible for meeting specific metrics for which they’re responsible. These metrics can be incorporated into individual and team-level goals, but they also must be kept top of mind during the regular course of business.
As you know, individual team members respond differently to different forms of accountability. To give each roleplayer the best chance at meeting and hopefully exceeding their metrics, work collaboratively with them to set expectations and avoid surprises down the road.
4. Foster a Culture of Transparency (Starting With You and Other Top Leaders)
Just as important as accountability is transparency. Many leaders are, understandably, reluctant to share too much with their subordinates, but it’s important to be as transparent as possible without “un-siloing” critical information. This is essential for building trust within teams, which will benefit the entire group and the parent organization in the long run.
5. Hire Leaders and Roleplayers Who’ve Done It Before
There’s no substitute for experience. With that in mind, staff key roles within your team with people who’ve already demonstrated their ability to work well within teams and achieve shared goals. Leave less mission-critical roles to less experienced roleplayers willing (and able) to learn from others.
6. Avoid Groupthink at All Costs
Groupthink is one of the biggest risks of poor team management. To make matters worse, it can be difficult to recognize until it begins to negatively impact team performance. Make avoiding it a core personal goal of yours — and a shared goal of your team members.
Better Teams, Better Results
These guidelines for building better teams aren’t foolproof. No piece of business advice ever is. If anyone tells you otherwise, it’s a fair bet they have ulterior motives (or don’t know what they’re talking about).
That being said, you could do a whole lot worse than to implement these ideas in your own organization. They are the result of hard-won, sometimes downright painful experience, and they have served many leaders well. Most of the time, they get results, or at least a measurable improvement over the status quo.
Implementing them won’t be easy. But every week of delay is another week of missed upside — and, possibly, a week lost to more nimble, ambitious competitors.
