The Remaining Secrets of Great Teams

Before my new book on career development, Take Charge of Your VIEW, launched last month, I was writing to you about the five key ingredients in the secret sauce that makes great teams. I took a break from this to let everyone know about my book release, but am now returning to let you know the remaining ingredients that lead to success.

A quick reminder, the first three ingredients are the need to inspire purpose, establish team norms and support each other.

Here are the final two ingredients:

Ingredient #4: Ownership

What I believe: when it comes to work, quality is love. My Nana’s sauce was delicious because she sweated the details: she hovered over the bubbling red liquid to ensure it simmered at just the right temperature, protected it from high heat, and focused her attention as she added salt or oregano.

Your work quality is your love. It reflects the time and energy you are willing to allocate to provide great service, produce a great product, be a great Manager/Leader.

Crucial to ownership is understanding that group quality is every individual team member’s job. Each team member is the one person ultimately responsible for their own tasks and when each individual achieves, the team as a whole achieves.

Tips you can use: In your next team meeting, ask each team member to describe what quality means to them. Tell them about why you are passionate about your work. What do you love? How can the team help one another demonstrate ownership for what you achieve together?

Ingredient #5: Trustworthiness

What’s the most important ingredient in the relationship between team members? Trust, you say?

Philosopher Onora O’Neill respectfully disagrees. Focusing on trust “gets the equation backwards,” O’Neill says in her TedTalk. Trust is something other people earn from you. Trustworthiness, on the other hand, is something you earn from other people.

O’Neill defines trustworthiness as your capacity to consistently demonstrate three qualities, being:

• Reliable: you follow through with commitments and keep promises.
• Sincere: you are transparent about your motives.
• Competent: you demonstrate the skills needed to get the job done.

Instead of worrying about how your colleagues need to earn your trust, be the kind of person that your colleagues trust. You will not only get more done together, but will have more fun doing it.

Tips you can use: In your next team meeting, ask team members to describe how they can personally demonstrate more trustworthiness.

That’s a wrap! Thanks for going on this journey with me to uncover the 5 key ingredients in the secret sauce of great teams:

1. Inspiring Purpose
2. Team Norms
3. Supporting Each Other
4. Ownership of the Work
5. Trustworthiness

I hope you’ve taken away some useful insights and practical tips.

In the meantime, I wish you and your teams much satisfaction and success, wherever you are in your journey.