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Posts Tagged ‘Team Building’

Team Building Movies That Don’t Revolve Around Sports

June 5th, 2010

There's other things you can do...Maybe watch a movie?

21 day High Performance Team Challenge-Weekend Edition

That feeling of energy, amusement, inspiration, or connection that a great movie can create is always amazing to me. Movies are a great way to connect people on an emotional, and (somewhat vicariously) an experiential level. So, for the weekend edition of the HPTC here are a few somewhat off-beat cinematic looks at different aspects of team building, leadership and workplace dynamics.

(BTW-we’re not at all against sports or sports movies-that’s been just a little over-done.) Enjoy.

(Click on the movie titles to explore them further)

Office Space Hilarious and slightly twisted look at (exaggerated) office dynamics. If you’ve ever worked in a cubicle-you’ll relate.

Stomp Out Loud An amazing example of team alignment, synergy and practice.

Apollo 13 Decision making, innovation, pressure, lack of resources,deadlines, leadership, risk taking, this one has it all!

Shackleton A riveting study in leadership styles and so much more.

Master and Commander Ship based team building.

Groundhog Day Think about it- unless you make some changes, you’ll probably keep getting the same results.

Here’s another link we thought you might enjoy:

7 Tips to throwing an outdoor movie night

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Posted in Team Building, Teamwork, Workplace Learning

Tags: Leadership Team Building Team Leadership Teams Teamwork Teamwork Movies

Priorities-Are You And Your Team Really Doing the First Things First?

June 4th, 2010

21 Day High Performance Team Challenge-Day 4

“Action expresses priorities.”-Mohandas Ghandi

This simple quote carries loads of meaning. Not that it needs it, but I am going to interpret it a little bit here. “What you do first shows what is most important to you”, so, if you read, and/or answer your email as your first work task each day, then that must mean that email is your top priority, right? You must be an email salesperson, or an email technician at a giant email company, or you must have an email store? Sounds ridiculous,right? Ask yourself:

-”Am I prioritizing my tasks correctly to maximize my own personal performance, and the performance of my team?

-”What messages are my actions communicating to my team about my priorities as a leader, and the organization’s priorities?

Obviously ,the examples above are a little extreme and possibly ridiculous, however, I have spoken with hundreds, maybe thousands of team leaders and team members who talk about responding to emails, sending emails, checking emails,” fixing” or dealing with emergencies that came to them in emails, etc. If you are a customer service driven company, or a company that receives orders from customers by email, then of course, checking email first-for customer needs-would make sense as a priority task.

This blog post is not intended to be a rant against email, it is really about setting clear priorities and sticking to them as much as possible. If you have been following the HPTC blog entries this week, you have probably spent a little time thinking about your Team’s Vision, Mission and individual team member behaviors, and hopefully those thoughts have helped you to get a little more clear on your priorities. Here are a couple of examples of High Priority Tasks (HPT’S) ( I encourage you to leave comments with your ideas for other HPT’s):

-Direct Revenue generation (taking orders,customer meetings, etc)

-Customer service issues (creating delight, fixing problems, etc)

-Product or service improvement

-Employee engagement

-Equipment maintenance

-?????????????????

Here a couple of great priority setting tools:

-Stephen Covey’s Priority Matrix

-Uncovering your priorities:

On a sheet of paper, write your 10 top tasks or “To-Do’’s”
Now, if this list could only have 9 items on it, which would you cross off?
Cross it off.
If this list could only have 8 items, which would you cross off?
Cross it off.
If this list could only have 7 items, which would you cross off?
Cross it off…
You get the picture, continue this process until you are down to 1 item- that is your top priority.

Going through this process, forcing yourself to make the choice each time you cross something off, enables your brain to quickly weigh everything and make the best choice.

This technique can be used to determine your top 1-3 tasks each day- so that you are making progress on priorities and still have time to “fight fires” as needed. Try it.

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Posted in Team Building, Teamwork, Workplace Learning

Tags: Leadership Management Stephen Covey Team Building Team Leadership Teamwork Time Management

Do You Want to Know What Your Team Really Thinks?

June 3rd, 2010

High Performance Team Challenge-Day 3

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

So now you’ve had a couple of days to think about and ideally, to work on your team’s Vision and Mission. Now it’s time to start finding out what’s really going on for the people on the team.With a little editing for time and continuity for our 21 day HPTC, this next set of action items come straight from Marshall Goldsmith‘s “Team Building without wasting time”:

Begin by asking all members of the team to confidentially record their individual answers to two questions:

(1) “On a 1 to 10 scale (with 10 being ideal), how well are we doing in terms of working together as a team?”

(2) “On a 1 to 10 scale, how well do we need to be doing in terms of working together as a team?”

