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“No man is an island, entire of itself” said John Donne a long time ago. Still true today. Even leaders like Barrack Obama, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates need a supportive and enabling team. Similarly, we all have a latent capacity to excel if we function effectively together, but it doesn’t happen automatically. We have to work at it.

Many teams with the potential to excel get mired in mediocrity, hamstrung by internal strife, and barely hold together, leave alone achieving anything. Some teams are even busy doing nothing. As management guru Peter Drucker commented, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Here are ten time-tested mantras to keep that from happening to you and your team.

Be the Change You Want to See

The transformation of a disjointed group of individuals into a well-knit, high performing team is an individual as well as a team effort. In the great Mahatma’s words, each team member must “be the change you want to see.” Then a lot can happen. Think about these mantras, discuss them, practice them. They will launch your team out of its limitations to achieve what you can never achieve alone.

Great team performance is more than the sum of individual effort. It is the result of synergy flowing from a deep sense of togetherness and purpose; twin qualities that have to be developed and continually maintained.

The Elements of Cohesiveness

What makes a team cohesive? What can you do to produce a deep sense of togetherness within the team? Consider the following five.

Develop Personal Integrity

Enron collapsed like a house of cards because of zero integrity. What happens when integrity is absent? Regular disturbances, blame games, negative criticisms, destructive politics, manipulations, inter-personal conflicts, stress, reactions instead of responses, loss of trust, unmet deadlines. Decision making becomes an uphill task.

Integrity is a composite quality. It means you can trust each other, instead of second guessing. It is the absence of hidden agendas and the presence of transparency, with nothing questionable. It is the assurance that each will deliver the best, on time, and be accountable to fellow team members. Integrity reduces problems, creates peace and well being, enhances togetherness, and leads to better decisions and choices.

Demonstrate Mutual Respect and Appreciation

Think of how you feel when others do not honor and appreciate you. Do you feel alienated? Are you tempted to look out for greener pastures? How do team members show honor and appreciation? In the tone of their voice, the way they talk, the words they use, and their body language. We are quick to home in on the negatives in other people. For a change learn to focus on the positives in each other, and see what happens. Express sincere appreciation and gratitude at every opportunity. Be patient and understanding. Learn to listen, and be open to one another. Refuse to gossip and play games.

Acknowledge and Deal with Differences

It would be very boring if everyone looked the same, dressed the same, spoke the same, and thought the same. The richness of life is in its diversity. The beauty of a team is that it brings together a range of knowledge, and a variety of perspectives, approaches, styles and competencies. Instead of feeling threatened and reacting negatively to differences, try acknowledging, accepting and respecting those differences. Learn to convert them into team strengths.

Complimentary technical skills, domain knowledge and work experience make for a powerful team that is able to deliver much more than a simple multiple of individual effort. This is all the more important in global workplaces, where cultures intermingle. In the words of Bill McCartney, “We have not come to compete with one another. We have come to complete one another.”

Create a Shared World

Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Can a team work together unless they are on common ground? A team may have a common work objective, and yet fail. They fall apart because they do not have a shared world of core values and beliefs, spiced up with humor and enjoyment. Values and beliefs are major drivers of behavior. To be in sync you need to write and run a common code.

We spend a huge part of our lives with our colleagues. If this is marked by unpleasantness and grouchiness, the team is headed for trouble. “If you laugh together, you can work together,” says Robert Orben. And, as someone else said, “While you should be serious about what you are doing, you need not be serious while you are doing it.”

Communicate Consistently and Clearly

Be sociable. Develop a friendly, open communicative team culture. It will carry over into task areas. Never assume or take things for granted. Always clarify. Restate and check for understanding. Ask. Share. Learn what the other is feeling and thinking. Often there are unresolved, unspoken issues between team members, a ticking time bomb. Clear it out at the earliest by talking with humility, care and openness. Listening is even more important than talking. Without it there is little understanding.

Task Orientation

The first five mantras will help a group maintain itself as a team. At the same time, the team has to execute a task, the professional purpose for which it exists. The practice of the next five mantras will help a team to effectively carry out its mandate.

Plan and Prepare

Many teams have a tendency to dive into a task as soon as it is assigned to them. Like so many people who walk blindly into a marriage with complete lack of preparation, and then complain that its not working out. This is a mistake. The first step is to discuss the task, define the objective, plan who is competent to do what, by when, and if necessary how. What are the resources that will be required? What other inputs? What contingencies? What are the givens? What are the variables? Match individual competencies with defined criteria and task requirement. Set standards. Spell out and hold each other accountable.

Integrate Creativity, Intelligence and Passion

Innovation is the creative fire that helps a team beat competition and reduce costs. An effective team provides for the generation of ideas, even wild ones. The focus is on ideas, not people. It is ideas that are critically examined, evaluated and developed.

Intelligence is the ability to think clearly, logically and in context, to find solutions, see associations and possibilities.

Passion is the energy that keeps you going, working at it, bringing the task to a commendable completion. That’s how you get the winning edge.

Monitor and Review

These two activities will keep the team on track, on schedule and on its toes. They need to happen periodically and at the end of the given task. Lack of monitoring and review results in delays, confusion, failure in adhering to standards and addressing emerging issues. Without it nobody knows what’s going on. A great team is almost constantly reviewing its ongoing performance against set objectives, processes and standards.

Maintain Communication

A winning team is where members are continually in touch with each other, under-standing, checking, encouraging, clarifying, sharing information, alerting to problems. Each member takes responsibility to communicate with the others, and to listen and respond. Besides face to face communication, modern technology provides a host of tools such as emails, SMSes and conference calls.

Celebrate Success, Learn from Failure

After finishing the job, take time to celebrate as a team. Recognise each one’s contribution. It will energise and motivate you to perform better on the next assignment. If there is any failure, refuse to play blame games. Instead, accept responsibility, learn from it and move on.

No shortcuts. No magic formulas. But you and your team can get there if you are willing to pay the price and practice these open secrets.