There is no doubt that the success of any organization is linked to its employees and their teamwork. Each manager hopes to be able to rely on an ultimate dream team!
Let us begin with the essential part: the perfect dream team does not exist as such for many reasons, not least which is because the idea of perfection is relative. It is possible to seek it out of principle, but the solution truly lies in doing your best with the elements available, and to bet on the available talent.
Here are a few essential ingredients in order to cook up YOUR ultimate dream team.
1 – Have a Clear and Realistic Ingredients List
Do you want to recruit the best? Great! However, you need to remember to keep things grounded and realistic while knowing what to seek out. It seems simple, but reality has a tendency to render things more complex.
How many managers are unsure of what they are looking for? How many do not take the time to ask themselves what are their needs, and/or do not know how to efficiently express it to the recruitment specialists? How many choose to recycle an old job posting that is both vague and imprecise? How many seek a superstar and hope to find him/her at a rebate price? How many say one thing, but when it comes to decisions, choose the opposite?
Being clear and realistic about what is sought is the keystone to the development of an ultimate dream team, and without that, the objective may not be attained, all at the cost of much energy, time, money and frustration.
If it so happens that a given manager accumulates such failures, it is no surprise that he or she will find little help in their quest!
To all recruiters of the world: I have the greatest respect for the complexity of your work!
2- Do Not Let Your Ingredients Go Bad!
Imagine for a moment that you finally find the diamond in the rough. What a miracle! Take heart – because in reality, the hardest part is yet to come.
You must be able to keep that person interested, without which all the efforts put into finding them will go to waste. A dream team with a high employee turnover is far from dreamy.
There are no good or bad employees – but there is the right employee for the right job, and for the right team. If you give the wrong responsibilities to your worker, chances are slim that they will remain in that position for long.
If one has a conflict with other team members or with the manager, not only do you risk losing that particular individual, but you also risk suffering some collateral damage like losing other employees.
3- Make the Best with Available Ingredients
In order for an employee to be performing well at his or her job, they must have the skills and motivation to be accomplished in the given tasks. There must also be a compatibility with the rest of the team and the manager.
Using a psychometric test and a fit test is a good start in order to make sure that the right person is indeed in the right place.
Therefore, developing a dream team also means making the best of existing resources… or of available ingredients!
4- The Chemical Interactions Between Ingredients
The more colorful and diverse the dish, the closer we are to the ultimate dream team recipe.
A dream team is not about gathering similar people together, but about creating a group of people who fit well together. This includes having the courage and the wisdom to be open to diverse team members. Diversity is a great opportunity to grow, learn and benefit from the strengths of others in order to face the challenges of today’s world. If all sheep were alike, the wolf would easily have the best of them. However, if all were different and united against him, the poor wolf won’t stand a chance.
The biggest strength of a dream team is its ability to empower its employees, and for one to be surrounded by different people with a flurry of strengths.
5- The Success of the Dream Team Relies on the Abilities of the Chef
There is no team without a leader, and there is no dream team without leadership!
In order to guarantee the success of this recipe and be able to taste the full flavor of a dream team, the leader must be skilled so as to ensure that various ingredients combine harmoniously. Leadership is a challenging art, but thankfully, it is one that can be developed with time.
There are many abilities that are required:
- Knowing how to show leadership skills;
- Having a goal and motivating coworkers to reach it;
- Recognizing and relying on everybody’s talents;
- Creating a climate of trust and collaboration;
- Preventing and managing conflicts;
- Being responsible and empowering team members;
- Motivating the team towards reaching the goal and ensuring its loyalty;
- Being open to constructive criticism;
- Leaving one’s ego aside;
- Developing the team’s core competencies;
- Knowing how to listen, communicate and favor dialogue;
- Knowing how to laugh and celebrate victories;
- Favoring team work.
In the end, though the ultimate dream team doesn’t exist per se, one can have their own version of a dream team. In order to do this, it is necessary to have a clear and realistic list of ingredients, to ensure they combine harmoniously and to have a chef whose skills will enable him play his part with success. I guarantee that with the right recipe, you will be able to better understand your employees in order to build your dream team!