The A-Team

If you were a designer, equipped with a special design-machine that allowed you to add people with different traits and skills to create teams, what kind of Team would you like to build? 

My ideal go-to would be an A-Team, which is often defined as a group of people who can survive almost anything. Sounds cool, but is it possible? 

An A-Team in the corporate world is not about just getting things done in Bond-like manner. No, that would be awful. In fact, the A-Team I imagine is much more capable. It is not something you just get with hiring people (or design with a special design-machine). It's far from that.  

Here're some of my hypotheses for building an A-Team - 

• Don't start with work. It would be pretty awful to start right away with business without getting to know who your team-mates are. Give them space and time to get acquainted with each other. It is more important than anything else. 
• Realize that you are not a manager. You are a leader. There's a difference between the two. A manager makes people work, even though they don't want to do it. A leader works together with the team, guides them, gives them feedback and often at times learns from them. If you think you're the one in-charge, forget about building an A-Team. 
• Know thy team well. People are a curious kind, with amazing feats and strange potentials to be found. If you don't know your team, you don't know what they know, and they don't know what you know. Knowing with human curiosity is one of the hardest things to do these days. It is easy to ask people formal questions, but knowing their needs and preferences is rare. 
• Don't start serious-work before you have adequately known your team. An arrow needs to be pulled back before it can shoot far with great velocity. Give your team that time. 
• Come to a common agreement, some ground rules within the team that everyone agrees with. 
• Forget about performance appraisal systems. I think most experts would agree that performance appraisal systems are broken. Learn to give feedback. Teach often and learn often.  
• Even though your team doesn't believe in performance management, your organization might. The team may want to prove that it is capable. Keep count of every task, and priorities. Discuss before diving into the work. Ask questions, take responsibility of projects. Know your capacity and deliver in time. 
• At times, your team will come across challenging tasks. In those moment, there will be conflicts, there will be frictions. Whatever happens, one thing cannot be let go. That is the Team-Spirit. The team must believe in itself. One failure is everyone's failure, and one success if the whole team's success. 
• Even still, the strongest will fall. May be a loved one will pass away, may be someone will fall sick, or will be in need of help. Always keep your team together and be there. An A-Team is not about just work, it's about sticking together through rainy days. 
• On most occasion, your team will certainly fail. They might face humiliation and experience conflicts. Don't let it break the team. Let the team fall back and resolve the hidden conflicts. Understand the burnout. Heal the wounds and get back on track. 
• Occasionally, your team will accomplish truly great feats. Remember these moments. Always make these moments memorable.  

A-Teams are agile, yet they are human. Alone they may fall but together they stand tall. A-Teams are about nurture and growth. It's about sharing responsibilities and burdens. It's about knowing, paying attention, being there and co-creating.   

With time, the A-Team will grow fierce, not because they will have new powers or tools, but they have consistently and persistently held onto each other. It will be beautiful journey, one that will be worth remembering. 

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I would like to grab this opportunity to thank the HR-Team of BCPCL for their amazing contribution and feats in the past few months. We are a group of young HR professionals who are relentlessly working to add value to the organization.