When working together on a group writing project, what is the most important stage of the process?

Business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs are often viewed as team leaders. If something fails, you may blame yourself. If it succeeds, you'll receive the praise.

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1. Set a clear purpose and mission and revisit it throughout the process.
2. Set ground rules and make sure they are followed.
3. Let other members act as leaders or facilitators.
4. Don't try to avoid conflict. It is normal and can be healthy.
5. Remind group members to listen.
6. End each meeting with insightful and constructive feedback that improves the group process.
7. To progress, everyone must contribute and participate.

Whether you are leading your entire company or a smaller project group, you have a huge influence on team development and performance. It's almost like being Captain America to The Avengers or Steve Jobs to Apple. Of course, those are some big shoes to fill.

You don't have to gain superpowers from a serum or create one of the most iconic brands of your generation to be a great leader.

Guide your team through each stage of the process with the following tips:

1. Set a clear purpose and mission and revisit it throughout the process.

Why does your team or company exist? What values matter to you? What problem will you solve? Why do you need to solve it?

All these questions should be answered with a clear purpose and mission statement. It is the framework that will help you make decisions. It gives you direction. Without it, you'll go nowhere.

People get so lost in a specific task that they forget why they are doing it in the first place. It is easy to lose sight of the "big picture". Teams need a clear purpose and mission and should be reminded of them often.

2. Set ground rules and make sure they are followed.

Rules may not sound fun, but they clear up confusion. Without them, no one will know what is considered acceptable behavior. Everyone will have their own "style" of doing things. Groups without rules are disjointed, prone to conflict and inefficient.

One of the first tasks that teams should do is establish ground rules. These can cover how to interact in the group to how to complete tasks efficiently. Some examples are:

Don't interrupt another member when they are speaking.
Turn off your phone during working meetings.
Track your time transparently with Toggl Track.
Create a weekly work plan with tasks and share it with the team.

Remember that rules are created to help your team stay focused on what matters most─performance.

3. Let other members act as leaders or facilitators.

Every team should have a facilitator─a person who leads and guides meetings and discussions. Someone who drives the group towards a common goal.

As a company founder or manager, you may be the designated team leader. But, that doesn't mean you should always be the one leading.

Leading a team is tiring. Try to do it all on your own and you'll burn out fast.

Sometimes, there may even be another member of the group more qualified to lead a discussion than you. If you are discussing the security of a mobile app you are building, the best facilitator could be the cyber security expert on your team?

High-functioning teams work so well together that facilitator roles can rotate without impacting their performance.

4. Don't try to avoid conflict. It is normal and can be healthy.

If everyone in your group thinks and acts the same, then why do you have a group? The benefit of working in a team is that you have access to diverse experiences, skills, and opinions that aren't possible alone.

When members disagree about something, listen to each side. But, don't take one. Search for common ground. For example, each person wants to reach the end goal.

When conflicts are resolved, it can improve existing processes and bond members together.

5. Remind group members to listen.

Each person in your group holds some value, otherwise they wouldn't be there, right? Remind your team to listen to each person's insight.

Early on, create an environment that is open and non-judgmental. Hold brainstorming sessions. Write down every idea that is offered, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs and inventors have had failed companies and ill-conceived ideas.

For every brilliant idea, there are 100 terrible ones. Encouraging your team to share their ideas and opinions is the key to finding the "big ideas".

6. End each meeting with insightful and constructive feedback that improves the group process.

When you lead a group, part of your responsibility is to observe. Study how the team functions as a unit and individually.

What are they doing well? What do they need to improve? Give individual feedback in one-on-one meetings. But, you can point out areas of improvement or strengths to the group as a whole, without pointing fingers.

Don't scold teams for their mistakes and failures, without showing them what went wrong. Don't point out problems without offering solutions and advice.

It is important to give criticism in a way that empowers them to do better.

Nobody likes a Negative Nancy or Debbie Downer either. Tell teams what they are doing right as well as what they need to improve.

As a leader, don't think that you are flawless though. Give and ask for feedback from your team. That could mean sending out a weekly or monthly anonymous survey.

2. Close your speech in a memorable way: compliment your audience, deliver a punchline or share a shocking information or quote that suggests urgency.

7. To progress, everyone must contribute and participate.

The point of having a team is to work together. Each person plays a part and has something to contribute. When one person fails to complete a task, the rest of the group suffers.

It is important to instill this sense of responsibility in a group. But, you may still need to remind and motivate members to be productive.

This is another area where time tracking can help. With Toggl Track, team members can track the work that they do. This is especially useful if you have some people that are working remotely.

Even if your group has two or three leaders, you can't always monitor your team. You can't look over their shoulders and make sure that everyone is doing their work. Ideally, your team is made up of reliable people that know and fulfill their responsibilities.

There are other advantages to tracking your time with an app though. When you know how long a process takes, you can identify areas that could be made more efficient. Then, develop more productive habits. It can also help you predict how much additional time your group might need to complete the current project.

If powerful superhero and entrepreneur teams have taught us anything, it is that working with others can increase your strength and success. Some projects you just can't tackle alone.

Building a team isn't easy. It is a process. Knowing each stage of development can help you create all-star teams that deliver amazing results.

This page will inform you about the nature of group work, about what you should expect and the expectations teachers have of you in group learning situations.

Learning and working effectively as part of a team or group is an extremely important skill, and one that you will refine and use throughout your working life. Group projects should be among the most valuable and rewarding learning experiences. For many students, however, they are also among the most frustrating.

Here are some pointers to help you work effectively on your group tasks and assignments. These are mostly general principles that you should apply to group work here, in other courses and in the workplace.

Learning in groups means that you need to share your knowledge and ideas with other students. There are two principal ways that you benefit from doing this:

you need to think carefully about your own ideas in order to explain them to others
you expand your own awareness by taking account of the knowledge and ideas of others.

When you work as a group on a project or assignment, then you have the opportunity to draw on the different strengths of group members, to produce a more extensive and higher quality project or assignment than you could complete on your own.

To do this effectively you need to learn group work skills, which are an extremely important part of your professional development. In most professions people are required to work in multidisciplinary project teams or teams with a responsibility for a specific task. Many professional organisations and employer groups stress the importance of interpersonal and group skills, such as communication, negotiation, problem solving, and teamwork. These skills can be as important as your subject knowledge in enabling you to be an effective professional.

This kind of group work is actually an ongoing process of generating ideas and planning as a group, working as an individual to carry out parts of that plan and then communicating as a group to draw the individual components together and plan the next step.

This document (version: BA300112) was developed by staff at the Learning and Teaching Unit at UNSW, and includes material adapted from handouts developed by faculty teaching staff at UNSW.

References

Gibbs, G. (1994). Learning in Teams: A student Manual. Oxford: The Oxford Centre for Staff Development.
Scoufis, M. (2000). Integrating Graduate Attributes into the Undergraduate Curricula. University of Western Sydney. (ISBN 1863418725).