No leader is going to be effective in isolation.  They need a team behind them, working together towards the same aims.  There is no shortage of quotations and stories to demonstrate this.  We are referring to genuine teambuilding and leadership here.  Some recent research has shown that the use of the clichéd motivational quotes and sayings has little impact on people's performance - and is more likely to be negative than positive.

You may be happy with the way the teams in your organisation are operating, which is great.  Or, do you think they could improve?  There are so many issues around teamworking and teambuilding these days - cross-functional teams needing to improve their interactions; "remote" teams which could be separated by oceans or a few hundred metres; or virtual teams which rarely come together in person or the need for project teams to operate on a more ad hoc basis for specific tasks.

What are the issues faced by teams in your organisation?

• Lack of shared vision
• Poor interactions between team members
• Poor communication between different teams
• "Silo" management encouraged by lack of teamworking across the top teams
• Lack of understanding about what people's roles are within their teams
• Leaders do not encourage teamworking within their own teams
• Leaders do not understand what to do to build sense of belonging to team
• Leaders do not understand the dynamics of group and team development

To help them with the last of these you might want to look at the following:

The stages of team development

All teams do not start off as being effective.  They all go through a process of development involving a series of stages.  Some progress through these stages rapidly and others never develop beyond a particular stage.  There appears to be 4 broad stages which Teams appear to develop through, although they should not be seen as discreet there is often much overlap between one stage and another.

The 4 stages of Team Development are characterised by the following features:

STAGE I - TESTING (FORMING)

CHARACTERISTICS  

• Polite
• Dependence on leader
• Guarding
• Watchful
• Impersonal
• No conflicts
• Need for group identity is low
• Concern for structure, methods, etc.
• Hidden agendas stay hidden

STAGE II - CONFUSION (STORMING)

CHARACTERISTICS

• Cliques start to have influence
• Conflicts occur
• People confronted
• Hidden Agendas being to be raised
• Struggle for leadership by cliques
• Opting out
• Feeling stuck
• Own positions rationalised
• Lack of listening

STAGE III - GETTING ORGANISED (NORMING)

CHARACTERISTICS

• Procedures developed
• Issues confronted
• More open exchange of ideas and views
• Cliques dissolved
• Leadership shared
• More listening and co-operation
• Giving feedback
• Pre-conceived ideas are changed
• Creativity high

STAGE IV - MATURE CLOSENESS (PERFORMING)

CHARACTERISTICS

• Resourcefulness
• Creativity
• Flexible
• Open
• Effective
• Close and supportive
• Settled independence
• High group morale
• Warmth/closeness of members
• Empathy
• High level of problem-solving behaviour

The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.
Vincent Lombardi

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
Andrew Carnegie

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.
Vesta Kelly

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Theodore Roosevelt

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Henry Ford

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Stephen Covey

We can help you to build more effective teams and to encourage better teamworking in a number of ways.  Whether it is to enable the top team to work more effectively, which could be through facilitating some workshops or team coaching or to help a new team come together more quickly we have options to support you.  Whether you want to achieve this with practical and experiential teambuilding and teamworking events, or to combine workshop and practical events we can develop a solution which will help you get your intended outcomes.  We are familiar with working with cross-cultural teams as well as single entities, small groups to department or company-wide events.  To find out more about how we can help you, contact us.