2+2=5 Team*WORKS

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When you think of companies or organizations that have a strong sense of teamwork, who do you think of?

Red Cross, the Marines, Habitat for Humanity, the Blue Angels Flight Team, Boston Celtics? What about customer service companies? Do you think of Walmart, McDonald’s, a General Motors dealership? The fact is, each and every one of these companies mentions teamwork as part of their core compentencies, as part overall mission statement. But, some are entirely more effective at using teamwork as a branding tool, while others fall tragically short. Why do you think that is?

I think the reason why so many companies fall flat with their customers is that many managers think all they have to do is say the word “teamwork” and automatically they have a culture of teamwork. There are managers who use the word teamwork and expect it to magically transform the company into a high performing team and there are other managers who never, ever use the word teamwork yet they run companies that we automatically associate teamwork with their companies.

Build teamwork from the inside, out and not the other way around. You can’t tell your customers one thing, yet build an entirely different culture on the inside. The next time you hear an organization say how important teamwork is to them, think back to your last experience with them. Was that teamwork reflected by its employees? And did that elevate the level of service you received or enhance the experience you had.

Teamwork is more than a 10 cent word appearing in a mission statement. Make it a part of the fabric of your Company.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smoy/3963201475/

Think about the last time you had to make a decision. What had to be taken into consideration? Depending on the importance of the decision, whether it was personal, like moving, or on the corporate level in regards to which vendor to use for your product’s raw materials, more times than not, we solicit the opinion of those around us that we trust.

I was once told by someone that just like the greatest corporations on earth, we need to find a way to get advice and move ourselves and our teams to the next level. So, I suggest, the next time you as a leader make a team decision, solicit the advice of those around, but more specifically, those you trust.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhappy8/1996718955/

” You’re really rich if you can afford to be yourself.” Written in 2004 by Thom Pletcher — Indiana

Putting the goals of the team above individual goals doesn’t mean we don’t or shouldn’t have personal goals within the constructs of a team. On the most effective teams, individuals are not required to check their individuality at the door. Quite the opposite, perhaps the most successful teams are those that harness and utlize each individuals strength’s and character to drive the team. What’s your experience?

Reader Question: My colleagues often come to me when I am not ready for them and have a conversation with me. Most of the time, I don’t have enough time to respond to them with what I really want to say. I have tried email and other forums to respond and it seems as though things just get worse. What can I do?

Our Response: Most of the time, it is hard when colleagues bombard us when we are caught off guard, and sometimes we feel taken advantage of in the conversation. It is hard when you feel as though people don’t allow you to communicate back with them when they are so eager to communicate to you on their terms. So how do we find a way to communicate with our colleagues when we feel as though we are not able to when they want to?

Effective communicators understand that the actual words that are spoken only amount to about 10% of what we are communicating. The other 90% of our communication comes from our tone, voice inflection and emphasis, body language, gestures, and posture; these are all components of communication that are completely lost in an email or instant message. Ultimately, technology can be a facilitator of communication or a barrier to communication. As we can see, it has been a barrier in this case. We must be fully conscious about how we leverage technology as a
communication resource and understand how that vehicle of communication is being received by the other person.

Think back to the last time you received an email where there may have been a misunderstanding that could have been avoided with a phone call or face to face visit. We must be conscious that emails, text messages, and instant messages come with an inherent price: misunderstandings. If we are aware of these potential pitfalls, we can be more effective in our electronic communication and understand the appropriateness and necessity of face to face conversation for certain situations. It is alright to talk with a colleague and ask them to talk later. Even better, let your colleague discuss and get back to them, but in person or on the phone.

Communication truly is the oil in a car. It keeps a team running smoothly. It’s not something that we think of as being a critical component of teambuilding but it’s the foundation that we hardly ever think about. Most of us think about the oil in our cars about once every three months. If communication is so critical to effective teambuilding, we must be
more conscious about the ways in which we communicate. We must think about communication as not only speaking but also communicating non-verbally and actively listening. We send signals each moment of every day. Team members have an acute ability to pick up on these signals so we must be sure that what we communicate is truly what we intend. Marilyn, age fifteen concluded, “Communication seems so simple, but there’s a lot more to it. There’s a lot to think about.”

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidking/3774493555/

Question: My staff have self imposed this environment where employees informally keep track of how many times other team members do something wrong, (ie late for a meeting, miss a deadline, forget how to do something.” At first, I wrote it off as good fun and general ribbing, but now it’s gotten out of control. What do you recommend to get them back on track?

