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

I will be  reviewing the key elements of self esteem as defined by Nathaniel Branden in his book “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem” and the implication on team performance.  Discussing each of the pillars in turn, starting with Pillar #1 – Living Consciously.

1. Living Consciously:
Respect for facts; being present to what we are doing while we are doing it; seeking and being eagerly open to any information, knowledge, or feedback that bears on our interests, values, goals, and projects; seeking to understand not only the world external to self but also our inner world as well, so that we do not act out of self-blindness.

Being present, seeing clearly and being open, allows individuals to build self esteem as they are solidly grounded in reality.  This sense of stability translates to confidence in themselves and their abilities given the situations.  If they are in a situation where they do not feel they can deliver what is required, they will take action to bridge the gap or remove themselves from the situation.

So how does this translate to successful teams?  As we work with team members being engaged is critical and living consciously increases engagement.  It also is extremely important in building trust within the team.  Team members can count on each other to a much higher degree when all team members are engaged and focus on a clear understanding of the common objective.

Challenge yourself and your team mates to “live consciously” it will both build self esteem and increase the performance of your team.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

There is no one size fits all for how to communicate optimally which each individual but the basics of effective communication will put you on the right track, the following is a list of sound communication principles and questions you can ask yourself to improve your communication with each of your team mates depending on their key preferences and needs:

1. Time is a precious resource, ensure your communication is focused and provide only as much detail as the recipient needs to understand and engage.
2. Demonstrate active listening whenever possible (repeating back a summarized version or asking clarifying questions).
3. Determine if your team mate processes information better through verbal communication or written communication, although you should never use one form exclusively, when you need to ensure your team mate clearly understands the information, make sure you provide it in the form that best suits them.
4. Check for visible confirmation that your team mate is listening and engaged, if not save the communication for a time when you are both able to fully commit to the conversation.  If the time never seems right, be a little more forcefully and specifically ask for confirmation that what you are saying is being heard.
5. Determine if your team mate likes to process information in a linear manner or is comfortable discussing an idea from many different perspectives and adjust your communication accordingly.
6. Determine if your team mates need facts and figures to connect to an idea or if they need to have an emotional connection before fully engaging.  You will need to think through both dimensions but put the focus on one or the other with particular team mates.
7. Determine if your team mate likes to process information internally prior to being able to engage in a discussion about alternatives or is comfortable with full brainstorming, asking a team mate who requires internal processing time to engage on the fly will not only deliver sub-optimal results it can create tension in the team as they have been placed in an uncomfortable position.
8. Ensure your verbal and non verbal communication is consistent, some team mates will be less focused on the non verbal but some place a very high degree of importance on the consistency of verbal and non verbal communication.
9. For key communication (not suggesting you evaluate each conversation before engaging) determine if you need the team mate to take action from the communication or simply to be aware.  The approach and detail you provide will be quite different depending on the objective.
10. Check with your team on a regular basis about how well communication is going, are there areas where there is too much information being discussed/disseminated, are there areas where there is a void in communication, are there ways team members would prefer to communicate i.e. a weekly meeting instead of having to write a weekly activity report. 

Being an effective communicator is important for most dimensions of work life but particularly so when working as part of a team.  The more each individual is cognizant of their own needs and strengths and those of others adjustments can be made on both side to optimize communication effectiveness.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast