This article will tell you about the 7 rules of Musketeer Management, which include "all for one and one for all." They are the ideas that make great teams so good at what they do and help them win.
Nothing beats being part of a great team. It is one of the best things in life and one of the best things about going to work. Sadly, though, it is more of a dream than a daily reality for many people. When people don't get along on a team, it can be frustrating, painful, and stressful. And for the organisation that lets these teams exist, it's a waste of talent that doesn't do anything useful.
But that could all change.
Teams can go from being the source of our greatest pain to the source of our greatest joy with just 7 simple ways to work together. This is how.
- Sharing.
Do a sharing audit to figure out how strong your team is. Just write down how many times a team worked together that day. That's what it means to share information, ideas, feelings, values, and needs. Or just being together is enough. Your score will show how well your group works together. The most important part of sharing as a team is sharing goals. If your people don't even agree on the team goal, you probably don't have a team but just a group of people who happen to work together.
2. Asking for Help. Strong teams are strong because the people on them have different qualities that work well together. Sue's a great detail person. John can look at the whole picture. Everyone gets along with Ron. Jill is by herself. ...et cetera. This means that if someone needs help with something they aren't very good at, they can ask someone else on the team. When people are on strong teams, they often ask for help. It's seen as a sign of weakness on bad teams.
- The 3 A's. The 3 A's Audit is another way to find out if you have a team or just a group of people. The 3 A's stand for appreciating, accepting, and recognising. They are what make great teams, and they are the opposite of the 3 C's of bad teams, which are criticising, complaining, and condemning.
Accepting someone means letting them know they are important to the team. To acknowledge someone is to let them know they belong. And showing them you appreciate them means telling them that the team would not be the same without them.
- Putting others first. We all need to know that we matter. When we feel like what we do and who we are is important, we are proud of both.
Warren Bennis, a business administration professor at the University of Southern California, says that his campus is "a dry, crack-infested part of LA." But, he says, every morning is a pleasure because the campus grounds are so clean and well taken care of. Adding: "It's very important to me. But I wonder if the gardeners have been told how important their work is."
Have you recently told a member of your team how much you appreciate them?
- Providing feedback.
How much team members talk to each other is a good way to measure how strong a team is. Team morale is low when people don't talk to each other much. Feedback is an important way for strong teams to talk to each other. It can come in 3 ways:
Anyone on the team can give positive feedback to someone else when they do something that helps the whole team.
Anyone on the team can give someone else helpful feedback to help them do a better job.
- Have asked anyone on the team for feedback when they want someone to help them improve.
When this kind of feedback is given all the time, and it is given well, without anger or criticism, the team can't help but grow and improve.
- Building on the work of others.
Peter Honey, a management consultant, looked into the differences between teams and groups. One of the most important differences he found was that teams build on each other's ideas while groups don't. This kind of listening is also called "convergent listening." Everyone on the team is very interested in what everyone else has to say. They don't just let it go without saying anything about it. Instead, they take something from it and turn it into something useful.
- A nice place to live. Team morale leads to an atmosphere of friendship. Morale is a state of mind that makes people feel good about themselves. When everyone knows their place on the team, it happens on its own. No one is eager to show anyone else what they can do. No one is proud. No one tries to be better than other people.
When this happens, each person's ego goes away and team spirit comes out.
It's not Utopia. It happens at workplaces all over the world. But you have to work for it, and everyone on the team has to be committed. Whether you're a member of the team or the leader of the team, the results are worth the work.
