4 Ways to Successful Team Building

Employees with team spirit feel more appreciated, work together better and are more productive.

Douglas R. Conant, recently retired President and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, talks about employee engagement in an Inc. Magazine article posted on Business Insider called “How Former Campbell’s Soup Company CEO Doug Conant Pulled the Brand Out From A “Circle of Doom”.

“My observation has been, is, and always will be, that you can’t have an organization that consistently delivers innovations unless you have a high level of engagement and high level of trust.  People just won’t take risks,” he writes.

Team Building is a Challenge!

Teamwork leads to trust and engagement, Conant blogs in his post “Building Effective Teams Isn’t Rocket Science, But It’s Just as Hard” at the Harvard Business Review.  This post is part of the HBR Insight Center: The Secrets of Great Teams should you be interested in learning more.

“Over my 35 years of experience in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, I’ve been part of hundreds, if not thousands, of teams of all shapes and sizes”, writes Conant.  “I’ve led some of these teams as a Fortune 300 CEO, and I’ve been at the bottom of the ladder as a marketing assistant at the start of my career.”

4 Ways to Build Successful Teams

Conant offers four key guiding thoughts that can materially improve your odds of team building success:

1. Hire Highly Effective Team Members. Conant looks for the 4 C’s: competence, character, courage, and collaboration.

2. Focus on Inspiring Trust. He calls this the single most important challenge, noting Steven Covey says in his book, The Speed of Trust, “It is the one thing that changes everything.” Over time, Conant has found that trust, based on competence and character, trumps all other attributes.

3. Encourage Candor. It’s important that teams acknowledges mistakes and celebrate progress in a timely way.

4. Be Clear About Expectations. The greater the clarity of the mission, the greater the odds of success.

Bottom line, Conant believes, “If you fully leverage these four guiding thoughts, you may not build the next-generation space shuttle, but you will most assuredly see your teams soar to new heights.”
How do you help your team soar?  Why are your best teams successful?
Conant is the coauthor, with strategic leadership and learning expert Mette Norgaard, of Touchpoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments. Douglas Conant was recently elected to the Board of Directors for Avon announced by Daily Markets.

Make Team Building an Everyday Priority

Team building takes prioritization and a commitment to building it into the fabric of your culture. Building in easy ways to nurture and encourage employee engagement are critical to your success. At gThankYou, we believe in helping leaders build great workplaces. Download our free resource for building a culture of engagement and appreciation – “Day-to-Day Employee Celebration Calendar” and share with colleagues today!