What would a good manager do to build team spirit?

Most importantly, any plan to build team spirit has to be authentic. We’ve all seen — or experienced — work environments like in Office Space or “The Office.” Anything less than authenticity will be seen as simply rah-rah — or going through the motions.

A good manager brings the team together — perhaps even a retreat - to foster communications and develop common goals and objectives. During this meeting, the manager should also show how all the team members play a role in making the team successful — and that only by working together and respecting each other can the team fully succeed.

Sometimes, too, when the team is from different departments or backgrounds, it’s important for the manager address this issue from day one — if possible. I was once put in a team with a mix of marketers and accountants and the manager sat us all down and told us a story of a successful competitor and how their accounting team thought like marketers and how their marketers understood the importance of return on investment for new marketing initiatives. The story of a successful competitor helped us realize that we had more in common than we had differences and that we could come together as a team and be successful.

---

Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.