Introduction
7 proven strategies to develop and maintain a dream team. Every small business owner dream of having a dream team. Teams that work well together are an asset to any company but are also hard to come by. Research has shown that small businesses often need help with communication issues and lack cohesive goals, which can lead to team members not working effectively together or even quitting their jobs entirely. However, there are some steps you can take as a business leader to prevent these problems from occurring:
Focus on hiring people with a track record of success.
- Focus on hiring people with a track record of success.
- Hire people who have a proven ability to get things done.
- Hire people who have a proven ability to succeed under pressure.
- Hire people who can learn new things quickly and adapt to changing conditions or even complete shifts in strategy without breaking stride or losing focus on the end goal.*
Conduct a thorough job interview process.
- Be prepared to ask questions that might be outside the job description.
- Ask about their career goals and how they would like to grow in their role.
- Ask about their experience and how it will help them in this role.
- Ask about their past failures, how they learned from them (and what they would do differently).
Clarify the company’s core values and mission statements.
To assemble a dream team, you must clearly define your company’s core values to attract and retain quality employees.
These are the foundation of a company’s culture. They determine how people will behave in the workplace and what they consider acceptable or unacceptable behaviour among their colleagues. Core values can be summed up by one word or phrase describing what makes your organisation unique. For example: “We work hard so our clients can sleep easy.” Or: “We treat each other respectfully because we value each other’s contributions.”
When it comes time for hiring decisions, these statements help managers determine whether applicants are suitable for the role based on their skill set alone–or if they’ll fit into your team culture seamlessly once onboarded as new hires (see below).
Create an interview guide that includes behavioural questions, personality assessments, and competency-based questions.
A good interview guide will include all three types of questions. Behavioural questions focus on past experiences, while personality assessments ask candidates to rate themselves on certain traits and preferences (e.g., “I like to lead groups.”). Competency-based questions measure skills and abilities (e.g., “Do you have experience managing remote teams?”). Combining these three types of questions gives you a better picture of each candidate than using only one type.
Assess each candidate’s fit for the role through various assessments and exercises.
When hiring new candidates, assessing their fit for the role is essential. An assessment is a more objective way to measure how well a candidate will perform in the role. Checks can identify personality traits and behavioural styles, cognitive abilities, learning styles, motivation levels–and more!
Assessments are also great because they allow you to compare multiple candidates simultaneously (instead of just one at a time). This helps ensure that your team is diverse enough so that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.
Regularly check in with your team to offer feedback, support, and guidance.
Regularly check in with your team to offer feedback, support, and guidance.
This is a great way to stay in touch with your employees. It helps you stay connected to what is going on in their lives and understand how they are feeling about their job.
Involve employees in employee engagement programs like peer mentoring or leadership development opportunities to help them grow into their roles and build better relationships with other team members.
Involving employees in employee engagement programs like peer mentoring or leadership development opportunities will help them grow into their roles and build better relationships with other team members.
Mentoring is an excellent way to help employees develop their skills, learn about the company and their role, build relationships, understand how to work better with others, and more!
To build a dream team, you must be selective when hiring and then structure your interactions around building trust and developing talent while remaining flexible as your business grows and changes.
The first step in building a dream team is to be selective when hiring. First, you must clearly understand the type of person that will add value to your business and then hire only those who fit this description.
Hiring people who fit your company’s culture and can quickly work with their colleagues is essential. When hiring, look for hardworking candidates motivated by results rather than titles or paychecks (this means they’re not just looking for another job) and have experience working together as part of teams before–this will help them hit the ground running once they’re onboarded.
It would be best if you also had someone who has succeeded at previous jobs; this demonstrates their ability as an individual contributor and as part of an organisation with multiple stakeholders working toward common goals.
Bottom Line
It is not easy to build a dream team, but it’s worth the effort. You will be amazed at how much more productive and successful your business can be with a high-performing team.
Who am I?
I am Dotun Adeoye, a Business Growth Strategist & Author
I’ve built up my experience via serial entrepreneurship, consulting leadership roles in business growth, business development and product innovation in large companies worldwide in the last 30 years.
Today, I consult with large businesses on how to sustainably grow their businesses, sustain infinite growth, and ensure business continuity irrespective of the business climate.
Hire Dotun Adeoye to Speak Virtually or In – Person at your company’s event to cover this or other topics. You can also get in touch via +44 203 097 1718 or dotun at dotunadeoye.com