Next, compile all of the answers,calculate the results and distribute the numbers to everyone. If you have time today, schedule a short meeting to do the following:

Step two. Ask the team members, “If every team member could change two key behaviors that would help us close the gap between where we are and where we want to be, which two behaviors should we all try to change?” Have each team member record his or her selected behaviors on flip charts.

Step three. Help team members prioritize all the behaviors on the charts (many will be the same or similar) and (using consensus) determine the two most important behaviors to change (for all team members).

Step four. Have each team member hold a one-on-one dialogue with all other team members. During the dialogues each member will request that his or her colleague suggest two areas for personal behavioral change (other than the two already agreed on above) that will help the team close the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

These dialogues occur simultaneously and take about five minutes each. For example, if there are seven team members, each team member will participate in six brief one-on-one dialogues.

Step five. Let each team member review his or her list of suggested behavioral changes and choose the two that seem to be the most important. Have all team members then announce their two key behaviors for personal change to the team.

Building awareness of team behaviors is the first step in changing the ones that need changed, and developing the effective behaviors.

At the end of the 21 days, we will ask team members to get together and give each other feedback on their progress with these behaviors.

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Posted in Team Building, Teamwork, Workplace Learning

Tags: Leadership Management Team Team Building Team Leadership Teamwork

Is Your Team On a Mission?

June 2nd, 2010

Your Mission, if you choose to accept it...

High Performance Team Challenge-Day 2

“Fit no stereotypes. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission.”- Colin Powell

Mission and Vision are often “lumped together” in business circles as if they are interchangeable. They’re not. They are, however, mutually supportive.

Adapted from Diffen.com :

**The Differences between Mission and Vision Statements**
Time:	A Mission Statement describes the organization’s present state.	A Vision Statement clearly describes the organization’s desired future state.
Function:	A Mission Statement lists the broad goals for which the organization is formed. It provides an outline for understanding around WHO the organization serves and WHAT the organization will do now in order to achieve the goals and objectives that will drive it toward successfully fulfilling the Vision. A clearly written Mission statement will serve as a reference tool for day-to-day decision making.	A Vision Statement vividly describes the organization sees itself some years from now. A clearly articulated Vision provides the inspiration and “reason for being” of the organization.
About:	A Mission Statement describes HOW the organization will get to where it wants to be.	A Vision statement outlines WHERE and WHAT an organization wants to be.

Ask Yourself:

1.Is our team’s mission clearly articulated?

2.Does everyone on the team understand and buy in to the mission?

3.Can our (organizational and/or team) mission statement be used as a day to day decision making tool?

If you find that these questions cause you to realize that you need to re-write your mission statement, here are a few points to remember:

Writing a Mission Statement is NOT a “wordsmithing” exercise in making sure that everyone in the room agrees with each word.
A Mission Statement is a decision making tool: individuals should be able to weigh their current actions, tasks and priorities against it in order to ensure that they are furthering the organizations mission, in order to ultimately achieve the vision.
A mission statement does not need to be set in stone-it can change as market or human realities change-it should have longevity built in, but not necessarily permanence.

It should include:

What do we do today?
For whom do we do it?
What are the benefits?

Remember-if the mission statement is just a laminated collection of words thumbtacked in everyone’s cubicle, or even worse, framed in the lobby, if no one can just say the mission statement at any time- then it is worthless as a high performance team tool.

Now go out there and inspire people to undertake an exciting mission!

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Posted in Leadership, Team Building, Work Life

Tags: Business Leadership Mission Statement Organization Strategic planning Team Team Building Team Leadership Teamwork

How to Create a Clear and Compelling Team Vision Statement

June 1st, 2010

Does your team see where they are going?

High Performance Team Challenge (HPTC) Day 1

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion” – Jack Welch

The first step in building or being an effective member of a high performance team is having a clear vision for that team. Ask yourself:

1.Why does this team exist?

2.What is the ultimate “pinnacle of performance” that this team should aspire to?

3.How will that “Pinnacle of Performance” look and feel?

4.When should we be achieving this “Pinnacle of Performance?”

5. Is everyone on the team aware of this vision?

Write these answers down, think about them, look at them occasionally and allow your mind to refine them until you are ready to share them with the other folks on your team.

When you have refined the vision to a level of clarity that you can passionately own-then articulate it to your people.

Ensuring that everyone knows and understands the team vision is the cornerstone of building a culture of high performance.

“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves,a call to be something more.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Creating a compelling vision for your team is so much more than writing a good vision stament- although that may be a part of it. Creating a vision is about being able to describe a desired “future end-state” that is so clear and so tangible, that when you close your eyes, you can actually see it, smell it and feel it in your mind’s eye. The next step is to be able to articulate it so clearly that the other members of the team can do the same-and also be able to articulate it to others- so that it can grow organically and eventually become a sort of internal tool to guide team decisions, behaviors and tasks,-”Does what we’re doing help to make our vision into reality?

