Creating a Winning Team

With modern organizations moving away from the traditional hierarchical structure to embracing more project-based operations, working in teams is no longer an alternative choice for employees. It is an essential consideration to ensure successful business outcomes.

Think about the permanent and function-based teams in your company (for example, HR, sales, operations, marketing, warehousing, and finance), as well as temporary teams formed for specific tasks or projects. What is your overall experience working in a team environment? Who has been brought on board to enhance your team performance? What factors do you consider as critical for a winning team? How do you handle the dynamics associated with teamwork? How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the teams you have worked with? In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, what has been your experience working with teams, particularly in the virtual context?

These questions are important to consider as work teams become prevalent in today’s workplace.

In Optimizing Human Capital Development: A Distributor’s Guide to Building a Sustainable Competitive Advantage through Talent Strategy, my coauthors and I identified five key components that affect team effectiveness: goal clarity, task structure, group composition, team functioning, and performance norms. These success factors matter in both physical and virtual environments.

• Goal clarity—Are the team’s goals clear? How well does each member understand the team goals and their importance? How well do team members understand the expectations placed upon them toward achieving the goals?
• Task structure—How is the team’s work designed and divided among the different members? To what degree are team tasks structured to promote effective interactions among different members? How much autonomy does each team member have to complete the assigned task?
• Group composition—Who are the members of the team, in terms of age, education, gender, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities?
• Team functioning—How well do team members communicate with one another? What is the overall effectiveness of the interpersonal relationships among team members? What holds the team together?
• Performance norms—What are team members’ beliefs about how the teamwork should be performed and what constitutes acceptable performance? How is each team member held accountable for his/her assigned tasks? What are the rewards/consequences for performance outcomes?

Research shows that having an all-star team does not guarantee project success. To succeed, you will need to bring the three types of people on board.

First, you need people who are comfortable with uncertainty. These types of individuals will remain curious and focused even when the project is far from the end goal.

Second, you need people who can create structure within chaos and take action. Individuals with this ability will drive a team forward even when circumstances change.

Finally, you need people who have a combination of three capabilities: divergent thinking (the ability to connect seemingly unrelated information and ideas); convergent action (the ability to execute on ideas and create something tangible); and influential communication (the ability to share knowledge in a coherent, compelling way). Many people are capable in one or two areas, but to create a winning project, you need a team of members who possess all of these competencies.

Now that you know the key ingredients of a winning team, be intentional with whom you bring on board. And, for individual employees who are members of a team, make a consistent effort to improve your teamwork skills. The benefits of doing so will be many. You will enhance team performance, improve team cohesiveness, and be more satisfied with your job.

Dr. Jia Wang is a professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on international and national human resource development, organization crisis management, and learning within organizations.