10 Keys to Building Strong, Healthy Teams

At Garden City Church we're working hard to build strong, healthy teams: our elder board, our staff team, our team of deacons, our various volunteer/serving teams, etc.  I'm learning a lot along the way. Here are 10 keys I'm personally discovering to building strong, healthy teams.1. Stay humble. Be open to learning a lot more about yourself, other people, and your organization as you build your team. You will learn and grow a lot more in a team leadership environment than you will in a solo leadership environment.2. Be clear. One of the most important things a leader can do is be clear. As you develop your team, get rid of the murky confusion and clutter that creeps in and bring fresh clarity to the purpose of the team and each person's role on the team. I don't mean twice a year. I mean weekly. Every week you need to work hard to ensure clarity. This will never end.3. Build a diverse team. Healthy teams are diverse teams. Put people with different strengths, personalities, backgrounds, etc. on your team. Read Team of Rivals for inspiration. Find out what is unique about each of your team members and utilize their unique strengths.4. Pray a lot. It takes a lot of prayer and wisdom that you do not yet have to build healthy teams. Jesus got away to pray before building his team.5. Introduce conflict. Introduce conflict to your team and watch how the team handles the conflict. Ensure that your team is unified around your values, not vague fuzzy feelings. If your team is truly united around your values, you'll be able to navigate the conflict humbly and wisely and experience more unity and effectiveness on the other side of the conflict. Healthy teams argue.6. Run to the tension. As you build your team, tension will come. It will never stop coming. Tension is inevitable in teamwork. Healthy teams "run" to the tension and directly deal with it. Unhealthy teams ignore the tension. Create a culture where "issues" are handled directly and quickly.7. Remember: Culture is everything. Know in advance the culture you want to build in your church/team/organization and fight hard to protect and nurture that culture. Don't think in terms of rules or policy, think in terms of the overall culture you are setting with your team. Ask questions like: Is our leadership nurturing or harming the culture we value?8. Go slow. Don't rush team building. Move slowly and make sure you're putting the right people on the team. You'll rarely regret moving slowly. You'll often regret moving too quickly.9. Enjoy your team. Don't only lead your team. Enjoy your team. Make space to simply be together as a team and enjoy your relationships. I think it's important for teams to have fun together.10. Love your team. Don't only lead your team. Love your team. People will follow you if they know you care about them.