Setting Up Your Team: (How to Make YOU a Team Player)

The strength of the team is each individual member. the strength of each member is the team. - Phil Jackson (Author)

It is sometimes easy to get into thinking the success and failure of a team is all-dependent on the team members other than you. In essence what that means is that you may think that you have attained to the state that the team needs but others need to grow. This is never true. You are a team player too and must play according to the set rules of the team. here is how you can be the right team player. 

Admit your need for help: I generally assume, correctly or otherwise, that the fact that I often look small as compared to my vision is my mind telling me that I need help. Not many people like to admit their inadequacies, interpreting it as weakness. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is strength in vulnerability and the radiance of this strength is often exposed when you let it be influenced by other people in a team.

Make “you” desirable: in team play, the people involved work with each other and not for each other. People do not want to work with an undesirable team head and team players. Make yourself someone people want to be around. Cut anything that limits your ability to get people around you involved with you. Search for things about you that make people draw close to you. Focus all your energy on bringing out these traits.

Look out for like-minds: the whole idea of teamwork is bringing your visions to fruition with the help of others. You need people that can think in line with your visions. There are people I do not dare tell a word about what my visions are all about. There are people on the other hand that I literally search for so I can share my next project with them. The difference between these two classes of people is the fact that one party kills the dream and the other party builds it.

Seek fun-people: do not work with people who show signs of disinterest in your vision or who will not derive pleasure in the process of accomplishing the vision. Everybody you are to form a team with should enjoy the process from start to finish. Success comes faster if everybody derives pleasure from the work. Failure or the inability to reach your goal also is easier to take and more easily seen as temporary if such people are on board with you. 

Setting Up Your Team: (Performance Goals)

I will now write on the unifying factor of performance goals. Goals are the life of team play because they are the aim, the “something” that teams want to achieve in a specified period.

          The unifying factor of performance goals: A performance goal is a goal that specifies the performance required of a team. If this is lacking, progress cannot be measured and if progress is not measured, there is no way the team can say if it is successful or not. So every team needs to set goals to help move it forward. Here are some ways to set performance goals-

       
  Write it down in clear terms. Any performance goal that is not written down is no goal at all. Make sure your performance goal is written in specific, clear, unambiguous terms so every team player can understand and agree without much effort. Many times folks think they understand a thing only to see it in written form and discover the contrary is the case.

-                         Set a time target. All performance goals must have a time tag. Any goal without a time tag is a mere wish. “The vision will …happen at the appointed time. It hurries toward its goal. It won't be a lie. …wait for it. It will certainly happen.” A time tag pushes team players. With a time tag, each player knows that he or she does not have all day.

-                    Plan. Plan what the process will be for your team to reach its target. A plan is a sequential list of activities outlined with high-priority actions coming first. A plan is actually the map you and your team will follow to reach your destination. What decisions and actions should come before others? Outline them all in your plan and follow them.

-                         Review often. A team’s performance goals should be reviewed as often as possible. This makes room for changes that may arise in the course of time. This means the team players have to be versatile enough to accommodate these changes. It is worthy to note that every review should be approved by each team player before it is adopted. You do not want a situation where some team players are ready to move while some others stand back and watch.

Setting Up Your Team: (Common Purpose and Mutual Accountability)

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. - Thomas Paine (Author)

If you have followed the articles on teamwork then you should have started considering how best to put your team in place. Today I shall discuss two other unifying factors. Without these unifying factors every team eventually goes to disarray.

The unifying factor of common purpose: Every team must have a single reason why it is doing what it is doing. Every member of the team must share that ideal. This is the purpose of the team. Myles Monroe in his famous quote said, “If the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.” This applies to teams when team players do know the purpose of the team.

When a common purpose is recognized and understood, a team’s effectiveness sky rockets. It is a sorry thing to see a team with differing purposes. Any sports team with such would easily fall to a team with a better sense of it’s purpose. This applies to businesses, families, classes and the like.

A common purpose is built, first, by clearly communicating it. Indeed a team leader should be able to articulate the intent behind his or her team but beyond one-way articulation, team players should be able to understand and produce performance that clearly shows their understanding. Only when this happens can we say communication has occurred.

