Employers...

Building a Winning Team:To achieve great things, you need a team. Building a winning team requires understanding of these 10 principles. Whatever your goal or project, you need to invest in your team so the end product benefits from more ideas, energy, and perspectives .

1. 1) The Big Picture - By seeing the big picture, effectively communicating the vision to the team, provide needed resources, and hiring the right players, leaders can create a more unified team.
3. 2) The Players - All players have a place where they add the most value. When the right team member is in the right place, everyone benefits. Evaluate each person's skills, discipline, strengths, emotions, and potential.
5. 3) The Challenge -As challenges escalate, the need for teamwork elevates. The type of challenge determines the type of team you require: A new challenge requires a creative team. An ever-changing challenge requires a fast, flexible team. Evaluate who needs direction, support, coaching, or more responsibility. Add members, change leaders to suit the challenge of the moment, and remove ineffective members.
7. 4) The Weak Link - The strength of the team is impacted by its weakest link. When a weak link remains on the team the stronger members identify the weak one, end up helping him, come to resent him, become less effective, and ultimately question their leader's ability. Get rid of the weak link...
9. 5) The Vision - A team with vision becomes focused, energized, and confident. It knows where it's headed and why it's going there. A team should examine its Moral, Intuitive, Directional, Strategic, and Vision. Does the business practice with integrity? Do members stay? Does the team make positive use of anything contributed by previous teams in the organization? Is there a long-range vision to keep the team from being frustrated by short-range failures?
11. 6) The Bad Apple - Rotten attitudes ruin a team. Start with your self. Do you think the team wouldn't be able to get along without you? Do you secretly believe that recent team successes are attributable to your personal efforts, not the work of the whole team? Do you have a hard time admitting you made a mistake? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to keep your attitude in check.
13. 7) Accountability - Teammates must be able to count on each other. Do you perform your work with excellence? Can people depend on you? Do your actions bring the team together or rip it apart?
15. 8) Communication - Effective teams are constantly communicating and listening to each other. From leader to teammates, teammates to leader, there should be consistency, clarity and courtesy. Responsiveness and openness is key.
17. 9) The Leader - The difference between two equally talented teams is leadership. A good leader can bring a team to success, provided work ethic and vision are in place. On a team, one person is always in charge in every situation. Understand that in particular situations, maybe another person would be best suited for leading the team. The person with greater skill, experience, and productivity in a given area is more important to the team in that area. .
19. 10) The Decision - Investing in the team compounds over time. Make the decision to build a team, and decide who among the team are worth developing. Gather the best team possible, pay the price to develop the team, do things together, delegate responsibility and authority, and give credit for success .