Gel

Culture

Strong relationships between your team members will help drive your team's success. Nurture them.

Teams are complex. A team of five people contains ten separate relationships. A team of twenty has 190! Each of those relationships is important to the team. If I don't know much about you, I'm less likely to trust you. I'm less likely to forgive you if you screw something up. And I'm less likely to push you when I disagree with you, or when I really need your help.

Like any relationship, those on your team can be built and strengthened. Those links will be forged as your team get to know each other. They’ll discover where they're the same and how they differ. They’ll start to see who excels at something and where they need help. They’ll learn about each others’ families and backgrounds. Understanding what makes each other tick builds empathy and cements relationships. Your team will gel. This all takes time, but you can help.

Relationships change over time too, especially as people join and leave your team. Your team might be well-gelled right now, but don’t make the mistake of assuming that it’ll stay that way forever. Like tending to a garden, you need to pay constant attention to your team’s relationships and morale.