Also, team players should be willing to submit every action to the purpose of the team. Contradictory actions that obviously create a division in the team should not be entertained.

The unifying factor of mutual accountability: who is responsible? Whose fault is it? Who is to give account? These are questions all groups have to answer at one point or the other and therein lie where many groups fall short of being teams. Note this; in a team, nobody is accountable, everybody is. It is nobody’s fault; everybody is at fault. Nobody is responsible, it is everyone’s responsibility. The moment this is missed, the cords that bind team play are broken. The whole point behind team-play is mutual accountability. This is when every team player feels as much responsible for the team and its progress as everyone else. You don’t get this in hierarchy where responsibility clearly lies on the people at the helm of command. Every player in team-play learns responsibility. When one falls, all fall. When one is up, all are up, none is left behind. Accountability is demanded from every player at all times. 

Setting Up Your Team (Unifying Factor of Complementary Skills)

A body isn't really a body, unless there is more than one part. It takes many parts to make a single body. - Paul (the apostle)

Having laid the foundation for the need to work with a team in your success journey, I shall go a little further to discuss what I call unifying factors that should bring team members together. These are the factors that bind a group. It is worthy to note that not every gathering is a team. Most organizations are simply groups and nothing near teams. Teams only exist when these unifying factors are in place.

The unifying factor of complementary skills: members of a team have to complement each other in skill. If you have everybody in a group having just one skill, know that you have no team at all. There is practically no way such a group can effectively provide excellent service at all times. Team players should take up roles that they feel they can best fit into. If everyone in a group fits into only one type of mold, play becomes boring. Paul (the apostle) once stated: “Our bodies don't have just one part. They have many parts. Suppose a foot says, “I'm not a hand, and so I'm not part of the body.” Wouldn't the foot still belong to the body? Or suppose an ear says, “I’m not an eye, and so I’m not part of the body.” Wouldn't the ear still belong to the body? If our bodies were only an eye, we couldn't hear a thing. And if they were only an ear, we couldn't smell a thing. But God has put all parts of our body together in the way that he decided is best. A body isn't really a body, unless there is more than one part. It takes many parts to make a single body. That's why the eyes cannot say they don't need the hands. That's also why the head cannot say it doesn't need the feet… If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy”.

As it is with our bodies so it is with effective teams. Every player must have a unique skill to contribute to the progress of the team. Only in using complementary skills to your advantage can your team cover all ends. If an army is hedged in with enemies all around them, the best battle formation is a circle - Only the unifying factor of complementary skills can afford that.

Teamwork: The Assurance for Your Success

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: ...though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A strand of three cords is not easily broken. - Solomon (Third king of Israel)

I will be writing a series of articles on the need for teamwork in your success journey. This is important because ability, strength, capacity, and eventually success is multiplied geometrically when you work with a team as opposed to individuality.

Not many folks think they need help. I am sure you have heard the phrase, “self-made millionaire”, used to describe people that supposedly “made” themselves whatever they became.

Learn to work as a TEAM

Nothing can be further from the truth. None of us is completely self-made. I admit that there is a lot in your success journey that you and you alone can make happen but to say that everything you have become, you self actualized is to over state it.

Every one of us is summary of many other peoples contribution. Someone breastfed and catered for and educated you else you would not have even had a chance in life!

The fact that you need people does not make you a weakling. Interestingly it's an assurance for your strength. Every individual has personal limitations. There are things in your person that serve as limiting factors to your progress. They may have arisen from family and environmental background, societal influence, peer group associations or the media. Irrespective of the source, the main issue is that they exist and a denial of their existence does not eliminate their presence. The only way you can break personal barriers and limitations is by teamwork. You need someone who will walk and work with you, pat you on the back when things go well, encourage you when things don’t go as expected, rebuke you when you do wrong - If you are a person that cannot handle a rebuke but take offence at every instance of it, then your progress will be rather slow.

You need people with the ability of polishing your ideas and expanding them. King Solomon once noted that, “Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other.” The greatest minds need sharpening. Irrespective of how revolutionary your ideas might seem to be, you need people who will do some polishing on them.