How to Build a Successful Team

Whether you coach a sports team or manage a team at work, building a successful one can be difficult. Much of a team's success is reliant upon a person's ability to lead and manage team members effectively. To do this, you'll need the right tactics, strategies, and personality for the job. Luckily, if you select the right people, work on your leadership, and actively aim to improve the team once it's formed, you can build a winning team.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Selecting Team Members

1
Interview team members. Get to know each person and their background, experience, and abilities. Try to evaluate their temperament so that you have a full picture of who they are. Many times, people's skills are different than what's on paper, so doing a trial run with them may be effective. To do this, have a prospective team member work on a project or do a routine that's closely related to what they would be doing if they joined the team.
- You should be able to see their abilities and get a good sense of their experience without referring to their references.
- To learn more about interviewing skills, go to Interview Someone.
2
Choose members who have chemistry. Team members should be able to get along and build bonds. Selecting a team with chemistry involves choosing people that can compliment each other. Don't pick team members who have the same strengths and weaknesses. Before selecting anyone, think of how you're going to use your team member's talents to achieve your end goal. To make sure that people get along, select people who have similar values and goals.^{[1]XResearch source}
- For example, if you're developing an app, your programmers and designers will need to work together so that the app's design can also serve functional purposes.
- Be wary of choosing talent over personality. A toxic personality can impede progress. In some cases, it's better to stick with someone who's easy to work with.
- Team members should encourage each other to be successful and build on one another's successes.
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3
Choose a diverse team. Building a diverse team allows more perspectives and introduces new and unique ideas. Make sure that you choose people from varying backgrounds, ethnicities, and perspectives. This will help your team approach problems from different viewpoints and can contribute to driving success and innovation on your team.^{[2]XResearch source}
- Having a diverse team enhances creativity and group problem solving.^{[3]XResearch source}
- Conflict can help improve unity by making the team members challenge one another. It may help remove apathy, get people invested, and lead to making better decision making.^{[4]XTrustworthy SourceHarvard Business ReviewOnline and print journal covering topics related to business management practicesGo to source}
4
Choose team members who can get the job done. When building a team, you must ensure that your members have the right skills and experience to be successful and complete the end goal. This means selecting team members who can fulfill their responsibilities. Require team members to get references and talk to past coaches or supervisors. Get a full evaluation of a person's ability before making them a part of your team.
- If key team members don't have the appropriate skills or experience, it could hinder a portion of your project, thus delaying progress.
5
Establish cohesive goals and values. While having a diverse team with different perspectives can drive success, it's important that all your team members can agree on your team's goals and values. When team members join, make it a point to establish the goals and values. Let team members know what their work is going towards, what the results should be, and how the team should work to achieve those goals.^{[5]XResearch source}
- A team without an identifiable goal can work against each other and delay progress.
- Examples of team goals can include being more productive this quarter than the last quarter, winning a championship, or being victorious in an important match.
- Some examples of good team values include reliability, positivity, transparency, collaboration, and tolerance.^{[6]XResearch source}
6
Designate roles and expectations. Each member should continually strive to accomplish the team's overall goal, but should also be concentrated on a specific part of the project. While designated positions should be specific, it's also important to allow members to grow within their respective roles. Sometimes duties and responsibilities can be merged or transferred to another person more capable on the team.^{[7]XResearch source} This requires close attention to the development and growth of individual team member skills.
- On a sports team, this could mean designating who is on offense or defense and which role each member has on the team.
- You may need to change roles or help support one role on the team.
- When transferring someone from one role to another, say something like, "You're doing a good job, but I think you'd be better at coding than design. I'm moving you over to Eric's team because I think you'd do well there. What do you think?"
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Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Being an Effective Leader

1
Determine your strengths and weaknesses. Being an effective leader means realizing where you excel and where you could use improvement. For instance, you could be excellent at pushing deadlines and motivating employees, but poor at strategic planning. Make a concerted effort each day to work on the things that you are weak on.
- Talk to your team managers to get an honest evaluation of your leadership. They may see problems in your style that you're unaware of. This is known as participative feedback.^{[8]XResearch source}
- Put the feedback into action. For instance, if your weakness is organizing, take at least an hour each day to organize your space.
- If your project is falling behind or your team is failing, you must take a step back, and self-assesses if you're a good leader.
2
Build respect and trust on the team. Being the leader does not mean that all the members will immediately like or respect you. Many times you must gain their trust and admiration with your knowledge, experience, and ability to settle conflict within the team.^{[9]XResearch source} Get respect from your team members by showing your value and expertise. Resolve issues quickly and be knowledgeable in all aspects of what the team is doing.
- A good leader will help fill in the gaps when the team is running behind.
- Be sure to set the example on the team. If you have bad habits, chances are your team will replicate your behavior.
3
Improve your communication. As the leader of the team, you'll need to communicate to each member efficiently and clearly. Encourage transparency so that your team members tell the truth, then partake in active listening. Stop and actually listen to what team members have to say. They could be pointing out something that you've missed or they could shed light on things from their perspective.
- Talk to your team members and keep regular communication with them. Reflect on what they say, and think of solutions to their concerns or comments.
- Alternatively, stay silent and listen to what your team has to say. They may end up revealing more than they intended about their feelings.
- Get to know members' habits and tendencies so that you can use it to the team's advantage. This may also help you guide their development.^{[10]XResearch source}
4
Motivate your team. Drive your team towards success by giving them the encouragement that they need to do well. Motivation can come in the form of being inspired by your abilities, or by being rewarded for good work. Lead by example and show them that you're a capable leader who cares about them. Figure out what team members value the most and use it to motivate them.
- You can encourage someone by saying something like, "You did a great job blocking that game Darius. Keep up the good work, I'm seeing some serious improvement!"
- Some team members want positive reinforcement while others prefer monetary incentives.^{[11]XResearch source}
5
Set clear expectations. Your team must know what's expected of them to stay productive and work towards an end goal. Before you allow your team to start working or practicing, sit each team member down and tell them what you expect from them. You will also need to set the expectation for behavior and values within the team.^{[12]XResearch source}
- For instance, if you're leading a sales team, you can say: "We want to make sales and meet our quotas, but we also need to maintain integrity. Never lie or mislead customers, rather, persuade them towards making a purchase."
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Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Improving The Team

