Let’s face it, team building is a bit of a buzzword. Hearing it might conjure images of corporate employees going through the motions of some exercise, but there is a whole lot more to it than that.
Defined one way, it’s simply the effort of enhancing social relations and defining roles within teams, with the goal of streamlining collaborative tasks.
At the KnowHow Group, we tend to boil it down even further. Team building is just about having good relationships. It’s about finding the right people, forming the right bonds and letting this web of relationships coalesce into something valuable.
A recent guest on the Get Invested Podcast, Ronsley Vaz, expanded on this point: ‘Team building has been one of my greatest strengths, and I think my success can be credited to a few simple things’.
- Respecting people. Demonstrating to those around you how much you care about them.
- Believing in people. You’d be amazed how great people can be if they just have someone backing them.
- Always trying to do the right thing. Easy to say, hard to practise. But if you demonstrate your integrity to others around you, you’ll build trust and loyalty.
These things all probably sound obvious, but it’s amazing how few people practise them consistently. It doesn’t work to do it selectively, you’ve lost your authenticity if you only respect or have faith in people you believe you can benefit from. Try to add value to those around you without a transactional perspective in mind and you will be paid back in the form of successful lasting relationships built around honesty, mutual trust and respect.
You may be thinking, why does this matter to me?
If you are not a manager or coach, you may think that team building doesn’t really apply to you, per se. But if you assume this, you’d probably be wrong. When you strip away the excess, team building is little more than learning how to have a successful connection with other people (and in some cases, doing this in tandem with groups).
In Ronsley’s case, successful team building means fostering good relationships and setting the tone for how people interact at Amplify. For someone else, this could mean developing the right relationships to start a private practice, change careers, win more games or just to be a happier person. At the KnowHow Group, one of our fundamental pieces of advice to people is to get the right team in place to help you approach investing. Without this piece, your strategy (no matter how good) won’t garner the results you desire.
So, team building is paramount, what else can be done? Here are a few parting thoughts on successful team building:
- Get comfortable in your own skin. One way to forge good relationships is through authenticity. People can usually sniff out artifice, so make sure what you’re doing aligns with your values, be reflective and meditate on what you want.
- Become a better communicator. So much conflict in the world comes from poor communication. In order to garner a network of supportive people, for whatever your goal is, you may have to get better at communicating. Be an active listener, paraphrase things back to people to ensure it’s clear, and be present.
- Make the hiring process a group effort. In an organisational context, put all your team members into the process of finding new people. This fosters collaboration and makes people feel like their voice matters. In a personal context, have people meet your family (if appropriate) – the goal is a human connection, so find a way to make it happen.
At the end of the day, team building is highly contextual, but we’re firm believers that the relationships that underpin successful teams are also the relationships that underpin almost every success in life. Reframe how you think about relationships and starting building them more effectively today.
Check out our entire conversation here!
