Employees Work Better Together, one of the biggest advantages a business can possess is having a team that works well together. Not only does having a team that works well together ensure a better performance thus making it easier to achieve your business goals and targets, but it also makes the workplace environment a more enjoyable place to be.

Here are some practical ways to help your team work better together and continue to do so in the face of adversity when you are experiencing challenges, change and periods of uncertainty.

Motivation

Research from the field of psychology illustrates that there are three major factors that best enable and facilitate motivation; those factors are autonomy which is the ability to have control over a situation, a sense of belonging and feeling competent which is having the skills and knowledge required to complete the work.

When you are having career discussions with your team members, it is highly advisable that you make sure each individual has some autonomy over their work, feels like a valued part of the team and understands how their role contributes to the business and team performance.

This clarity, understanding and sense of belonging provides a solid foundation for them to work well with others.

Their Values

Every person has a set of values that are governing principles of what is most important to us in our life. What is helpful with values is not that people have them, but the priority order of importance that they place on them and that they drive their behaviour.

If you have a potential conflict within your team, or some people who simply just don’t work well together, it could be due to a clash of values. For example, one team member may highly value achievement and get through the work quickly, whereas another highly values professionalism and would rather take more time with fewer errors and produce something of higher quality.

Both great values to have but they will sometimes have the capacity to clash. It is recommended that your staff undertakes value exercise as part of a team meeting or team day. Building this level of understanding of what drives their teammates’ decisions and behaviors will definitely help them work better together.

Strengths

Research has verified a number of benefits for people who regularly use their strengths. These benefits include experiencing more happiness, confidence, energy and vitality, resilience, work performance, and high engagement and enjoyment from their work.

Strengths can be best defined as things an individual is good at, they find energising and are drawn to activities that use them. Make sure each team member uses and develops their strengths and is aware of the strengths of their teammates.

Encouraging team members to leverage colleagues’ strengths, and help each other to grow and develop, will enable the team to better work together and deliver benefits to both the employees and the business.

The Team’s Purpose

Purpose and knowing your “why” has been a popular topic for some time now, with “purpose” defined as “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists”.

A person’s purpose includes their goals, values, aspirations and objectives. It’s a fantastic idea to collaborate with your team and develop a team purpose.

Organise to facilitate a group discussion and ask your staff questions like, “Why do we get out of bed to do this work?”, “What impact or contribution do we hope to have?”, “Why do we want to make that impact or contribution?”.

Helping your staff members articulate and explore their purpose or their “why” will enhance their motivation, provides clarity and also helps them work more cohesively together.

When your staff members work well together as a team, it can be incredibly satisfying and rewarding and brings great benefits to the employees and the business. Enabling and improving that for others is both a responsibility and a gift.

As their leader, if you set the foundation for motivation, understand each other’s values, ensure your team uses and develop their strengths together, and create a compelling team purpose, then you will have a high-performing team who not only works well together, but will also make a positive contribution to your people and your business.