Anyone who has worked on an effective team knows how rewarding it can be. You know that you can take on any problem with confidence and come out the other side stronger. You can celebrate success and learn from failure. But I’m not here to talk about how great it is to work on this type of team, I want to talk about three of the characteristics that make these successful teams possible: trust, ownership, and autonomy.
Trust
The cornerstone of any high-functioning team is trust. Trust extends to many parts of what makes a team work well together. You need to trust people to do what they say they will, you need to trust your teammates to solve problems on their own, and you need to trust that everyone on the team is working towards the collective goal.
Building trust can be daunting, but all it takes is a leap of faith. At some point, you will need to hand over the reins to another person and trust them to handle a problem on their own. You need to accept that they’re capable of handling speed bumps and reaching out when they need help.
Not only do you need to be able to trust the people you work with, but they need to trust you. This means having their back when they make mistakes and giving them the psychological safety to work outside of their comfort zone. No one succeeds 100% of the time, and you need to support your teammates regardless of the result.
Ownership
Another aspect of an effective team is people taking ownership. That means not only their work but that of the team as a whole. When team members own the work they’re doing, they will easily find the motivation to go above and beyond and feel the satisfaction in achieving success.
This can be fostered by recognizing all the contributions that make a team successful, not just doing the work. That could include contributions like creating alignment within the team, identifying opportunities for collaboration, solidifying plans, writing documentation, monitoring team morale, and so many other important contributions to a successful project.
There are so many things that need to happen to make a team successful, and calling out those contributions goes a long way towards not only making sure that everyone can take pride in the work they do, but feel ownership of the project as a whole.
Autonomy
The last important piece I want to talk about is autonomy. People on the team need to have the space to solve problems in the way that they work best, and know that the team will support them in their decisions. This is the culmination of building trust both ways and encouraging ownership of the work across the team.
This also extends to giving members of the team agency to address the problems that they think are important. Often, it is those closest to the problem that can find the solution that makes the most sense in the given context. Giving these people agency allows them to come up with best solution for the problem at hand.
You will find that fostering autonomy within the team has benefits for the individuals in the form of fulfillment and confidence. It will also benefit the team in terms of success and quality of work. Autonomous team members not only solve the problems they are given, but they find and take ownership of important problems that only they are in a position to see.
Time
You can’t develop any of the characteristics I mentioned above overnight. They are built over time and through experiences both good and bad. Even though it can be hard, there are few things more rewarding than working on a team that exemplifies these three attributes.