Archives for March 2011

How to Keep Teams Motivated

March 29, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the Queen of Hearts (heart) – Celebrate Success. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Celebrate Success

We do a lot of work with the high tech sector. We love working with them as they are curious, engaged, motivated and voracious learners who keep us on our toes. When we do teambuilding workshops with them and ask them to identify their 5 card winning hand from our Teamwork Cards, they almost always choose the Queen of Hearts, Celebrate Success. We think this is common across high performing teams who are working on complex projects where it’s not always possible to see that you’ve made progress. In our experience, everyone needs to experience some sort of success and celebrate it somehow in order to remain focused and motivated.

Queen Hearts – Celebrate Success

High performing teams can sometimes get into the habit of constantly striving for faster or better outcomes, thereby creating a subtle message that says ‘we are not good enough’.

Make sure you add celebrations into your project plans, both at the very end of a project but also along the way to celebrate small wins. Nothing motivates people more than acknowledgement of work well done. Find creative ways to celebrate that are meaningful for your team.

Do you celebrate your small wins, successes, and/or milestones? What has been the most memorable celebration you’ve had?

Curious about the rest of the tips and want to know all about them now? Then download the free Teamwork Explorer iPhone app now! More interested in the actual paper based set of cards? Visit our store!

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: Leadership, teamwork

Blind Decision Making

March 22, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Clubs (decision making) – Gathering all Information. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Gathering All Information

Today’s blog is very related to last week’s on the Baby in the Back Seat. Because we often jump to conclusions, our decision making may not be all that accurate or helpful. I was coaching someone last week who was being asked by her CEO to attend morning huddles. She was newly promoted to the executive leadership team and was finding the changing requirements of the position challenging. She was sceptical about the value of the huddles and thought they would really disrupt her day … she had made a number of assumptions about them and was really leaning towards just not attending. I asked her if she knew why her CEO wanted her to attend and why he thought they were important. The lightbulb went off … she had no idea and had not thought to ask. By the end our session, she had decided to try a few and have another conversation with her CEO about the importance of them. She also realized that if she were going to go to these morning huddles she would need to remain open to them. She came up with the following questions to guide her “What can I learn from the morning huddle?” “What can I contribute to the morning huddle?”

While this example is about an individual, teams are guilty of the same sorts of knee jerk reactions in response to requests. Ensure that your team has the right information to make informed decisions.

King of Clubs – Gathering All Information

Gathering as much pertinent information as possible prior to making a decision may involve bringing in expertise from outside the team. Teams have to beware of spending too long gathering information prior to making time-critical decisions.

How does your team handle the information gathering phase of your decision making? Do you make decisions too quickly or procrastinate too much?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams Tagged With: Leadership, teamwork

Baby in Back Seat

March 15, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Diamonds (communication) – Ladder of Inference. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Ladder of Inference

What does a baby in the back seat have to do with teams and our communication tip this week? Well, read on …

Despite the fact that I value learning and know that patience is a large part of learning, I am not a patient person. A story I read in Anna Maravelas book helps me slow down and communicate better with those around me. It’s the story of a man who stopped behind a woman at a red light. The light turned green and the woman ahead didn’t start moving, so he (being like me) got impatient and started blowing his horn. Not only that, but she actually turned around and was fiddling with something in the back seat and THEN she actually got out of the car and was trying to get something out of the back seat. Well, the driver lost it at that point, blowing the horn, yelling through the window, just in general carrying on. Well, we’ve all been there haven’t we? Stressed out, thinking that we are running short of time, etc, etc. Turns out that the woman was trying to stop her baby from choking. That’s why she got out of the car … to save her baby and thus baby in back seat or BIBS as Anna calls it in her book.

And this is the essence of Peter Senge’s ideas (based on the original work of Chris Argyris) in the Fifth Discipline around the Ladder of Inference. We take in information and select certain bits of it to pay attention to, attach meaning to and base our actions on. Because so many drivers don’t pay attention to what they are doing, this man ran up his ladder to actions (blowing the horn, etc).

