How to Build a Stronger Team
As a business owner, a high-functioning team will enable you to scale your business beyond yourself. But to get to the point where your team becomes an asset, you have to actively work on it.
According to Dan Crompton, our leadership expert and coach at the Business Growth Agency: “It’s about making sure that the team that you build is freeing up your time rather than just taking up your time.”
So how do you go about building a strong team? We spoke to Dan to find out.
What Does a High-Functioning Team Look Like?
“The best teams take ownership,” explains Dan. “When a team is functioning well, they are not relying on you for decisions, to tell them what to do next, or to solve problems. They see problems, they fix problems. They deal with the unexpected.”
In a high-functioning team, each member has a clearly defined role. They have a solid understanding of not just how to perform that role but the impact they have on the rest of the team.
Another hallmark is communication. “Communication is literally what a team is,” Dan says. “The only thing that defines a group of people as being part of a team is how well they communicate together or not.”
For a real-world example of the impact of building a strong team, Dan points to Sir Dave Brailsford’s revolutionary work with British Cycling. Using his theory of marginal gains, Brailsford was able to transform the notoriously unsuccessful organisation into a juggernaut, securing Olympic medals and Tour de France victories.
Dan believes what made the difference was Brailsford’s holistic approach. “It wasn’t relying on one person or one strategy,” he points out. “It was dozens of tiny, tiny strategies. Each person in the organization, not just the cyclists, had a role in just tweaking this and tweaking that. And because everyone was doing their one thing to make a little bit of improvement, it all came together to create one of the best teams in the world.”
The Benefits of a High-Functioning Team
A high-functioning team can benefit a business in many ways, from increased productivity to greater employee satisfaction and retention.
According to Gallup, being able to trust that colleagues are committed to doing quality work, knowing your opinions are valued, feeling that people at work care about you as a person, and having a best friend at work are key drivers of employee engagement.
In a 2024 meta-analysis, they found that “Compared with teams scoring in the bottom quartile of engagement, top-quartile teams were 18% more productive (in sales), 14% more productive (in production records and evaluations), and 23% more profitable.”
Dan believes another noteworthy benefit is the impact that feeling safe, supported and valued within a team has on people’s ability to innovate. As he explains: “A team can only come up with new ideas, new ways of working, new ways of serving clients, and new ways of problem-solving if they feel psychological safety at Work. They need to feel like they can experiment and make mistakes without being shouted down.”
He says the fundamental thing to take from this is that working on your team isn’t simply a nice-to-have or a purely compassionate choice. “Making people actually like where they work, getting the culture right, and helping people work better together has a direct and very clear impact on the bottom line,” he explains.
How to Build Strong Teams
Dan says that the first step towards building a strong team is to understand your role as a leader.
“Arguably, once you become a manager or business owner, your job has changed,” he says. “You are no longer doing the thing that your company does. Your one and only job, if you want to scale, is to be obsessed with your team.”
Here are his top strategies to facilitate effective collaboration and improve team performance.
Establish Solid Management Systems
“I think the start point for most managers to build stronger teams is to get their management systems defined and working properly,” Dan says. “I think if you can get those fundamentals right, you’ll see significant changes within a matter of weeks in terms of how a team performs together.”
These systems should include:
- Clear roles and responsibilities for every team member. They need to know what good looks like.
- Clear KPIs for each person. They need to know how success will be defined.
- Weekly one-to-ones. Even if not every meeting is with you as the business owner, every team member deserves to get regular, personalised support from someone in the business.
- Quarterly appraisals. People need to know what they’re doing well and what improvements they can make.
All of these things will give people the structure and clarity they need to pull their weight and take accountability.
Nurture a Sense of Purpose
People need to understand the Why behind their work as a team and how they contribute to that at an individual level.
“Regularly communicate 1 common goal for the team,” Dan recommends. “Why does what we do matter? Why is it important?” As well as motivating people, this helps you to achieve team alignment and reduce misunderstandings.
Don’t stop there. As demonstrated by British Cycling, individual goals can be just as important.
“Make sure each individual has goals, they know what their role is and that they’re working towards something that’s meaningful for them,” Dan advises.
Supporting them to pursue professional development goals will also feed into this sense of purpose. Helping them grow will make them feel valued as an individual and also show them new ways they can contribute to the team, building their confidence.
Balance Autonomy and Guidance
“What I’ve learnt over the years is that ownership has to be deliberately given to your team members before they can take it,” Dan explains. It’s not just about relinquishing control though. “You need to let them get on with stuff and try it their way and make mistakes,” he says, “but you also need to be there to support and guide them.”
The good news is that there’s one form of guidance that you can give without needing to directly intervene and that’s being consistent as a leader.
“If you have ups and downs and you’re really reactive, then your team doesn’t know what to expect from you,” Dan explains. “They don’t know what answer you would give and they don’t know what decision you would make.”
By contrast, if you communicate clearly about what’s important and demonstrate how you want them to react, they’ll find it much easier to handle things how you’d want them to be handled when you’re not there.
Nurture Your Desired Team Culture
You can intentionally create the kind of team culture you want by demonstrating and encouraging the behaviours you need to see from your team.
As an example, Dan points to that all-important psychological safety. “If you can encourage experimentation, if you can encourage making mistakes and learning from them, then you’re going to foster an environment where people will be more innovative and willing to problem solve,” he explains.
Teambuilding Through Problem-Solving
When it comes to teambuilding activities, Dan says the most impactful are the ones that bring people together to identify problems and find solutions. Ask your team to collectively discover ways to collaborate more effectively, develop your company culture, and make their experience at work better.
“That is a lot of the work that I do on team away days,” Dan explains. “It isn’t just ‘Let’s learn how to build bridges out of matchsticks.’ It’s actually meaningful action – they all feel part of creating a different way of working.”
Final Thoughts
Building a strong team will maximise performance, productivity, and employee engagement. It empowers everyone to take ownership and do their best work.
To facilitate effective team collaboration, ensure you have robust management systems in place, nurture a sense of purpose, and involve your team in finding better ways to work together.
If you need help with improving team performance, reach out for a free 45-minute coaching call with Dan or one of our other expert coaches. This isn’t a sales call – it’s a chance for you to get personalised advice that you can start using right away to get the most out of your people.
