Some ideas to stimulate your thinking!

Are you trying to craft a set of norms for your team?

A well-crafted set of team norms is a great way to shape your team’s interactions and collaborations, allowing them to function more effectively and achieve greater impact.

If this is your first time crafting team norms, you might be wondering where to start. The process of crafting them is not complicated. To help you get started, I have listed some team norms for your consideration.

Continue reading “10 Sample Team Norms to Get You Started”

It needs the team’s buy-in!

As a team leader, I want my team to work together effectively. Having a set of team norms is one way to shape how team members interact and work together.

There are several advantages to having a set of intentionally crafted team norms. The best time to do this is when the team is new and malleable. While you will face some challenges in reshaping your team’s norms if it has been around for a while, the benefits are still worth the efforts.

Continue reading “How to Craft an Effective Team Norm”

Clarify expectations!

Team norms exist, whether you like it or not. Any team that works together develops a certain set of norms over time.

These organically developed norms, which are often unspoken, help team members know how to behave and interact with one another. While some norms help the team function more effectively, other norms might erode the team’s effectiveness.

Continue reading “5 Reasons for Having a Written Team Norm”

Helping you lead effectively!

Leading a team is not an easy task; that is if you want to lead effectively!

A leader has many responsibilities: setting direction, formulating strategies, planning, aligning stakeholders, motivating, being a spokesperson, being a change agent, developing team members, etc. Unfortunately, we can’t do all of them well; even a super talented person has his limit.

Continue reading “5 Tips for an Effective Core Team”

It’s not about rewards!

It’s hard to have a good team. I’m not saying it’s rare; I’m saying it takes an effort to nurture and maintain one.

Some of us have been with teams where the leader is only interested in getting the job done; in which we’re mere tools for the leader to achieve his/her goals. Chances are, I would move on as soon as an opportunity comes along.

Continue reading “5 simple ways to show your team you value them”

It’s not that difficult, and you don’t have to do it alone!

One major challenge of all team leaders is to keep their teams motivated. A motivated team would not only give their best but also stay together longer.

I was privileged to be with highly-motivated teams and have led several ones too. But not all teams started that way.

One team that I led was particularly challenging because they were already demoralised when I took over as the team leader!

Continue reading “Five simple ways to motivate your team”

It’s not just about the tasks!

You have probably heard the saying that “Leadership is getting things done.” or, “Leadership is getting things done through other people.”

A good leader, however, needs to realise that leadership is as much about the people as about the tasks. You can only succeed as a leader if your team succeed!

Continue reading “Five things your team need from you, the leader, in order to succeed.”

They affect what your team look like!

The word “Team” means different things to different people.

When I work with team leaders and their teams, I often encounter different notions of what the “team” really is. One team leader may use the word to refer generally to everyone who works under him, while another might refer to a specific group of people.

Even within a team, each member might have a different understanding of what the “team” is; this might even be different from the team leader’s understanding!

Continue reading “5 key decisions you need to make about your team”

It affects how you lead!

Leadership involves making decisions.

Getting a team to move towards fulfilling its goals involves numerous decisions.

But right from the get-go, there is one important decision that a leader needs to make. This decision will shape the leader and the team in a profound way. It will affect how he or she leads, how the team interact with the leader, the culture of the team, etc.

Continue reading “The Most Important Decision of a Leader”

It’s about communicating clearly!

Your team’s (or organisation, church, and even personal) mission gives clarity to your direction, informs your strategies and, together with your purpose, forms the basis of all your critical decisions.

The mission statement spells out your mission so that stakeholders (the team leader, team members, partners, target audience, customers, etc.) knows what you do. For yourself and your team, it serves as a reminder to help you stay on course. For others, it helps to differentiate you from other teams or organisations.

As I work with teams during the past 20 years, I often come across mission statements that are either so vague that they don’t tell me anything useful, or are so generic that they could just as well be the mission statement of another team!

These vague or generic mission statements are practically useless.

Continue reading “Tips for crafting an effective mission statement”