Why Getting Staff to Work Together is Vital for Any Business

A business is much more than just the sum of its parts. You can have all of the very best staff, all of the very best tools, and the best ideas and business models – but if it doesn't all come together into one cohesive whole with a strong message, a great drive and single-minded ambition, then it can still fail.

 

One of the most important aspects of this is getting your staff to work together and if they do not, then even if they are each individually incredibly skilled and talented, they still aren't going to produce the best work and will be likely to make mistakes.

 

Getting your staff to work well as a team and as a cohesive unit requires a lot of understanding regarding group dynamics and psychology in general, and it can be a constant struggle. This is where it pays to have a skilled and effective leader in charge, who can help to take charge and lead that team as a unified group.

 

Here’s what that involves.

 

Knowing Your Team

 

One of the most important skills for any manager is emotional intelligence. This is the ability to understand what motivates someone and what affect your language or behavior might have on them (it also describes your ability to understand and control your own emotional response too!).

 

Being an effective manager means knowing which members of the team are likely to get along. It also means recognizing what has gone wrong when those people don’t get on. Not taking sides or pointing the finger, but understanding that sometimes personalities clash, and sometimes people have bad days. Your job is not to punish, but rather to diffuse the situation and prevent it happening again.

 

Reducing Stress

 

One of the most important ways to prevent arguments and even bullying within the workplace is to reduce stress and pressure. If you are trying to squeeze as much productivity as possible out of your team, then you might inadvertently be increasing the likelihood of arguments and other issues breaking out. This is suddenly when it’s a big deal that Jeff likes to take 20-minute cigarette breaks!

 

Let your team work at a more relaxed pace however, and you might find they’re more likely to get on!

 

Avoiding Boredom

 

That said, it’s also important to avoid boredom as this is what can often lead to petty behavior. Make sure that everyone has work to do, but that they are happy doing it with a strong sense of camaraderie.