Why Getting Team to Work Together is Spirited for Any Business

A business is much more than just the sum of its parts. You can have all of the very best staff, all of the very best tools, and the best ideas and business models – but if it doesn't all come together into one cohesive whole with a strong message, a great drive, and single-minded ambition, then it can still fail.

One of the most important aspects of this is getting your staff to work together and if they do not, then even if they are each individually incredibly skilled and talented, they still aren't going to produce the best work and will be likely to make mistakes.

Getting your staff to work well as a team and as a cohesive unit requires a lot of understanding regarding group dynamics and psychology in general, and it can be a constant struggle. This is where it pays to have a skilled and effective leader in charge, who can help to take charge and lead that team as a unified group.

Here’s what that involves.

Knowing Your Team

One of the most important skills for any manager is emotional intelligence. This is the ability to understand what motivates someone and what affects your language or behavior might have on them (it also describes your ability to understand and control your own emotional response too!).

Being an effective manager means knowing which members of the team are likely to get along. It also means recognizing what has gone wrong when those people don’t get on. Not taking sides or pointing the finger, but understanding that sometimes personalities clash, and sometimes people have bad days. Your job is not to punish, but rather to diffuse the situation and prevent it from happening again.

Reducing Stress

One of the most vital ways to avoid arguments and even mistreatment within the workplace is to reduce stress and heaviness. If you are trying to squeeze as much productivity as possible out of your team, then you might inadvertently be increasing the likelihood of arguments and other issues breaking out. This is suddenly when it’s a big deal that Jeff likes to take 20-minute cigarette breaks!

Let your teamwork at a more relaxed pace, however, and you might find they’re more likely to get on!

Avoiding Boredom

That said, it’s also important to avoid boredom as this is what can often lead to petty behavior. Make sure that everyone has work to do, but that they are happy doing it with a strong sense of camaraderie.

The Power of Silence for Leaders

Being a leader means many things, but one of the most important skills for anyone who is in charge of other people is the ability to command a room and to gain attention. You can be the best leader in the world in terms of your strategizing and your people management – but if you can’t get anyone to listen to you, then you won’t be effective!

Many of us think that the best way to gain attention and to look in control is to shout and make a lot of noise. The truth couldn’t be further from this. Why is that? The truth can be silence is the way to control someone.

The biggest difference between the confident and charismatic speakers, versus someone who comes across as nervous and anxious. How can a story have a dynamic ebb and flow if you try to get it all out in moments? And when someone uses silence in this way, they come through as extremely self-confident and in control of the room. Try using more silence the next time you speak to someone, and see just how powerful this can be!