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​What Do We Need as a Team to Succeed in a Corporate Environment?

​What Do We Need as a Team to Succeed in a Corporate Environment?

What do we need as a team to succeed in a corporate environment?

As a corporate leader, working remotely for over ten years, I heard Adam Grant talking about companies and teams, and it was just what I needed to hear that day. It was the missing summary of the understanding of my teamwork environment.

[Related: How to Thrive in the Reinvention Revolution]

I hope this helps you too.

  1. You need a real team. We're not just a group. We're interdependent. We rely on each other to achieve a common mission that's greater than ourselves.
  2. You need a compelling direction. We need a purpose that we all believe in.
  3. An effective system of roles needs to be implemented and encouraged so that each person is able to use their individual talents for the benefit of the group.
  4. Always have a supportive contact. Some expert coaching when you needed education, motivation consultation, or somebody from the outside who could step in and make the team more than the sum of its parts.

[Related: Six Lessons to Prepare Inclusive Leaders of Tomorrow]

I think the part that I've been most interested in personally is the question:

How do we set a compelling direction?

In most teams, there isn't that immediate resonance of, "We want to win a championship!" or "This is our end goal!" That's a built-in feature of sports.

Everyone wants to win in life. It's a lot harder to figure out what winning means and how you can make that meaningful to each person.

To me, it's a question worth asking each team member and mapping out a path to intersect personal and professional meaningfulness to the end goal of the company.

[Related: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose at Work in a Global Pandemic]

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Diamela Atencio-Ray, MBA is the National Resident Relations Manager for Renu Management.

Have more questions? Follow up with the expert herself.