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

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

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

“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

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

6. Personal integrity:
Living with congruence between what we know, what we profess, and what we do; telling the truth, honoring our commitments, exemplifying in action the values we professes to admire; dealing with others fairly and benevolently.

Living with personal integrity impacts every aspect of our lives and how we feel about our self.  As part of a team it is fundamental in the develop and maintenance of trust amongst team members.  Trust is the foundational element of effective teams, it opens the doors to all other elements of teams working effectively together.  Personal integrity is not just about making the right choices ethically and morally, it is about being consistent between our thoughts and actions.  If we do not understand ourselves and our motivations enough we can appear to be lacking personal integrity as we do not act with consistency, this can undermine trust within a team.  Self reflection when we find we are being challenged on our consistency is extremely important to work out for ourselves where we stand and then in turn can manage the trust development with out team members.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

5. Living purposefully:
Identifying our short-term and long-term goals or purposes and the actions needed to attain them, organizing behavior in the service of those goals, monitoring action to be sure we stay on track — and paying attention to outcome so as to recognize if and when we need to go back to the drawing-board.

As applied to an individual this pillar is very much focused on the totality of  our life, ensuring that we have made a conscious effort to have the right “balance” or “mix” to  enable us  to live our life’s in the best way possible which in turn makes us more fulfilled resulting in operating in all aspects of our life at peak performance.   “Living Purposefully” as a team becomes a multiplier for performance.  If all team members are very clear on their own short and long term goals they can ensure that goals are in alignment and when they aren’t take action to resolve the misalignment.  This allows the team to clearly focus on the goals at hand without managing hidden agendas.  When each individual takes responsibility to set goals, clearly articulate those goals, monitor progress against those goals everybody wins.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

4. Self-assertiveness:
Being authentic in our dealings with others; treating our values and persons with decent respect in social contexts; refusing to fake the reality of who we are or what we esteem in order to avoid someones disapproval; the willingness to stand up for ourselves and our ideas in appropriate ways in appropriate circumstances.

Trust is a fundamental element of successful teams and being authentic is a pre-requisite to develop trust amongst team members.  Understanding ourselves and being true to that self allows us to be self assertive as we do not question ourselves when part of a team.  This both displays confidence in ourselves which will allow others to be confident in us. 

This element of self esteem also deals with a key process for teams of sharing ideas and also managing conflict if ideas or strategies are differing amongst the team.  Successful teams require individuals to be comfortable in presenting their ideas or thoughts even if they are different that the rest of the team.  Having the confidence to present opposing ideas and also manage through the discussion in a respectful way that broadens the team view point is critical.   

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

As humans we know mistakes are inevitable.  I’m not suggesting you reward every mistake but a few well chosen opportunities can go a long way to setting a culture that is accepting of mistakes and learns from them.  As well as benefiting from all the innovation and creativity it releases. 

So evaluate the mistakes/failures through the following lens and when appropriate choose a recognition technique that best communicates the message and treats the individual or individuals involved with respect.

1. Was the mistake driven by someone trying something new and innovative?
2. Did the individual and or team learn something from the experience that will be beneficial in the future?
3. Were the consequences of the mistake contained and manageable?
4. Will the individual or team that made the mistake be comfortable with the details being shared publically?

If you answered yes to each of these questions then it’s an ideal opportunity to use this example to reward the intention of trying to achieve better results.  Don’t just reward failure once as it will be seen as a passing idea of the month.  That said make sure you reward success more often, it’s great to create the culture of being accepting of failure but you don’t want to go too far in actively promoting it.