Creating team spirit
By Yoseph S. Ayele

Having a team spirit is what many managers dream of; people working together as a team, with good internal communication where everyone is set to move the company forward hand-in-hand. Team spirit does not naturally come; it is created. Either the staff creates it or the leader initiates it. There are steps one could follow to create teamwork in a working environment.
There needs to me a defined mission, and it must be clear to the team. If there is no specific mission they work towards to then people would start making their own missions and follow their own agendas. Creating a team with no mission is like starting a journey with no destination: nothing is achieved and a lot is undermined. Therefore, a clear mission/goal guides every team member, gives them motivation, and something to look forward to. This is the nucleus of any team.
After getting a mission, then it needs to be broken down into measurable objectives. These objectives are what the team needs to do to reach the mission. Making objectives requires a lot of care since the objectives define the fate of the team. The SMART framework is often used when defining objectives. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Specific objectives help a team focus, guide members, and become easy to comprehend to everyone. Measurable objectives make the task practical, where team members can track the progress they are making, and help motivate the team because it shows they are heading somewhere and achieving something. Attainable objectives help to convince members that their efforts would yield results, motivate them, and help them believe in the team. Relevant objectives are essential to bringing a team together: they make everyone believe that it is a real team and not a bureaucratic office they are in, that they are out there to achieve something and not run around in circles. This makes them believe that each of them have a role to play because it is relevant to them. Finally, time-bound objectives act as a guideline, help motivate everyone, create excitement amongst the team, and give everyone a destination to look forward to.
The next step is to make a team. A team made after the mission and objectives are set tends to be more efficient than a team made beforehand. Choosing an effective team is not a random talk, where you pick all the hardworking people to come together. You get the right members who are capable enough to do the specific task in hand well according to their abilities. Therefore we need to get the task first, set it out different objectives, and start looking for people who can make the objectives happen. On the other side, making objectives after a team is made would take a longer period of time, since it will have to suit some members, and therefore the objectives are dictated according to what the already-made team can do rather than what steps are required to make the task a success.
When making a team, members with skills to fulfil the task need to be chosen. Members from different departments or different backgrounds would bring new ideas and also represent the different the relevant category. A team needs the right number of members to achieve the task. However, if there are too many members then there would be too much bureaucracy or lack of good communication, so a minimal number is needed (5 to 8). Each member needs a clear roles and defined responsibilities. This is essential to show every member what is expected of them. But also, there must be a team leader to coordinate the team and make sure everything runs smoothly. A team leader guides the team, not rule it, and this is the tricky part which can make a team succeed or fail. If a team leader rules, then the members would not feel important and suddenly the team becomes the leader’s responsibility rather than everyone’s. Here is when we see the leader standing in the frontline of everything and doing most of the tasks. This will make the members laid-back, and will wait for the leader to tell them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it by. This will push the leader to be more autocratic and make the members just ‘followers’ rather than team players. Here, the leader would be delegating small tasks to the other members to achieve what he/she thinks is best rather than what the entire team thinks is best. And the sad thing is everyone would continue to call it a team, including the leader, and they would all be lying to themselves. Therefore the roles must be very clearly spelt out so that none of this does happen.
A following stem is to make guidelines for the smooth running of the team. How would they solve disagreements or conflicts? What is their budget? What can the team do and what can it not do? How many approvals does a decision need? Set the deadlines, and how to handle the team at the absence of a member. Again, all of this needs to be made by the entire team rather than just the leader. This way, every member would feel that he/she is really part of this team and they would have ownership of the work. This is an important factor because it decides whether they are going to put in all they have or merely the bare minimum to accomplish the task.
The team needs to put in order the resources they have and their requirements. This including all the training required for the team. Equipments, financial resources, and people need to be organized. Then it is setting the operation plan that is left. A day-to-day plan for the team, either long-term or short-term could be set, as detailed as necessary. Setting team meetings is necessary, and all the means the team can use to communicate. Once this is all done, then the team is good to go!