As an employer, one of the most crucial skills you can learn is how to build synergy with your staff. You won’t be able to achieve your targets or get consistent results if you and your employees aren’t working together like you should be. Building synergy is crucial not only for fostering a positive workspace but also for making sure personal connections are strong between you and those you work with.
So, what exactly does “building synergy” mean? Here, it means working to the best of your ability and leveraging the natural teamwork connections between you and your staff in order to maximize results. There are plenty of philosophies and strategies you can put into practice to get the most out of your staff. Here are six ways you can build synergy in the workplace.
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Try executive coaching
Executive coaching refers to a process whereby an external coach is brought in to help you understand the needs of your workforce and your business better. It’s a way to reinforce brand values and make you passionate about what you’re doing on a daily basis once again. There are plenty of reasons why you might want to pursue executive coaching, but building synergy is certainly one of them.
A quick internet search should bring up plenty of places offering executive coaching, but they’re not all created equal. EQWorks provide executive coaching that’s tailor-made for you, your staff, and your brand, so we’d recommend that you start there. Once you’ve worked at the coaching process for a small amount of time, you’ll be amazed at what kind of results it can produce.
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Set clear goals
When you set clear goals for your team, you’re helping to establish a mission towards which you can all work. Your brand values are, of course, the overarching goal, and they’re what defines your company identity. Setting a series of smaller goals along the way just helps to more clearly delineate the road ahead and stops your team from internally bickering over what direction to take.
So, how do you set goals? First, take a step back and try to understand exactly what you’re looking to achieve with your brand. After you’ve done this, examine your day-to-day missions and break them down. Assign tasks to your team and talk to them about how they feel. Doing this will not only establish goals but will also build emotional synergy with your team.
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Build teams that work together well
If you’re an employer, you should already know your staff well enough to understand which workers get along well with others and which ones don’t. Forcing together people who don’t work well or adhere to the same style won’t have a positive effect and it won’t help them understand one another better. To build great teams, take a look at who’s already getting along well and put them together.
You can also head off this problem during the hiring process. While you’re screening potential new employees, keep an eye out for people you think will get along well with your current workforce. By building a staff that’s tailor-made for teamwork, you’re improving the synergy of your team and creating an unstoppably powerful team at the same time.
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Don’t think negatively
Your team won’t trust you and they won’t feel motivated to work together if your messaging is ruled by fear. Instead of telling them what could happen if their mission fails, try to enforce positive thinking. Always emphasise what could happen if things go right, how this could have a positive effect on the company, and what could be in store for them if they perform well.
During times when positive thinking is harder, you might be tempted to give up and simply revert to the negative. This is, however, the moment when you need to be a cheerleader for your team. Did they mess something up? Don’t rebuke them; instead, talk to them seriously about how to do better next time. If you make a friend of your team rather than an enemy, you’ll build synergy effortlessly.
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Be understanding
There are naturally going to be times during which your team isn’t performing the way you’d like it to. That’s an inevitable part of being human; sometimes our personal lives throw us curveballs, and when that happens, it’s a good idea to be there for your staff. That doesn’t mean you need to be a personal therapist or a shoulder to cry on; it just means you need to understand what your staff are going through.
The same goes when you are going through something personal in your life. If you’re understanding towards your staff, then you can expect the same in return. Be sure to give yourself some time to reflect on what’s happening and how best to deal with it, because one great way to build team synergy is to have a silent understanding that everyone in the team is there for one another if it’s needed.
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Step up to the plate
While it’s true that great workplaces frequently make democratic decisions, when all is said and done, every team needs a great leader. You may not consider yourself to be the best manager there ever was, but if you want to build team synergy then you need to present yourself as a confident and dependable leader. That way, your team has someone to rally behind if things go badly.
Being a good leader means many things. You have to be there for your team through thick and thin. Don’t point the finger when mistakes happen; accept blame and chalk it up to your own lack of leadership (within reason, of course). Over time, your team will come to see you as a reliable figure who has their best interests at heart and who can be trusted to make good decisions.
