When looking to fill a job opening, recruiters are tasked with the challenge of finding unique candidates who possess the perfect combination of technical and sociological skills to succeed on their own. But an even greater challenge is the one faced by managers who are responsible for organizing these autonomous individuals into a collaborative team. Vineet Nayer, vice chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, addresses three things that work, and one that doesn’t in a recent Harvard Business Review blog, “The Key Ingredients of a Successful Team.”
Contrary to popular belief, it is not the promise of financial reward that motivates employees to shuffle in the conference room each morning, but the thrill of a challenge. Not just any challenge though, but a big, almost unfeasible one like Google’s mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It is goals like these, not “reduce the budget by 10 percent,” that make searching for solutions exciting. It is also what helps unite socially and psychologically different people around a common purpose, which is crucial considering how diverse the modern workplace has become.
The second thing managers must do when forming teams is to look for people who have a passion to succeed. These people tend to be focused, hard-working, and, above all, excited about what they are doing. This has the added benefit of motivating the people around them. So rather than putting Joe, who hates sports, on a team responsible for creating a new line of hockey equipment, you might want to pick James, who played hockey in college and is a loyal follower of the National Hockey League.
Once they have the right people in place, the last thing managers need to do is give them room to innovate. Creating great work can be messy and employees need to know that it’s okay to make mistakes and start over. According to Nayer, the best team leaders are the ones who can provide the right amount of room for experimentation, ignite the power of passion and generate miraculous results.
Taken together, successful team building can be summarized by this: “If people see a challenge in what they are doing, have a passion to perform, and have the space to create magic, they will.” To learn more about Nayer’s thoughts on leadership, visit his website at vineetnayer.com, or follow him on Twitter @vineetnayer.