Team Building Resources

I recently read an article about a “30 Day E-mail Detox” and found it quite insightful on a personal level.  I’m very much addicted to my blackberry and check email continuously through-out the day and evening.  The challenge was to give it up for 30 days and then return to a more normal level or at least make a conscious choice to utilize email instead of a robotic connection.  I must admit it didn’t convince me to take the challenge but it did get me thinking about the impact of email on team dynamics. 

With Trust being on of the fundamental elements of successful teams, when teams rely on email as the number one source of communication it can leave lots of room to impact trust development.  Some things to keep in mind as it relates to email and your team:

1. The written word, even electronic is much more permanent than the spoken word so if in doubt about if you should have a conversation face to face or via email, err on the side of face to face. 
2. You lose the benefit of non verbal cues when communicating through email so if the subject is sensitive at all, again err on the side of face to face or at a minimum on the phone at least you do get to gauge response right away and clarify if needed based on a verbal response.
3. Quantity can detract from quality – its so easy to fire off quick emails, quick responses, ensure that you don’t rely on it as the sole source of communication with team members, “social” bonds are critical to team development so make sure you take time to foster them directly.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

We have just launched our team building services in Ottawa Ontario at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.  The museum is a fantastic venue for teams to explore and our new adventure allows them to see it in a unique and fun way. 

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

One of my favourite blogs is one called “Chief Happiness Officer“, the author Alexander Kjerulf provides great reading on a regular basis.  A recent post is a video, an 18 minute video which seems like an eternity in terms of web videos but its worth every minute.  I’m sure I don’t need to draw the lines for you on how important happiness at work can be to achieve successful team dynamics.  This video has some really key insights, which although not rocket science, its presented in a way that make it very engaging and useful to reset our thinking and improve our “happiness factor”.

http://positivesharing.com/2010/01/srikumar-s-rao-at-our-2009-conference/

The video is a speech delivered by Dr. Rao at the 2009 conference on happiness at work.  Dr. Rao is the man behind the pioneering course Creativity and Personal Mastery. This is the only business school course that has its own alumni association and it has been extensively covered in the media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Independent, Time, the Financial Times, Fortune, the Guardian, Business Week and dozens of other publications.

Here are his key points distilled but its worth the 18 minute time investment to hear it directly.

1. We are born happy, we learn to be unhappy.
2. What makes us unhappy is the mental models we are taught
   •  If we do “something” we will get “something” that will then make us happy.
     • The problem is once we have the “something” we were seeking the mental models we have learned is to want ”something” else. In addition often the “something” we want, the OUTCOME is completely out of our control.
3. To truly increase our happiness we need to become less focused on the OUTCOME and the mental, if, then model and focus more on the process, which is really the only thing under our control.
4. Its OK to think about a specific outcome that we would like, to ensure we are committed to the right process, but once we have determined the right process we commit fully to the process, invest in the process not the outcome.  This improves our likely hood of happiness as it is under our control and if we pick the right process the outcome we hoped for will likely come to fruition.

You can apply this new mode of thinking to many things, including how to improve team dynamics.  Think of the outcome you would like to achieve and then decide on the right process to be followed to achieve that outcome and then commit fully to the process alone.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

As you embark on a new year, make this the year you optimize your performance, either at work or in your personal life.  Either way the best way to do it is with the help of a team.  If there is something you would like to improve on, first take time to think why it is something that “needs improving” and especially if it is something that has “needed improvement” for a long time, think about why you have been unable to improve it in the past. 

Likely the answer is you have either developed a bad habit that is very much ingrained in your normal routine or you just don’t have the natural skills to improve it yourself.  That’s where the team comes in.  Odds are someone else, either a co-worker or a friend is struggling to improve something in their lives that you have mastered. 

