People management: creating a successful work team

If you manage to be a good leader and manage teams, your company will notice it positively in its results. Remember that people are the main value of an organization, since they are what make it work.

 

Techniques for managing work teams

The keys to people management are: leadership, motivation and communication.

 

 

 

Team leadership

Whatever your leadership style is (it can be authoritarian or have more tendency to a democratic style), you must be clear that leading a team means motivating and influencing the people under your charge to work together towards a common good, both individual and collective benefit (which is usually a goal or goals defined by the company).

 

Here are some tips to work on if you have a leadership role in your company:

• Be charismatic to be able to transmit (communicate) the tasks, objectives and values of your company.
• Have the ability to encourage (motivate) the people in your charge to meet the objectives.
• Know when to delegate tasks and responsibilities. Trust that all members have the ability to perform their tasks correctly.
• Be transparent and committed to the team. They must feel that you are one of them. Transmit confidence.

Keys:

• Stimulating leadership. Inspire, lead by example and develop your team.
• Visualization of common goals. Keep the company’s mission always in the minds of the team members.

 

Motivation of people

Motivation is what makes team members move toward a goal. To know what motivates your employees, you have to detect and understand their individual needs. Each person is motivated by something different (some are driven by economic factors and others need their work to be recognized). So, first stop and think about what you need to give your team to get them started.

 

Tips: 

• Avoid as much as possible to constantly order and control.
• Reward your employees every time they do their job well and recognize their efforts (you can do it financially or with an emotional reward).
• Correct when you see mistakes but always with constructive criticism and advice.
• Detect factors that may be demotivating your team (such as, for example, a climate of labor unrest).

 

Keys:

• Climate of cooperation. Everyone knows his or her role but also takes an interest in the rest of the team to coordinate together.
• Mutual recognition. Among colleagues, not only by the team leader.
• Psychological security. To ensure that team members have no fears (mistakes, not knowing how to do it right…).

Communication in work teams

Communication is the basis for proper personnel management. Without this pillar, the previous two cannot work. As we already know, the idea is that all team members are clear about the final objective and direct all their efforts to achieve it. Then, the leader is responsible for communicating this objective, what functions each one has, what tasks they have assigned…

 

Tips to improve communication:

• Communication must be constant on a day-to-day basis (e.g., regularly remind yourself of the objectives to be achieved so that the team does not get sidetracked).
• Listen to your team and take their opinion into account.
• Organize discussions to get to know the different points of view, understand them and come up with new solutions together.
• Make sure that messages are understood correctly.
• Think about which channels you are going to use to communicate (sometimes an email will be enough, but sometimes a meeting may be more effective).
• Use clear and direct language.

 

Keys: 

• Open communication. Members receive and give information, listen to and respect their peers.
• Creativity. It should be encouraged so that they are capable of generating intelligent and innovative solutions to new challenges.
• Participatory attitude. All members should participate equally in the creation of solutions.

 

Group dynamics: essential for team cohesion

Within the group dynamics we find Team Building, an activity whose objective is to help cohesion in work teams, improving motivation and communication.

Some memories in our Team Building:

 

 

The main objective of this business technique is to improve and build relationships among the members of the group, so that they are able to work as a team. It seeks to build trust among workers, motivate them and resolve possible conflicts or stressful situations.

However, there are different Team Building activities depending on the objective you wish to achieve:

• Get to know each other better or integrate a new member of the group.
• Encourage creativity. For example, organize a scape room so that they are able to overcome challenges in an innovative way, arriving at a common solution.
• Create emotional bonds. In this case, it is recommended to carry out sports activities (paintball, soccer games…).
• Relax and disconnect. From excursions to the mountains to going out to dinner together.
• Improve the work environment in the office. You can gather your team in the same place where you work and celebrate, for example, that a business objective has been reached.

 

Conclusion

In SEB Creativos we take very seriously the training and continuous improvement in all our departments, both web development and digital marketing as well as management and administration. In our case we have the direction of Fernando our CEO who always tries to improve his skills as a team leader, not only training himself but also putting into practice his knowledge and setting an example. This has led us to improve the performance of the entire agency at both personal and group levels.

“I’ll let you in on a secret; at the agency once a month we hold a Team Building (paid for by the company) in which a random member of the team decides what activity we will do, whether it be some sport, outdoor activities such as hiking, visiting some leisure place, or just going out to dinner at a restaurant.”

“It’s the most anticipated day of the month.”