Building Rock Star Teams

Jeremy Pepper has a great post about Building Rock Star Teams in PR. Pepper asks, “How do you empower everyone to perfect their work, so they can train junior staff and move up the chain of command? How do you prepare people to grow, helping clients and demonstrate to all constituents that the work done is to facilitate growth? How, in a catchphrase, do you build a team of rock stars?” The answers he received, while not surprising, provide good insight into putting together a team.

It pretty much boils down to two things…chemistry and leadership. Chemistry will ensure the effectiveness of the team leader in not only managing the team, but creating a comfortable atmosphere. Everyone on the team needs to have the same goals and ethics, both moral and work, for both the company they work at and/or the client they work for. The team leader is in charge of creating this environment. He/she is in charge of both emotional and physical well-being, being both encouraging for good work or frustrating situations, but also knowing where to draw the line and making sure everyone is focused on the short and long-term goals. You can have the best PR people in the world on your team, but if there’s no leadership, that will lead to poor chemistry among team members, and you cannot and will not be effective.

-Joey Lee, Director, Corporate Communications, Optoma Technology