***Ongoing Maintenance of a Team

Sometimes a team has to be trained or at least some members have to be trained. Then there are times when discipline of a team is necessary. New projects may have to be implemented or a change in a procedure may occur. There may be some problems that have to be solved. When this occurs things need to be resolved in a productive way and as soon as possible.

But what about the times that everything is running very smoothly with a team that just gets things done and seems to need very little attention. The tendency is to let the team simply function and feel good about how they are doing. By all means feel good. When people have aces on the team often more work is put on them and they are left alone. This does not continue to work over time though. When people are doing well they need to know that and to know that leadership is still interested.

This is done by taking a few minutes each day asking how the day is going, having a reporting system, and also noticing what is going on, This is called maintenance of a team. The minute a team feels that the interest and the attention has gone away for the most part, the team performance will begin to slide ever so slightly. Showing the pride a leader has in the team goes a very long way.

Teams want to succeed yet also need to know that the leader notices the accomplishments. Teams want to win and in a business environment the cues from the leader is how this is evident. Once a team is at the top it is only through maintenance that this will be maintained.