Response: It’s easy for a team to slip into a “fault tracking environment” particularly in an environment where there is a bunch of high performing individuals. I remember once being on a team comprised entirely of high performing individuals, which definitely did not translate into a high performing team. As individuals we would gang up on one individual who would drop the ball. It wasn’t even to make us look better, it was to use others’ faults as credits / currency for when we would make our own missteps. This environment not only killed team morale, it left us spinning our wheels.

The correction isn’t an easy one. And the answer isn’t straightforward. It’s a combination of the proverbial stick and carrot. First, a little stick: at the next meeting call out the whole team for its miss on a team goal. By focusing the discipline on the whole team it lowers everyone a peg or two and gets people’s attention back on team goals. It’s tough to think about rewards for an underperforming team but sometimes a carrot works even better. Focus on new incentives for accomplishing team goals. Make the incentive team incentives, a team bonus, a team day off, a team promotion, a team recognition. This draws the attention away from individual accomplishment and/or failure.

The balance between stick and carrot depends entirely on the makeup of your team personality. That is a fine balance that can only be found by working with a team over an extended period of time. What do some of our readers think? What have you tried? What has or hasn’t worked?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swiv/226201274/

In this day and age, there are so many self-help and other inspirational books that get individuals “ahead”. They focus on what one person can do to improve “their” situation. With the individual incentive programs out there, everyone thinks that it is a matter of self improvement and a need to work harder and better, however, no matter how many self-help books are out there, sometimes, just focusing on self can’t and won’t work.

Now, it is certainly important for people to be their best, but at what point does it become a personal problem verses a team problem in the work place? Working in a prestigious professional services firm, and there are a lot of smart, able and competent people that I work with. I have noticed though, that some people are not successful at the firm. They were top of their class and very skilled leaders, and recruiters and management sought them out to work at this firm. So, why is it that these “top of their class very successful leaders” just didn’t work out at this firm?

As some might think, it wasn’t a matter of their skill set, or their ability to perform, but rather the environment they were in. Often time, people, professionals, bosses and management make employees feel as though it is a self problem, rather than a team problem that led to their demise. Often times, it is not so much the person, but the team environment that did not foster the person’s ability to thrive in the organization.

So the next time you pick up a self-help book, think of ways in which you can work on team help, rather than just self-help. The old adage of a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link is true, however, instead of thinking of one link weaker than the other, we might start focusing on the missing link, which often times is team unity and the loss of teammate’s abilities due to the lack of teamwork. The next time a person 0n a team just “isn’t working out”, think about ways that can foster their abilities and make them thrive within your organization.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22280677@N07/3529351545/

Now, the Tiger incident is certainly an awful story, and the way in which Tiger has hit the headlines lately is no joke. But there is a lot to be learned by companies in this incident. As a company, customers are in a relationship with you, whether its a product or service. Often times customers are often treated as numbers, rather than customers. But, what if every customer loss was treated as headline news and not just a number? What kind of press would your company receive?

When the market was doing well, the power of consumerism was taken for granted. In the wake of the economy though, companies need to work harder as teams to keep customer satisfaction as a priority; whether it is a product that is distributed or a service that is offered, the only way to keep customers is to allow them to have a say. As soon as customers feel as though they are mistreated or not cared about, companies will lose customers.

I recently had an experience with a TV provider. Now, they had confused my dad’s account with mine (as we have the same names). This obviously was an issue. After hours of talking to them, and them insisting that one of us did something wrong, I had no interest in keeping them as a provider. Now, if they had been apologetic and had empathy for my issue, I would have valued my relationship with this provider much more than I do now.

Let’s say though, as this happened, if I had a camera crew and it became a headline. What would have changed in the exchange I had with my provider? I am sure, if I was their next headline, things would have been a lot different. As a result, companies need to take every issue that a customer brings up and treat it as if it was a headline news story. If they had done that, I might feel a lot better about my TV provider than I do now.

Companies need to treat each customer like a customer, and not another number. As soon as they show the empathy and seriousness to resolving the issues at hand, customers will have more loyalty to companies and products.

Professional Development University Presented

A 60-Minute Audio Conference Scheduled for:

December 22, 2009, 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET
Employees with toxic attitudes don’t just make life miserable for their bosses. They poison an entire department, sapping the morale and productivity of everyone around them. But did you ever wonder why some supervisors don’t have any “bad apples”? The reason is that they’ve mastered techniques for turning troublemakers into productive employees who contribute to their teams. You can too.
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