Maintaining, Preserving and Managing a Team

Formulas for Team Management

After building the team, it’s important to manage and maintain it in a proper manner. The first formula is to hold sessions for coordinating and organizing the team and during the sessions, try to create an atmosphere in which all members get to talk. Appoint a specific time for each member to express their opinions regarding the way things are done. Such review and expression of opinions will modify the members and they learn how to talk about the project and its issues. All members must have equal right to talk in the sessions. It must be even imperative to talk because talking avoids making various mistakes.

Sometimes, it’s okay to use force but you should always offer solutions.

In the team sessions, all members will know their own tasks, other members’ tasks and the way of interacting with other members. Job description is reviewed among all the members and if there’s a need for modification, everybody will be informed. Now, you have established the basis of teamwork from here so everybody will talk and offer their ideas, and no one can avoid talking because automatically at some point, it will be their turn to talk.

Listening to other members in person will help the team in reaching a common understanding of the goal.

Hold such sessions after the trial stage where the individuals get to know each other and furthermore, they modify their mistaken understandings of the job. From now on, it must be a task for members to update their status for other members. By that, we mean a description of progress status of the tasks given to every individual in the team.

This session and the next ones you hold for coordinating and organizing the team define whether the members of the team:

Firstly, Are good speakers ? Secondly, Are good listeners and respect the opinions of other members of the team ? Thirdly, Criticize each other according to what is discussed by other members and such criticisms will help to improve the performance of the team ? Fourthly, Stay away from work intervention and tension ? Fifthly, Work in the appealing environment of conversation and help each other. according to the job description, even shy people have to describe work issues in weekly and monthly sessions and talk about this stuff In a team, culturalization is a continuous trend. By applying proper management methods, the team members will gradually learn how to talk to each other and let other speak up. One of the issues of team working is that some individuals create a negative atmosphere by violent and tense behaviors and invasive criticisms. Such action won’t help the criticized person and rather it will traumatize him/her and the person in question won’t be able to get back to his her normal state and do his/her job properly. The atmosphere in the team must be open enough for any criticism to be expressed constructively and intimately. Otherwise, an adverse atmosphere takes over the team, the members develop a hostile attitude toward each other and criticisms will be used for retaliation and malice.

If you see the members are being cynical, modify their attitude either by force or through friendly methods, subtle words and humor.

In teamwork, learn the culture of criticizing, i.d. try to identify the problems and find the solutions instead of looking for expressing weaknesses. Begin your work in a positive and constructive atmosphere and not in a criticizing, chaotic and intense one.

Teach the members to continue each other’s speech in the session and avoid burbling. However, if it isn’t possible to do so, one member can take notes and provide a conclusion of conversations so you can concentrate on the topic of the session.

The second formula is that during the trial stage and after that, you can make it possible for the members of the team to spend some quality time outside of the work environment. In trial stage, doing so will help to know the personal characteristics of the individuals and how to divide tasks. A one-day trip will considerably help people to get to know each other’s character. These trips strengthen friendships. In addition, during a trip, the team members get to know each other’s personal characteristics and weaknesses and they try to rectify their weaknesses.

The third formula is that when one individual carries out a successful job, the whole team should celebrate this success. Use any small opportunity to celebrate so you can experience collective happiness in teamwork. The team must celebrate everyone’s success because the credit of any success belongs to the whole team. Such perspective makes the members of the team to mean well for each other. It should be reminded that the philosophy of team building is that the members become each other’s complements and help each other.

The fourth formula is rewarding for new ideas introduced by the members of the team. If you are the team manager, maintain a friendly environment among the members. If you put up a ‘Big Boss’ face and fail to communicate with your team, the team won’t share you their information. You will succeed when you are a good instructor for the team. Give more importance to individuals with better efficiency. Consider a reward for a member who does something which benefits all the members of the team. Define a reward system and consider giving some prizes out of the profit to the performing team members. When an idea is posed, respect copyright, and over time, give credit to the person who has come up with the idea. It’s right that the benefit is for the group, but we always mention who owns the idea which has been valuable for the team and has provided it with profits. It’s not delightful for a member when you give praise to them individually. Appreciate the member in public and in front of other members of the team. By praising a performing team member, you are showing other members the result of greater efforts and they will be persuaded to bring more benefits to the tea.

The fifth formula is to ask the members to give opinions about all the issues of the team, describe their latest status, point out problems and look for solutions through discussion and conversation. When the team is gradually formed over time, you have opportunity to promote the culture of teamwork. Provide opportunity for all members to comment on the solutions even if the solutions were shared. While you will see disagreements among the members, all of them must reflect upon the problems and issues of the team, and eventually, the constructive solutions are those in which resources of the team are considered.

The team must learn to solve its problems based on its assets.

The effective presence in team sessions means you have problem statement, you must go to the sessions with plans and recommendations, and you involve every single one of the members. Following the members’ discussions, you should comment on your tasks while interacting with them. If you are having discussions and you can establish your relation with the members, you will avoid the problems before they weaken the team and make it fall apart.

A discussion-based environment solves the problems and clarifies the job description.

As mentioned before, holding the team sessions is of great importance, and concluding the sessions is one of the main tasks in the team. Someone must follow the decisions and assign the affairs to the members. Someone else must check the way the decisions are conducted and hold the next session if necessary. So, you should always consider one or two persons in the team to coordinate the discussion sessions.

Adding New Members to a Team

The core leadership or the team may decide to add a new member to the team. The best way to do so is to consider this topic in the discussions of the team sessions, talk about it and ask for everyone’s opinion. Don’t suddenly surprise the members of the team by the presence of a new member. You have spent a great deal of time to make a friendly environment and to build trust. It takes time for the new member to be accepted in the team. It is better to prepare a new member’s presence or inclusion through discussion.

Dispute Resolution in a Team

When a dispute happens in the team, first you should find the reason behind it and then allow the affected parties to talk in the team and let other members give their opinions and finally, a collaborative decision (also called group or collective decision) can be made. All members must learn to respect collaborative decisions and accept collaborative agreement. In case of any problem in the team, follow it up quickly, find the dispute and the solution to settle it and be alert that it won’t happen again. Think about the potential arguments and disputes from the beginning of the job and decide how to continue the course if a member left the team