Do you know that, as per a study by Gallup, highly-engaged teams show 21% greater profitability than others? This is a significant figure to consider when your business needs to grow, perform and adapt to change. However, building successful teams takes more than just clear goals and motivation. Even your strong team-building strategies could fail if your teams are not on the same page from the start.
Imagine you land your dream client with a large project. The work begins, but your team is not aligned. No one has any clue of who will handle what, communication is patchy, and trust is low. This can quickly lead to missed deadlines, unhappy employees and a frustrated HR department.
We all know that teamwork matters, but it’s a constant struggle to build teams in a way that stays aligned and delivers results. That’s where the real problem lies.
Use this short guide to learn five powerful tips to help your teams collaborate better, communicate openly, and hit shared goals.
But first, let’s understand why team building is so important.
Why team building is crucial for workplace success
What comes to your mind when you think of the word “team building?”
It’s not just about feel-good exercises or bonding games.
These activities are a small part of a much larger process that influences how well your teams perform.
As a leader or manager, it’s your responsibility to create a group of skilled individuals who trust one another, communicate openly, and support each other while working towards a common purpose.
According to the Institute for Corporate Productivity, adopting a collaborative working culture can increase your organization’s productivity by up to five times.
When team members trust each other:
- Goals become clear.
- Decisions are made faster.
- Innovation flows more easily.
- Conflicts are resolved faster.
- There is a high employee morale.
- Employee retention rate and productivity go up.
That kind of team is necessary to move your business forward.
With that foundation in place, let’s learn some of the best tips for effective teamwork in an organization.
Top five tips for successful team management
Whether you’re leading a small startup team or managing multiple departments, these five proven tips for effective teamwork will help you drive long-term success.
Tip 1: Communicate effectively
A study by Salesforce found that 86% of employees and executives feel a lack of communication is the root cause of workplace failures.
How does it start and snowball in the workplace?
It often begins when team members don’t clearly understand the goals, timelines, or their individual responsibilities. Communication breakdowns also occur mid-project or near deadlines, where the team fails to understand customer feedback on feature bugs or suggestions for improvements.
The best way to address such an information gap is to create a culture of continuous feedback.
It’s a healthy way of creating an internal communication channel between the management and employees to:
- Identify the reasons for communication gaps
- Build a culture of openness
- Help each other understand customer viewpoints better
How to build a culture of continuous feedback?
- Create a safe environment
- Encourage transparent feedback
- Train leaders on how to ensure that each feedback is respectful and actionable
Use tools that can help you add real-time feedback into your daily meetings to act on hidden challenges before they affect performance.
Tip 2: Set clear goals and expectations
Imagine a team preparing for a product launch. One team member believes they’re handling outreach, while another assumes the same responsibility. Such situations always lead to confusion, overlap or gaps in delivery. But if everyone knows their individual role, the timeline and the shared objective, things run much smoother.
According to Gallup, only 50% of employees know what’s expected of them at work. That means half the workforce might be guessing what to do next. And when goals are unclear, it often leads to missed deadlines, duplicated efforts, or low engagement.
One of the best ways to align team and organizational goals is through strategic OKR planning.
OKR stands for objective key results that take into account two elements:
- Goals: direction towards which the company aims to move
- Metrics: quantitative values that indicate the progress made on the objective front
For instance, if the objective is to increase subscriptions, the key results for two different teams can be as follows:
- For the sales team: contact 10 new leads every week
- For the development team: improve user interface satisfaction score by 20% based on in-app survey responses
You can start small. Write down team goals, break them into simple steps, and explain who is doing what.
Alternatively, you can use an OKR software natively developed for Jira to set, track, and achieve objective key results within Jira. Now, for all team members, their respective goals are clear and transparent to everyone. Plus, it gives you an edge to automatically track the OKRs in real-time from the dashboard and take prompt actions to avoid unwanted delays in progress with ease.
Tip 3: Foster trust among team members
Building successful teams becomes significantly more achievable when there’s a strong foundation of trust among team members.