1
Use team building exercises. Team building exercises can help improve communication between members and help solidify relationships within the team. Employ team building exercises if you find your team in constant unproductive conflict. Make sure that your team building exercises are not competitive and unify the team. Also, make sure that you do them on a weekly or monthly basis to be the most effective.^{[13]XResearch source}
- An example of a team building exercise is back-to-back drawing. This is where two people stand back to back. One person describes an image while the other member draws it. This teaches team members to work together to solve a problem.
2
Encourage the team to settle problems internally. When members go to a superior about a problem or conflict, it can create distrust within the team. Instead of escalating problems, encourage the team to try to communicate with one another and solve problems by themselves. If a team member comes to you with a problem, suggest that they try to talk to the team member they are having problems with. When conflict arises and it doesn't devolve into destructive behavior it's known as constructive discord and can actually help the team.^{[14]XResearch source}
- You can say something like, "Eric, I appreciate you bringing this to me, but you should talk to Sharon about it first. I'm sure there's a good explanation for her actions."
- If there is a disagreement between team members, it's good to meditate and get to the bottom of the conflict before it gets emotional or personal.
3
Have weekly team meetings. While having too many meetings can cost unnecessary time and money, weekly meetings can help bring your team together. This is particularly the case if everyone's jobs are different and members don't interact often. To have an effective meeting, make sure you create an agenda of items that you'll talk about beforehand. Restrict the session's length to be long enough to cover the essentials, and always make them goal oriented.^{[15]XResearch source}
- Don't get bogged down in minute details or unnecessary things.
- If you need to speak to a member specifically about something, save it for after the meeting.
4
Coach team members who are underperforming. Take your underperforming team members aside to talk to them about their performance gap. A sign of a good leader is one that's able to identify issues in someone's working habits and come up with solutions to remedy them. Instead of dismissing the person from the team, explain the areas that you think they are underperforming in and think of tactics and strategies to improve their performance. Ask the team member if they understand what you talked about and follow it up with positive reinforcement for the things that they do well.^{[16]XResearch source}
- Concentrate on the areas in which the person is underperforming, not their character or personality.
- You can say something like, "Jerry, I want to talk to you about your sales numbers. You haven't been meeting the quota for two weeks. I've looked at your call sheet and noticed that you're not making as many calls as you should per day, which might explain the drop in sales. Do you think that this could be your problem?"
5
Dismiss members who violate the rules or chronically underperform. Serious misconduct like harassment, assault, or theft should are grounds for immediate dismissal.^{[17]XResearch source} Those that chronically underperform should also be dismissed if their behavior is persistent and shows no sign of improvement. Having an underperforming member could hinder your team from reaching their goals and have an affect on the entire team. Sit the person down privately and talk to them about their performance.
- Before you dismiss anyone, talk to them first and allow them to improve.
- Be sure read your team's rules regarding procedure. Some companies require verbal or written warnings before a dismissal can take place.^{[18]XResearch source}
- When dismissing someone, focus on the facts and their lackluster performance and not the individual or their personal habits.
- If you aren't in the position to fire anyone, talk to a supervisor about the misconduct or underperformance.
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Expert Q&A

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Question
How would you encourage people to join your team?
Gene Linetsky, MS
Startup Founder & Engineering Director
Gene Linetsky is a startup founder and software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has worked in the computer science industry for over 30 years, with experience spanning staffing and management of engineering teams, game design and development, communication protocols, sales automation, and more. He has also been involved in incorporating computer science curriculum into high schools, developing educational software, and was a co-author on a computer science textbook. He is currently the Director of Engineering at Poynt, a technology company building smart Point-of-Sale terminals for businesses.
Gene Linetsky, MS
Startup Founder & Engineering Director
Expert Answer
Show potential employees how they can benefit from working for you. Make it clear to talented applicants that they can use your position to achieve their ultimate career goals. Position the job as if it's custom made for that particular candidate.
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I am the officer in charge of the registry of my ministry and I have a team of some 10 officers working under my responsibility. The state of work at the registry is not satisfactory to my organisation. How do I proceed?
Community Answer
Determine the goals of your organization and what they expect from your team. Once you get the goals and benchmarks that they expect, come up with a comprehensive plan to meet those goals. It may mean implementing a new strategy or tactic or changing the organizational structure.
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How can I attract people to join my team?
Community Answer
You can put advertisements in newspapers, publish posters and distribute cards about your team.
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