Explain what’s behind each of your decisions, what your priorities are, and how you will evaluate the team’s performance, individually and collectively. Use your initial interactions with team members as an opportunity to showcase your values. Discussing those good and bad dynamics will help everyone get on the same page about what behavior they want to encourage-and avoid-going forward. One particularly effective exercise is to have people share their best and worst team experiences, says Shapiro. For virtual teams, it might mean starting calls by getting updates on how each person is doing or hosting virtual happy hours or coffee breaks. In practice, this may mean holding a retreat or beginning meetings with team-building exercises. To that end, “resist the urge to immediately start talking about the work and the task outcome,” and focus instead on fostering camaraderie. “One of your first priorities should be to get to know your team members and to encourage them to get to better know one another,” says Shapiro. “You either pay upfront or you pay later.” Here’s how to start your team off on the right foot. “If you don’t take time upfront to figure out how to get the team working well, problems are always going to come up,” says Mary Shapiro, who teaches organizational behavior at Simmons College and is the author of the HBR Guide to Leading Teams. “People form opinions pretty quickly, and these opinions tend to be sticky,” says Michael Watkins, the cofounder of Genesis Advisers and author of the updated The First 90 Days. Whether you’re taking over an existing team or starting a new one, it’s critical to devote time and energy to establishing how you want your team to work, not just what you want them to achieve. What steps should you take to set your team up for success? How do you form group norms, establish clear goals, and create an environment where everyone feels comfortable and motivated to contribute? What the Experts Say But your actions in the first few weeks and months can have a major impact on whether your team ultimately delivers results. Getting people to work together isn’t easy, and unfortunately many leaders skip over the basics of team building in a rush to start achieving goals.
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