How do you build a better team despite personality conflicts?

Essentials of effective teamwork

Your team can overcome personality conflicts – and boost productivity – by keeping the following points in mind:

1. You don’t have to be best buddies to work together. Even if you don’t socialize after work, you can still have perfectly productive working relationships with team members.

2. No one’s perfect. Sure, some of your teammates will get on your nerves. But you too may rub people the wrong way. Remind everyone that all members deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect – despite any personality differences.

3. You may have more in common than you think. Even with your differences, you share something significant with co-workers – a stake in the success of your team and company. View colleagues as allies in your quest to achieve goals.

4. Accept, even encourage, differing opinions. The results can generate fresh thinking and give you a new perspective on your job.

5. Effective teamwork takes planning. Don’t let teammates go with the flow and hope for the best. Work with members to set clear-cut goals. Discuss them together, write them down, and distribute copies to the group.

6. Measure progress. Being aware of the team’s accomplishments will inspire everyone to continue working together.

Source: Leadership From the Front Lines. Published by Bureau of Business Practice, 800-243-0876.

Virtual Teams: How do you keep them working together?

It's amazing how long a well-timed team building event works. Once the team meets each other and they share an event, they’ll remember each other and relate better over the long term. They may not even have to get together on a consistent basis if the team building event(s) are meaningful enough.

What is the difference between a group and a team?

Teams:

• are a group of people working towards a common goal
• clarify goals
• identify hurdles that prevent them from reaching their goals and remove them
• forge pathways to get to their goals
• set up performance measurements to get to their goals

Groups:

• have limited techniques to get to goals that may not be set up
• may not resolve relationship problems all that well
• can distract the people involved from achieving their individual goals
• can meander

What is more important to be successful? A great team of players or a team of great players?

You might have a great team that has team-camaraderie, collaboration, determination, and the ability to achieve specific goals, but that is lacking in individual accolades, having experts, or having proven track records.

On the other side, you might have experts in their profession, proven track-records, and individual stars, but might be lacking team spirit, collaboration, and achieving team goals.

I would say a team of great players may not play great together, but playing great together is the key to building success…so a great team of players is more important.