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Building Solid Cohesive Teams

Author: Ajith J Pillai
Founder President and CEO, Nous Infosystems.
Like all technology businesses, IT Services Companies are expected to demonstrate a capability to understand business problems and provide suitable IT Solutions in all their client engagements. They have to continuously go beyond stated problems and envisage intelligent solutions. This inevitably puts a lot of premium on talent and individualism. However, ideas and solutions are not everything. Effective execution of them is equally important. This involves people with different skill sets, temperament, and proficiency in working together in concert as a team. Individual goals have to be subsumed to team goals here.

There is always this very delicate interplay between individualism and team work, the seemingly disparate elements. They are delicate in the sense, that quality of individuals and cohesion of the team tremendously impact the quality of the outcome. They are disparate in the sense that promoting one oftentimes is at the cost of the other.

Building solid cohesive team of highly talented individuals is however the key to success in IT Services business.

There is more than one ways of building a cohesive team. What has really held us in good stead so far are the following fundamental tenets:

1. Respect the customer and business: Without the business there can be no individual or team glory. Individuals and teams must always look holistically at serving the long term interest of the client and, in turn, the business. Ingenuity and good intentions are meaningful only if they are able to deliver substantial business benefits to clients at the right time, consistently. The individuals must therefore act with due diligence and ingenuity and at the same time engage with other individuals with the best interest of the client in mind. Teams and individuals should be judged and rewarded on the basis of results delivered to client.

2. Respect the individual: The team is as good as the individuals in it. There should be a culture of openness and fairness wherein people are encouraged to be assertive in the interests of the client, business, and the organization. There should be a lot of accent on continuous intellectual growth of the individual to fight against mediocrity and complacence. Organization structure and hierarchy should work towards harnessing and channelizing the collective intelligence of the organization the right way, rather than stultifying individual creativity and motivation in the name of teamwork. While respecting individualism, people should also be sensitized towards civil and courteous behavior. Intelligence should not be confused with arrogance and vice versa.

3. Build leadership: Good leadership acts as a cohesive force that binds the team together and deliver extraordinary results. Conversely, bad leadership is a disaster waiting to happen. There are numerous theories on building leadership. But emotional intelligence is very important in making a leader successful.

He or she should be able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team mates. He should treat each member equally and fairly without any trace of bias. He should make it clear to the members that any unnecessary politics within the team is unappreciated. It’s important to recognize leadership and mentor people become good leaders so that they create an inspired and achieving workplace.

The author is Founder President and CEO, Nous Infosystems. He can be reached at ajith@nousinfo.com
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Reader's comments(8)
1: From: Mrs. Mary David

This mail may be a surprise to you because you did not give me the permission to do so and neither do you know me but before I tell you about myself I want you to please forgive me for sending this mail without your permission. I am writing this letter in confidence believing that if it is the will of God for you to help me and my family, God almighty will bless and reward you abundantly. I need an honest and trust worthy person like you to entrust this huge transfer project unto.

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Posted by: mary lovely david - Monday 26th, September 2011
2: hai
Posted by: mahesh ks - Sunday 12th, December 2010
3: tataosah@yahoo.com
Hello.
My Name is Tata I was impressed when i saw your profile at ww.siliconindia.com and will like you to email me back to my inbox so that i can send you my picture for you to know who i am.i belive we can establishe a long lasting relation ship with you.In addition,i will like you to reply me through my private e mail box (tataosah@yahoo.com).
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Tata.
Posted by: tata tatababy os - Friday 30th, October 2009
4: Hi Ajith,

Long time. I hope you would remember. All this always look very good in paper. But my question is how many companies really does execute what you have mentioned. Over the years I have been lucky enough to work with multiple IT services companies, but many a times the Vision, Mission and core values of an organization itself does not reach the employees who are lower in the hierarchy. How do you foresee overcoming such problems?

Best wishes,
Ajeesh Venugopalan.
Posted by: Ajeesh Venugopalan - Thursday 07th, May 2009
5: This is a good post.How to approach and handle Unfriendly customers is the major problem most of our employees face.Effective training by HR personnel will really sort this out.Do you think the HR dept handled by a whole lot of junior executive really need to be emphasised.I happened to attend interviews recently in some MNCs.What i felt is are they recruiting the right ppl for the company?
Posted by: Sri sai - Friday 27th, March 2009
6: Very True and wish we learn from it the most.

Parag Shah
Posted by: Parag Shah - Tuesday 13th, January 2009
7: hi sir
WIsh to add u to the network and require a help from ur end
Posted by: bharathi mahesh - Tuesday 12th, August 2008
8: hii sir
Posted by: sayok das - Monday 11th, August 2008
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