12 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR TEAM AND INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY

The success and failure of your business/organization/team depends on the quality of your Human Resources. All other factors that increase productivity and profit are driven by human resources. Businesses are run and driven by people and not machines. Happy and motivated staff/team attracts happy and loyal customers. Employees are like women, they are soft, tender and fragile; to keep them motivated and productive, you as a team leader/employer have to be creative in keeping them happy. You may be thinking, why should I spend so much resource in keeping them happy? Why not fire them and employ new ones and tell them what happened to the former ones. That will keep them on their feet. Hehehe….. very smart move, but then, you have succeeded in making yourself a tyrant and a mafia boss. What will be the outcome of such action? 

• Your staff will term you a tyrant and will work in constant fear 

• Your corporate image will have been tarnished 

• You will lose your market share to your competitor 

• You will face legal charges and be forced to pay a huge fine 

• You will experience a huge loss on your investment and low productivity 

• Also go through the hassle of recruiting and inducting new staff which will consume time and money. Do you still want to fire them? I guess not.

Your staff are your corporate family, treat them like one. Let’s explore some ways to keep them motivated and inspired to achieve organizational objectives. 

1. Leadership by example; this is still the best form of leadership. Team members want a leader who knows his onus and have the balls to get things done. People follow a general who is always at the forefront and not a rear admiral who fights from the background. 

2. Be transparent and Honest; Give them every necessary information about their jobs and the project. Give them a reason to follow you. It will be a disaster if they find out the hard way that you are hiding something they should know about. You will lose trust and credibility. 

3. Team bonding exercises; All work and no play makes your team ineffective. Introduce some games and exercises that will reduce stress, ease off tension, increase team connection and increase productivity. Create the atmosphere for them to enjoy work. No one wants to work with an acquaintance, so give them a chance to become friends. 

4. Give them a sense of belonging and ownership; listen to their ideas and implement them. Let them be in the implementation team. And if the idea really sucks, be constructive in putting it aside.
5. Reward/little incentive strategy; it may include giving them bragging rights if they perform well in a task, employee of the week/month/year awards, souvenirs, holiday trips etc. these activities will introduce healthy competition in the team 

6. Appreciate them openly and individually; openly let them know how important they are to the team commend their individual strengths and help them walk through their weaknesses. 

7. Support them in achieving tasks. 

8. Be a strategist; Always be steps ahead of your members. Have a plan A, B, C, D etc. and develop an emergency response system for situations that may arise. 

9. Improve budget; This will create a better working atmosphere and increase productivity. 

10. Hangouts and social visits; As often as possible, hangout with your team; watch movies, have game nights, beach hangouts etc. Also make out time to visit them in their homes. You’ll be amazed at the response you will get the following day or week. 

11. Manage change effectively; As often as it occurs, be an effective change manager and inform them when changes occurs. 

12. Be their coach/mentor/best friend; Be someone they can confide in when they get into trouble trying to finish their tasks. Guide them and show them what to do. You are their best trainer. 

 Your staff is the live wire of your organization; their happiness should be your priority if you must get returns on your investments. Use positive reinforcements

3 REASONS WHY YOU ARE NOT EFFECTIVE IN THAT TEAM

Team membership is one of the most effective ways of not just discovering talents, but also maximizing talents and really making impact in an organization or in any system. No man is an island of anything, you're either connected to someone/thing or someone/thing is connected to you. A team is a group of individuals from different cultural, traditional, psychological and socio-political background coming together to accomplish a given task. Research shows that we all learn effectively from each other. Alphabetically, we can describe a team as

T - Together 
E - Everybody 
A - Achieves 
M - More
Teamwork develops your interpersonal skills in coping with conflict, in being a chairperson, in developing your interdependence and accountability and in developing your sense of self-esteem. This aids your personal development and your non-work related relationships. As awesome as teams are, some members of the team are not at their very best in delivering team goals, even as after the team has undergone the various stages of formation. However, it is important to know note that conflict resolution is an ongoing process that continues till the team is dissolved. Some of the reasons for this poor performance by team members are emotional, temperamental. We shall explore some of the reasons you have not been doing so well in that team;

1. Myopic mindset; Just like how being myopic affects our personal success, when you fail to see the big picture of the group we cannot achieve much success when we are given tasks in the group. When you have a shallow understanding of your abilities, it affects your communication with team members and your superiors in your work place. This can be characterized by inferiority complex, low self esteem, inability to comprehend concepts and team values. When you find yourself in this position, you tend to withdraw yourself from others and you’re becoming unnecessarily defensive when you are confronted. 
2. Pride; This attitude is usually exhibited by those with more experience and knowledge than the other members of the team. Sometimes they are more experienced than the group leader. Pride has destroyed so many people’s career and still is. You feel you are more experienced and more qualified for the job than every other person on the team and so you become antagonistic in your approach and tend to question every process and every decision. Sometimes you want the team to revolve around you and you have this 'am the boss' attitude. Team members do not need another 'boss' within the team who is there to fry their asses, they need a team mate and a friend who will guide them and teach them how to get the job done. Remember, the team doesn’t revolve around you, but around principles and values which form team policies and culture. Yes! Every team has a culture... 
3. Fear; This is another very dangerous force that can destroy your thinking faculty and render you completely useless in a team. It makes you pessimistic and you second guess every action that is being taken. Fear is sometimes generated when you think of past failures and the outcome it had on your previous team. So the thought of the same incident repeating itself in your new team affects your effectiveness and productivity and your general output in the team. To overcome these challenges, we must have adaptability, dynamitic personality and an 'i can do it' mentality. The singular reason why a lot of people don't work well in a team is because they don't think they can work well in that team. As a good team manager, make everyone believe and understand that they can carry out what ever task they are given and always help them accomplish such tasks. Step out from the shadows of your nasty past and embrace the future of your organization