The rule of five

The benefits of a successful team are said to include:

• Efficiency: when a team works well together, they accomplish more.
• Mutual support: when a team works well together, they are supportive of one another.
• Better outcomes: when a team works well together, they come up with more effective solutions.
• Sense of accomplishment: when a team works well towards a common goal, there is often a greater sense of achievement.

To achieve a successful team there are five teamworking rules to work towards. These are:

1. Know your team, know who does what
If you are a large team you won’t know every single person in your building (it would be very impressive if you did), but trying to get to know everyone you work with directly day to day is a good way to start. It doesn’t matter which company you work for as you are all part of the building team looking after the building’s occupiers together. You are all super in your own way but make sure everyone knows who does what as this helps with delivering customer excellence together (link back to Module 1 – The importance of you).

2. Continually improve what you do, learning from feedback or your setbacks
Our customers’ expectations are always growing and changing so it’s good to take time to share ideas across your team. Try something new to help make your team successful. All teams face issues at some point, by taking a step back you can learn from these setbacks and improve your customer experience for the future (link back to Module 6 – The impact of your attitude).

3. Be comfortable with disagreement
In teams sometimes there will be different opinions, maybe someone did not do what you thought they should do or had a different approach from you. Try and move past these differences and focus on the person’s intentions rather than their actions, as most of the time the intention was good even if the actions didn’t quite match up.

4. Build your teams relationships
We all spend a lot of time at work together so it’s important to build relationships with each other inside, and outside of work. It could be grabbing a drink or sharing a meal break and getting to know each other better so you can get along well both outside and inside your building. The closer you are as a team the better and easier it will be to work together in looking after our customers.

5. Understand your common goals and always celebrate your team’s successes
Knowing your team’s overall goals helps the team to focus and have an aim for the year, you may want to enter an award or improve your customer satisfaction survey results (if you have one). Once you get there, make time to celebrate your successes together. Go for an evening out together or share some cakes, whatever works for your team to recognise them for their hard work.