In this day and age, optimizing team performance is a business necessity, but realities such as diversity and global partnerships often pose challenges for effective teaming. Following are 10 steps to transcending race and culture difference and building high performing diverse teams.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: One business quarter
Here's How:
- Create a compelling and unifying mission for your team.
It doesn't matter if this is a temporary project team or an ongoing team of employees, rally them around a compelling mission statement they will understand, buy into, and feel motivated to achieve. Research studies have shown that a team divided will join together around a common purpose - make them feel it's them against the world/a competitor/etc. - Assign clear roles to the right talent and communiate interdependencies
Assigning clear roles and communicating interdependencies accomplishes a few things - it eliminates any confusion about who's doing what, communicates the expectation that certain roles work together, and rewards individuals with unique strengths with the recognition they deserve. Help the team to understand the value that each team member brings to the table. - Ensure the team has adequate resources
There's nothing more effective at dividing a team than inadequate resources. Solicit the team's input regarding the resources they will need in advance, and check in periodically to ensure they have adequate support from materials, equipment and staff so that they can maintain focus on getting their job done and their goal met. - Always have a strategy, a plan
Encourage diversity of thought and solicit input in the planning stages. Role model strategic thinking and engage the team in the early stages of planning. In doing so, you teach them valuable skills, convey the message that diversity of thought is valuable to a team, get buy-in early in the project/team's life, and minimize dissent about how to do what you're doing going forward. - Mind your management style
Once the team is ready to go, let them get to their work and remember your role is to facilitate the work getting done. Too many managers get in the way of the work by playing favorites, micromanaging, or simply by not being available at all. Coach your team, when the going gets tough, remember to motivate them, revisit your mission/your goal and make sure the team remains motivated. - Resolve conflict immediately
Don't wait for problems to blow up. Employee relations issues left to fester, only end up affecting the entire team - reducing productivity, synergy, and lowering morale. - Be sure to both give [u]and[/u] solicit both constructive and positive feedback to [u]all[/u] staff regularly
Many managers only intervene when there's a problem. Give feedback on a regular basis. Giving only constructive feedback ignores the progress other employees are making and misses a valuable opportunity to resolve errors before they become problems. Check in with diverse staff to ensure that they feel part of the team. Ask what you can do differently. - Develop their skills
Identify development needs, whether technical or soft, and address them quickly. Then, be sure to hold employees accountable for applying what they've learned. Provide relevant intercultural communication, conflict resolution and other types of competency based training as appropriate. - Role model team behavior
Just about every time I've been asked to intervene on a team that's not working well together, I've found that the team is only modeling after the behavior of the boss. You set the tone and the expectations by what you do and say. How you treat diverse members of the team will be noticed and emulated. Whether you are accepting of and engage all team members equally will be noticed. The result of failing to do so will result in discord. - Celebrate wins as a team
It's easy in the fast-paced, competitive environment of today's business world to move from one thing to the next without skipping a beat, but make sure to celebrate wins as a team. Communicate and celebrate the value that each team member has brought to the successful conclusion of the project or effort.