Over the years teamwork has gained a lot of prominence at the workplace. The basic idea behind constituting teams is to leverage diverse talents and achieve a synergistic effect. Teams are supposed to produce outputs that are far superior in quality and quantity than all the individual efforts taken together.
A team can be called effective only when it leads to synergy. But in reality effective teams are often a far cry. This is because teams lack the right mix of individual talents.
A team can succeed only when drive, creativity, analytical abilities and coordination skills are present in the right measure in the team. Every individual no doubt brings one or more of these skills to the team.
But the right mix is often difficult to achieve. There is usually duplication of certain skills and paucity of others leading to imperfect team performance. To avoid this imbalance an analysis of team strengths should be performed whenever a team is constituted.
At the outset the strengths necessary for the team to succeed should be determined. In general creativity, drive, coordination and analytical abilities are the must have strengths for the success of the team. Creativity involves spotting new opportunities and making the best use of them.
You are lucky if all your team members are creative. But even otherwise a few members capable of stimulating creative thinking can generate a lot of new ideas from the entire team. These people have the ability to develop new perspectives on problems.
Apart from making original contributions themselves they encourage others to stretch their imagination and produce new ideas.
Some people have the necessary drive to lead others towards progress overcoming every hurdle that comes their way. Unflinching focus on the task at hands is their strength. At least a few members in the team should possess this strength to convert plans into reality.
People with drive excel at organizing work. By finding practical solutions to problems they ensure that work gets done smoothly.
Good judgment is another vital component for a team’s success. A team therefore needs some analytical minds to evaluate situations and think about possible choices. People with objective outlook pay attention to detail and prevent costly mistakes from happening.
Some people have a natural ability to bond well with others. They can influence others without exerting pressure. Their skills come in handy to coordinate the activities of the team. They encourage people to come together, share ideas and work towards a common goal. On the whole they promote a good team atmosphere. At least a few members in the team should possess these qualities to develop mutual agreement among members.
Once you determine all the strengths required for successful working of your team, the next step is to circulate this list among your team members. Ask each individual member to mention his areas of strength vis-à-vis the list you have already prepared.
From this information you will know where your team is strong and what strengths are missing. Your team will be able to maximize performance if the entire range of strengths identified by you are present.
If some are lacking, the skills need to be developed or acquired by bringing in new members with the required competence. For instance if coordination skills are absent there will never be any synergy because the team members will be going in different directions. It then becomes important to impart training to the members on coordination skills or bring on board new members with these skills.
On the country there may be duplication of strengths in some areas. This has both advantages and disadvantages. If there are subgroups within the team doing different tasks then two or more people having the same strengths is an advantage. Also when a team member is absent you will know whom to substitute for him. The downside however is that duplication of strengths might lead to personality clashes and differences.
Yet when you know the reason behind the conflicts it becomes easier for you to solve the issue. If there are personality clashes among members you can focus on some other strength they possess and assign them duties in such a way that they need to use them.
Or you can even decide to change the composition of the team in the larger interests of the project on hand.
Correcting omissions of strengths and balancing duplications is the key to building an effective team. Analysis of team strengths provides you with the right data to do just that.
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