A Few Tips for Executives on How To Develop a High Functioning Team

As an executive you can't do it all and even if you tried you would fail miserably. The very nature of your role in business and society is to manage groups. Years of experience and education culminate into keen insight into human nature that helps others succeed might be your forte. Inspiring others to work together works best when you learn to develop and manage high functioning teams. 

Below are a few things learned over the years.

1.  Define Your Objectives: Have a clear  purpose and goal (s) for a team. Without a sense of direction any other activity will likely be misguided.

2. Determine the Type of Skills, Abilities, and Personalities Needed: Personality as well as abilities and skills make a big difference in the functional nature of group work as well as the capacity to meet objectives based on actualized skill sets.

Building products the old fashion
way. With team talent!

3. Recruit Your Team: Recruit specifically for needs of the team. If the team is designed to last a long time then one must consider developing one in which there is a right mix of people, personality and diverse skills. If the team time is shorter in duration there might be a slightly different task oriented approach. 

4. Define Tasks and Activities: Breaking down the steps to achieve targets is important and knowing who is responsible for each task is important. If you recruited the right people, this process becomes easier.

5. Implement Plans and Verify Results: The implementation process and subsequent outcome of that process is important. Having a realistic timeframe and valid measures of success help to determine when an objective or mission has been completed. 

6. Find a New Purpose or Dissipate: All teams must find meaning or they should dissipate so the resources can be used on other business or societal needs.