A global study by Edelman found that one in three employees does not trust their employer. That clearly states how trust among team members is one of the strongest foundations for building high-performing teams.
Trust is fostered in a conducive environment where people feel safe to speak up, share ideas, and take ownership of their work. Without trust, even the most skilled individuals are likely to disengage and limit their contribution.
How to create such a conducive environment?
Start with transparency.
That means regularly sharing updates, not just when things go well, but also when they don’t.
For instance, when a client gives negative feedback, a transparent leader brings the team together to discuss the issue and find solutions, instead of shielding them from the problem.
Make it a point to recognize junior employees who consistently contribute but may go unnoticed. Even a small “Thank You” can completely uplift their morale and engagement.
However, as the team grows, keeping everyone in the loop manually becomes hard. That’s when tailored tools can be extremely helpful to celebrate every small achievement and guide through different challenges in real-time.
Tip 4: Embrace diversity and inclusion
What makes a team really strong? Is it about everyone syncing with the same idea, or is it about including people who see the world differently? It’s about building successful teams through diversity and inclusion.
When a team is full of individuals from different backgrounds with unique areas of expertise, you approach every challenge through the lens of fresh ideas for better problem-solving. In fact, research by McKinsey & Company shows that companies promoting ethnic and cultural diversity in teams are 36% more likely to outperform their peers in profitability.
But more than diversity, you need inclusion. That means team members should feel valued for who they are. That’s when they show more engagement, loyalty, and contribution.
To foster diversity and inclusion, consider applying the following tips:
- Encourage cross-functional teams to share ideas openly, without fear of judgment
- Celebrate a variety of cultural festivals and traditions to promote inclusivity
- Organize short workshops or awareness sessions on identifying and addressing unconscious bias
- Focus on measuring inclusion to assess whether employees feel valued, respected, and heard
If you want your team to reach its full potential, this is one step you can’t afford to miss.
Tip 5: Provide opportunities for development
According to a LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development.
Why is learning and development such a big deal for employees?
That’s because employees want to build new skills not just for better pay, but to grow, stay challenged, and contribute meaningfully.
Now, development doesn’t always mean expensive training programs. It could be as simple as giving someone a new responsibility, assigning a mentor, offering feedback or even allowing job rotations. These small steps can help employees build confidence, try new things and discover their strengths. But note that development is not a one-time event; it’s a continuous part of building successful teams.
Let’s say someone on your team is good at organizing but has never led a project. You could let them take the lead on a small assignment. With the right support, they learn and grow, and you get a stronger team member in the process.
Providing opportunities for development also shows your team that you care about their future. And when people feel supported, they give their best in return.
Conclusion
Building successful teams is not just about putting skilled people together; it’s about creating the right environment for them to thrive. Successful team management is built on the foundation of clear communication and mutual trust, with everyone working toward a shared goal. To truly support growth, organizations need to provide ongoing development opportunities through building a culture of a continuous feedback system. However, when the team grows, handling these tasks manually could overwhelm the HR and leaders.
FAQs
What are the most effective team-building activities?
A successful team management requires healthy team activities that strengthen the bond between members. Putting cross-team members through activities like problem-solving challenges, volunteer CSR activities, and collaborative workshops helps a lot. Start with activities that are fun, inclusive, and purposeful.
How can managers foster trust in teams?
First, managers should do a reverse analysis of the desired condition. They should visualize how teams trust them for being honest, consistent, and supportive in the past. It happens when managers never fail to recognize sincere team efforts, encourage open conversations, and lead challenging situations by example. When your team feels heard and respected, trust naturally begins to grow across all levels.
Why is diversity important for team success?
A diverse workforce breeds fresh ideas and problem-solving skills at the time of challenging situations. It means tapping into a wider range of talents and skills to solve problems more creatively and adapt to dynamic customer requirements.
How can you improve communication within teams?
One of the best tips for effective teamwork is to inculcate the culture of active listening among members that creates the base for good communication. Active listening, followed by quality feedback through regular check-ins on communication tools, bridges the communication gap perfectly. The aim is to prompt your team to express themselves and be open to constructive criticism for effective communication.
