“Building efficient and committed teams leads to successful project and better returns.”

On today’s Coachcast we review the importance of building high performing teams.

Construction projects are complex and require the work of many to complete successfully. Creating high performing teams helps to guarantee your projects will be successful. Building a team requires careful consideration in putting the right people together and helping them succeed.

We all know it takes a team to really be successful but often don’t put sufficient efforts in developing those teams. To grow our success we need to build teams that can complete projects and improve our profits. Just like hiring people who fit your company culture you need team members that fit and work well together.

We all have experienced times when a team just didn’t mesh. I was working with a client on a large project that was struggling. the client didn’t understand why the team was struggling so much, they had one of their top site managers on the project. He had been successful on many projects before and for some reason couldn’t pull this one together. After looking into it we found that this site manager was super successful on smaller projects that didn’t need the help of many team members. His management style was not effective on this larger project that required multiple team members performing different parts of the project. He did not communicate effectively outside of his small group and it created problems on the rest of the project. We moved a different manager into the position and within weeks that project was getting back on track. This could have been avoided had they paid closer attention to the members of the team and how they would work together.

[tweetthis]Building efficient and committed teams leads to successful project and better returns[/tweetthis]

In order to build successful teams we need to work at it. You need to pay attention to the members of the team and their personalities and fit. Make sure that your team members can work together without serious conflict.

Putting the right people together is not the only thing to consider. You need to set your teams up for success as well. That requires making sure there are some guidelines and systems in place to help them work together. Communication is the biggest challenge with any team so make sure you have a system for them to communicate.

Establish a leader for your team and make sure they work well together. Keep an eye on your teams and make changes as necessary. Sometimes just changing one person on a team can change that team from a good team to an exceptional one so be sure to keep monitoring your teams.

When you review your teams see what areas they may need some additional training in and educate the entire team. It’s important that a team understands the basics of each others position and contribution.

Now that you have these great teams working hard at building successful projects don’t undermine when it comes time for recognition. You need to recognize the entire team. You may have a member of that team that did an exceptional job and you can recognize that individual for their efforts but always include the team as part of the recognition. Hopefully your leader does this anyway but make sure that everyone is included when you give out accolades.

Building successful teams that can function efficiently will help you maximize profits on your projects and give you more freedom to work on your business.

Take-Action Items

1. Put effort into developing good teams

2. Set up tools and systems to help them succeed

3. Establish a team leader

4. Educate your teams to build their success

5. Recognize the team as a whole