Extraordinary teams

One of the most important factors in any business is team work. If a group of staff can work together effectively, the business will be more successful.

But what if you want your team to be more than just good? What if you want to be extraordinary? There are several things you can do to make sure team work helps your business to be the best it can be.

Goals: Setting precise, measurable targets is important. Many practices will say things like, “we want to increase the number of new patients” – but how do you measure that? Instead, how about, “we want to achieve thirty new patients each month,” which you can clearly see whether you have achieved.

Roles: Every team member should have their own role – but it is also useful for team members to understand what everyone else is doing. Many successful teams use job swaps and shadowing to achieve this. As well as helping to cover for absence, it can improve relationships within the team, because people understand the difficulties their colleagues face every day. This should apply to everyone, from the receptionist to the practice manager.

Layers: While the team as a whole may meet once a week to discuss progress, sub-groups will be working together much more frequently. The administration staff, for example, will be constantly updating each other and sharing advice. This is something to be encouraged – it helps to keep things running smoothly – but they should also be reporting back to the whole team so everyone is kept in the loop.

Resources: As well as practical resources like stock, teams should be sharing intangible resources like time. For example, if one member of staff has a quiet day, can he or she step in to help another who has a heavier workload?

Leadership: Ultimately, success or failure has to be the responsibility of the team leader. A good leader treads a fine line between sharing decisions between the team and taking responsibility for the outcome. They also create a committed and constructive atmosphere throughout the team, which will help the business to thrive.

Laura

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