All too often, business focus solely on the bottom line. Revenue. Profit. KPIs. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

Yes, of course these are important, but how does an organisation achieve that desired result? Or more importantly, who does? The answer is the team of course, and that’s where you should be spending your ‘blood and treasure’ of time and money – on making sure the team is fit and ready for the task.

As the legendary San Francisco 49ers Head Coach, Bill Walsh wrote, ‘The Score Takes Care of Itself’ – get the team right, and the points will come.

This is even more important in 2017 than ever before, as companies are identifying organizational design as the most important global human capital trend, according to Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report. (In fact, organizational design has been voted the most important trend for two years running now, as companies adapt to the radically different world in which we live).

Companies are reorganizing and restructuring in response to the  modern VUCA world – one that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Couple this with the greater opportunity to collaborate that technology has given us and you find a very different playing field to the one we faced even ten years ago.

Successful businesses are realising that its people are the key to riding this wave of exponential change. They are moving from traditional (and outdated) 20th century silo structures, into new networks of teams, where people move in and out depending on immediate need much more freely and with greater fluidity. As Deloitte’s report says:

“Top companies are built around systems that encourage teams and individuals to meet each other, share information transparently, and move from team to team depending on the issue to be addressed”.

If you are going to put this demand for greater mobility, flexibility and agility on your people, then you have to take the time to prepare them for the new world order. The human animal is not wired for this kind of existence; we fear change, and take time to build trust with each other. Which is where social capital comes in.

Social capital has many definitions; One of the best comes from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which says it is:

“…the links, shared values and understandings in society that enable individuals and groups to trust each other and so work together”.

Social Capital is the mortar that glues the bricks of your organisation together; it connects people, and is characterized by personal relationships; trust of one another; candour; openness; and shared experience. In its most extreme, it is why soldiers are willing to put their lives on the line ‘for the bloke next to you’ before they even think about doing it for Queen and country. And they often say ‘I do it because I know he’d do it for me’. Building social capital breeds reciprocity, one of the most powerful tools teams have at their disposal. As Robert Cialdini, author of ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’  says “people say yes to those they owe”.

As I have already said, building social capital has traditionally taken time, the one resource that we have less of in this new, agile team world. If you are going to move your organisation towards this way of working, then you have to allow and encourage your people to develop social capital – fast.

This may sound impossible – how to do something quickly that previously took a lot of time, when we don’t have time? The good news is that human beings are incredible at adapting and surviving. So now it’s time to tap into this creativity and desire to overcome, but you have to invest that blood and treasure in developing social capital so that these new teams have a chance of succeeding.

Here’s a few quick tips on how you can develop social capital:

Synchronise Your Coffee Breaks

Social Capital is all about relationships, and there’s still no better way of doing this than being physically in the  same place as someone. Sandy Pentland and his research team at MIT found this out and recommended that one company simply synchronised its coffee breaks. The result? Profits went up 15 million dollars and employee satisfaction went up 10%.

Don’t Let Your People Feel Anonymous

Pat Lencioni talks about anonymity being one of the three major causes of job misery in his book ‘The Truth About Employee Engagement’. Make time for team members to get to know each other, don’t let people feel like no one cares. This doesn’t have to be a massive time commitment – at the very least, it’s just taking a few minutes to find out about your team mate’s life outside of the task at hand.

Train Your Team For The Agile Team World

There is a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln,

“Give me six hours to cut down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”.

If you are going to ask your teams to change and expect them to act in a very different way, then you need to give them the training necessary to be able to operate this way. This concept of agile teamwork is not rocket science, it can just be a case of raising awareness and setting expectations, and giving them permission to act this way. But I would highly recommend some time spent away from desks to equip people with the knowledge and awareness required to work differently.

Focus On The First Minutes of Your Team’s Existence

This flexible way of working is going to mean new teams are being formed all the time, and the most important time in any team’s existence is their first moments together. In this Harvard Business Review interview, J Richard Hackman talks about how important this is, saying:

“The first few minutes of the start of any social system are the most important because they establish not only where the group is going but also what the relationship will be between the team leader and the group, and what basic norms of conduct will be expected and enforced”.

Agree and Commit from Minute One

When you are getting together for the first time (and be sure to make that a face-to-face meeting whenever possible) don’t just dive straight into the task at hand – spend some time discussing and agreeing a few basic facts of life for your team. For example, what are your goals, who is doing what, and how you are all expected to behave are three of the very basic things you should get alignment and agreement on from minute one, before you do anything else.