Determine what it is you would like to change and seek out other individuals who you believe are operating at a level you aspire to, really effective if you can find a few individuals that have achieved the results you seek by different means.  Create a team objective and share with each other strategies of how you have mastered a particular skill and coach each through  the rough spots.  Each gaining something out of the relationship by sharing your differences to improve performance overall.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

When you evaluate both the results of a team and also the enjoyment factor the level of engagement of each individuals is a key element in delivering success on both front.  I believe there are 3 primary reasons for individuals not to fully engage with the team:

1. No clear objective for the team or don’t buy in to the objective.
2. Personality clashes between team members.
3. Don’t understand how their individual roll impacts the overall ojbective.

Evalute your team as far as level of engagement, if its not at the level you would like, evaluate which of the 3 issues you believe is creating the gap and establish action plans to address. 

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

“Teamwork divides the task and double the success.”
- Author unknown

“It’s easy to figure out who isn’t a team player. They’ll constantly remind the coach just how good they are.”
- Brian G. Jett

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
- Vincent Lombardi

I was recently reading up on Employee Engagement and came across the following:

After hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, Gallup came up with the Q12, a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement. Results from the survey show a strong correlation between high scores and superior job performance. Here are those 12 questions:

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
10.  Do you have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

These are great questions and it makes sense that the correlation is strong between high scores and superior job performance.  If I take those 12 questions and translate them into how engaged is your team, I would suspect they would also have a strong correlatin between high scores and superior team performance:

1. Do you know what is expected of you from your team?
2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to fully contribute to your team?
3. Within your team, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work from another team member?
5. Does someone on your team, seem to care about you as a person?
6. Is there someone on your team who encourages your development?
7. Within your team, do your opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your team make you feel your job is important?
9. Are your fellow team members committed to doing quality work?
10.  Do you have a good friend within the team?
11. In the last six months, has someone on your team talked to you about your progress?
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

Evaluate each of these questions for any team you are on and take action to fix if you answered no.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

If you are embarking on a team activity or want a team quote to start off your team meeting to set the tone, here are a few favourites, I’ll add more and build a library as a reference to allow you to pick and choose as it fits your needs.  Let me know if you have any great team quotes you would like to share with others.

“There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves”  – Lyndon Johnson

“Everybody on a championship team doesn’t get publicity, but everyone can say he’s a champion” – Earvin “Magic” Johnson

“Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success” – Henry Ford

The concept of  “scripts” we have written for ourselves is a core part of individual therapy.  When someone embarks on self reflection to work through a difficult situation or to help them achieve new goals they often need to focus on areas of their life that repeat the same behaviour or achieve the same outcome over and over again because the feel it is an inevitable outcome, they are powerless to change the “script” as it is already written. 

This of course is almost always not the case but self defeating scripts are generally very ingrained and not a quick fix for anyone.  The purpose of this post is not to sign everyone up to weekly therapy but to borrow the concept and apply it to the team. 

Just as individuals are a combination of their basic temperament – the core skills/preferences they are born with and life experiences that shape their personality, so are teams.  If you have a team that is struggling in general, it would be a good exercise to flush out the team scripts that are holding the results back.  What are the preset notions that people have in their mind about what the team can achieve and what they can’t.  Zero in on one and take action to re-write the script in peoples minds and build on small wins to challenge the concept of “it is inevitable or impossible for this team to change”. 

So for example if the script is “we always start meetings late because it is impossible for us to get everyone together before the set time”  Highlight the goal and create conditions for success.  Once you have enough evidence to support the “script” has been re-written, tackle a harder script, one at a time, until you have a team that believes in their ability to change and deliver results they have not delivered in the past.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

The culture of your team is first and foremost driven by the culture of the company overall.  Although some teams within a company can have a distinct personality, if there is a real misfit between cultures the team members will ultimately be influenced by the company culture overall.  Understanding that culture prior to joining a company is key, often we have no real way of determining that prior to joining.   However it is something that should not be taken lightly.  Have a look at a video produced by Perrio a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, they were very aware of the fact that you need to speak to the issue of culture when trying to recruit.   We don’t often have the luxury of this type of insight into a corporate culture but nun the less ensure you take time to figure it out prior to joining a new team.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast