Steve Jobs said, "Great things in business are never done by one person; they're done by a team of people." A proven way to build a successful business team is to assemble a group with a good mix of knowledge and expertise and different but complementary personalities.
Shirlinia Jacobs, General Manager: Channel Sales, and Marilyn Patterson, Demand Generation Manager, Tarsus Distribution
Team dynamics are those psychological forces influencing the direction of your team’s performance and behaviour. Those dynamics are created by the personalities involved and how they interact. Understanding a team’s dynamics can alert you to how successful it might be. But how do you get to know the strengths and personalities of existing team members to create an effective dynamic?
The first step is to create a team that understands the organisation’s vision and where it is going. At Tarsus Distribution, this begins with the forming stage, followed by the storming stage, then the norming stage, and finally the performing stage. This is modelled on Bruce Tuckman’s stages of team development.
Once the team understands its objectives, its direction, and what strengths are needed in which areas, the dynamics begin to settle, the introverts and extroverts work out where they belong and what they do best, and they can start to build solutions for customers.
Consistent engagement is key
Give everyone a chance to shine
Use personality tests
Engage in role-play
It’s everyone’s job
Employees who feel connected to their organisation work harder, stay longer and motivate others to do the same. Team engagement affects just about every important aspect of your organisation, including profitability, revenue, customer experience, employee turnover, and more. We have one-on-one weekly and monthly meetings with managers in which we engage, let people talk, and allow them to come up with ideas. Follow-ups and bi-directional feedback are important.
At Google, every person attending a meeting is given a chance to read through the minutes of the previous session and to reflect quietly before the meeting starts. This ensures that introverts have the chance to settle and feel comfortable offering their opinions and ideas. It helps to avoid having the introverts always deferring to the “experts”.
Now that so many meetings take place virtually, it’s more important than ever to ensure that every member of the team has an opportunity to contribute and be heard. Only when you give everyone a chance to talk do you realise what people's strengths and ideas are. Once they feel they are participating, you can move to the next step, which is accountability. We believe that is how personal relationships are developed, and how organisations help their people to get to where they want to go in life.
On digital platforms, we request that team members turn on their video, whenever possible. This helps to encourage participation and ensures that people do not spend meetings answering their emails. We have found that it is important to request every team member to show their face and to make a contribution.
Businesses and companies find personality assessments helpful – they can help them build successful and productive teams. They assist the organisation in identifying if the person is a good fit for the position and whether they have the type of personality and mindset suited to the job at hand. It also helps employers to understand what that person’s response might be to a task that is uncomfortable for them, or to circumstances that are challenging.
Sales skills can be taught, and role-playing is a great way to improve them. Role-playing creates a safe environment for members of a team to build confidence in their day-to-day roles, it helps employees develop creative problem-solving skills, and to develop good listening skills through role-playing.
Moreover, it helps the less extroverted to overcome their fears about engaging with customers. Giving a sales presentation can be incredibly stressful. Having a script ensures you are giving the presentation with a well-researched grounding. This makes the presentation much less stressful, helping you come across as more relaxed, well-informed, and well-prepared.
Developing a strong team dynamic is essential. Team dynamics in the workplace are important because they impact creativity, productivity and effectiveness. Since group work is integral to organisations, improving group dynamics can lead to better work outcomes, customer satisfaction and an improved bottom line. Importantly, empathy plays a key role. Coupled with good communication, it can diffuse situations and stop misunderstandings from boiling up into full-scale conflict.
Positive team dynamics can bring a lot of benefits to your business, leveraging the full potential of your employees. A team operating to its fullest potential is more focused, clearer on its objectives, and works better together. When individual team members feel more valued in a supportive environment, the payback is greater commitment and superior loyalty.
What to know more about team dynamics? Click here to read a great article we found on why it makes sense.