How often do we do this on teams? I see it all the time and I do it all the time. Remaining open and curious about what is REALLY happening for people takes time, energy and commitment, but if you really want to improve the communication on your team, you need to do it. I try to remember BIBS when I find myself getting angry or stressed … we have a few other tips below in our teamwork card, King of Diamonds.

King of Diamonds – Ladder of Inference (Peter Senge)

To make sense of the world, people have short-cuts or ladders of inference for their beliefs and actions. Analyzing what has led to a particular belief and/or asking others what has led to their beliefs often improves communication.

What are some of your ladders of inference?
How have these worked for or against open communication and building positive relationships?
How might you use the ladder of inference model to check your assumptions about team members and/or help your team members check their own assumptions?

What other tips do you have for suspending judgments and watching your assumptions? I would love to hear them!

Filed Under: Leadership, teams, Uncategorized Tagged With: communication, Leadership, teams, teamwork

5 Tips for Team Goals

March 8, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Spades, Be Clear about the Goal. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Be Clear about the Goal

The idea of goal setting is not new, but what is challenging on teams (and generally in organizations) is getting everyone aligned and working towards the same goal. In Built to Last Collins and Porras described the importance of having visonary and emotionally compelling goals, or big hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs). As they suggest a BHAG is “clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.” In our experience, here are a few tips for identifying your team’s BHAGs:

An obvious tip … but ensure your team goal is aligned to the overall goals of the organization. If that connection isn’t clear you are on shaky ground.
Identify the common values of your team members. Goals need to be aligned with common values or you definitely won’t get people buying in. For example, if team members value social causes and your team’s big goal is to increase sales revenue you likely won’t get everyone on board. When you identify and discuss values, ensure you also talk about the beliefs and behaviors behind your value. For example, I value freedom because I believe that freedom contributes to my creativity and keeps me energized. That’s why I have chosen to remain an independent consultant for many years as the freedom to choose projects and organizations keeps me interested, engaged and continually learning. I have turned down many jobs in order to live my value of freedom.
Find goals that tap into the passion of your team members. Start goal setting with a brainstorming starter like “What if we could …” Ensure that you suspend the “we can’t do that because …” critical analysis until you’ve had a good shot at the brainstorming!
Ask yourselves how you will know if you are making progress toward goals and then build in celebrations when you reach them.
At the end of meetings, ask yourselves how the meeting helped to move you closer to your goals. If it didn’t, you need to change your meetings and/or revisit your goals.

King of Spades – Be Clear about the Goal

Amazing results are achieved when team members pull together toward a common goal. Revisit the goal often to make sure everyone understands what the team is trying to accomplish. It’s best to bring hidden agendas out on the table rather than keeping them hidden.

Are you clear about the goal on your team? What tips do you have for helping team members stay focused?

Filed Under: Leadership, teams, Uncategorized Tagged With: goals, Leadership, teams, teamwork

Team Trust Builder #1

March 1, 2011 By Tammy Leave a Comment

Today’s Teamwork Explorer Tip is the King of Hearts, Fess Up!. (Need to know more about our approach to teamwork?) See our Teamwork Explorer blog post.)

Fess Up!

This week’s blog post follows very closely from the last two … as humans we make mistakes. The biggest trust builder on teams in our experience is to sincerely fess up! While we think that fessing up should be practiced by every team member as a matter of good practice, much has been written recently about the importance of public apologies from leaders … for a great blog post check out Barbara Kellerman’s When Should a Leader Apologize?

King of Hearts – Fess up!

Everyone makes mistakes. The biggest trust buster on teams is people making mistakes and not fessing up, but looking for something or someone else to blame. Help each other be accountable and create a team environment that encourages people to learn from mistakes. Fess up in a timely manner to head off any built up resentments over time.

What’s your team environment like? Do people fess up? Has fessing up been a trust builder for your team?