The easiest and most effective way to build a competent, motivated and engaged team is to hire intelligently. Unfortunately, the typical path to hiring people is obstructed with biased or incorrect information and involves quite a bit of guesswork and assumptions.

How can any business successfully assemble a team of skilled, solution-oriented and motivated people without the reliable data needed to do so?

If you want your experience as a business owner to be more enjoyable and rewarding — and your company to become increasingly successful —it’s imperative you consistently work toward building and maintaining a dynamic and powerful team. This is accomplished by first putting motivated and skilled individuals with positive attitudes in place, then helping them tap more of their tremendous potential on a consistent basis.

Do you want to reduce costly turnover? Would you like your business to operate with fewer errors and less interruptions to the flow of operations? Do you want to derive more joy from owning and running your business? Are you interested in greater efficiency and productivity? Do you want your business to be more successful overall?

This is where job benchmarking and candidate assessments come in. When this approach is used correctly, productivity rises an astonishing 30 percent and retention increases a welcome 50 percent. Productivity rises because a team member’s behaviors, core values and competencies align with the duties, responsibilities and rewards of the job. Retention increases because there’s symmetry among the new hire, job and company values.

The second component of building and maintaining a powerful team requires that you provide professional development opportunities to your team. This is best accomplished with the help of a trained professional who will work with you, your managers and team members to develop top performers. The objective here is to help everyone become empowered players so they, your clients and your business will experience more success and happiness.

On the other hand, one of the surest ways to damage a business from within is to tear down or undermine solid team members and their efforts. This comes about through unconstructive criticism, blame, lack of follow through, ineffective communication and simply not appreciating those individuals who make up the company. These behaviors undermine self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem in team members and also undermine the culture and leadership’s credibility with the team.

People thrive when praised for a job well done. Recognizing team members’ solid efforts and working with them in positive and constructive ways to continue reaching for higher levels of excellence is the most effective way to help people build self-esteem, competency and confidence, which results in greater levels of performance and job satisfaction.

Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, had this to say on the subject: “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

Empowering owners, managers and team members to become top performers is a powerful solution to many of the common ills experienced in business. As each team member develops unique skills, the business runs more efficiently and effectively, the work atmosphere grows more positive, turnover goes down, attendance goes up, client satisfaction increases and the bottom line improves.

Does this sound like the type of business you want to own?

If you find yourself at a loss for how to do this, explore your options and choose the coach or consultant best suited to you. There’s strength in engaging and using quality help. By doing so, you provide a powerful example for your team members to follow.

Even with the best information and training available, there’s no guarantee a team member will work out in the long run. Circumstances change in business and in the lives of the people who make up the business. As circumstances and people change, stay aware of corporate culture and performance, keeping and supporting those individuals who truly want to contribute to the happiness and success of everyone involved.

You have a wonderful opportunity to help your team members find and develop their strengths and come alive as active and engaged players in your business. Bring in a qualified professional coach or consultant, use job benchmarking, consistently offer professional development opportunities, work with your people to become top performers and your well-chosen team will help you reach new heights in your business operations.