For inspiration, here are a couple of masterful examples of articulating a vision:

Martin Luther King, “I have a Dream”

John F Kennedy, “Man on the Moon”

Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”

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Posted in Work Life

Tags: Leadership Team Building Teams Vision Statements

Is Your Team’s Success Worth 10 Minutes A Day?

May 27th, 2010

The 21 Days to High Performance Challenge

“Talent can win games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” -Michael Jordan

In the current economic and business environment, many organizations are still downsizing, not hiring, and/or on a budget “freeze”. At the same time, teams, departments and leaders are expected to perform at current and sometimes higher levels-with less resources. Getting maximum performance from yourself and your team is one way to stay productive at current levels, but…

If you lead a team, a department or run your own business, you know that the challenges of keeping everyone informed, communicating, aligned, and performing at any level is a huge challenge, much less while trying to improve your “numbers”, effectiveness, customer service or products.

With these thoughts in mind, we decided to devise a 21-day plan for building more effective teams, then challenge our friends, colleagues and readers to put it (and yourselves) to the test.

On June 1^st, 2010 we will begin the challenge by posting one simple Action Item, Question, Team Discussion Topic, Thought Catalyst, or Team Activity per day. The daily challenge will be posted every day on the Team Training Unlimited Facebook page. There, you will also find links to additional information, be able to discuss your results and challenges with TTU staff and other leaders. Are you up to the challenge?

The staff at Team Training Unlimited has decades of helping Leaders and their teams learn to:

Do more with less (less can be a good thing-it’s all about priorities!)

Accomplish the objectives that matter

Be proactive and responsive to change

Create innovative solutions to business problems

In order to create a simple 21-day series of tips, activities, and discussions for you, we’ve drawn from our own experiences in building teams, and from plenty of the “best of the best” in the Team Development world; Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Dan Pink, Chet Richards, Marshall Goldsmith, Peter Scholtes and many more!

Most team building efforts succeed (or fail) through focus in each of the 3 following areas:

1.Clear priorities:

Vision
Mission
Strategy
Values
Metrics
Daily Tasks

2.Training and knowledge:

The right people in the right job
Technical skills
“Soft” skills
Systems and Processes

3.Shared practice and experiences:

Effective meetings
Collaborative, cross functional training
Off-sites
Brainstorming/Innovation sessions
Completed projects

The 21-Day HPTC will focus on these areas. Actively utilize the tips, lead the discussions and activities with your team, ask the questions, (and listen attentively to the answers) and in 21 days–you can be well on the way to having a truly high performing team!

So if you’ve got about 10 minutes a day for 21 days (beginning June 1^st, 2010) – “Like” us on Facebook, join the discussion, and build a team that can do more with less!

The Twitter Links: follow @ksteamtraining and/or @rlteamtraining on Twitter-we will tweet links to the challenge, related quotes and tips.

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Posted in Team Building, Teamwork, Work Life

Tags: Business Customer Service Education and Training Facebook Leadership Management Michael Jordan Team Team Building Team Leadership Teams Teamwork

How would YOUR team look in these Pants?

May 24th, 2010

Just thought I’d bring back a blast from the past with some Hammer Time and this Flash Mob Dance at a clothing store. A Flash Mob (as covered by Wikipedia) is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. NOT team building at its finest but have a look and tell us what you think.

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Posted in Innovation, Team Building

Tags: Flash Mob Team Team Building Wikipedia

The 3 Essential Keys to Building a Successful Team

May 19th, 2010

Swim Team-Getty Images

Team Building is a much discussed, often over-complicated topic. Many people, (myself included) have spent years studying, experimenting with and discussing everything that could possibly contribute to or detract from the core principle of how to build a team that effectively performs the tasks necessary to achieve objectives.

IMO, it is relatively simple in theory (a little tougher in practice).

If you want to build a cohesive team that can achieve success in sales, customer satisfaction, sports or anything else, here is the formula:

1.Have crystal clear, prioritized objectives. (What do we want to do?, Why do we want to do it? What steps do we need to take, in what order, to successfully achieve it?) This is generally a Leadership task, and is absolutely essential to creating a team that performs. If the people on the team don’t know their objectives, how can they accomplish them?
2. Emphasize and ensure training and knowledge. (Do we have the right people with the right skill-sets?, Do we know what we need to know?, Do we know how to do what we need to do?, Are we able to perform consistently and with a certain level of quality?) Having the right team members, the right skills, and the right information creates individual and team confidence for everyone-team members, customers, leaders, and the overall organization.

3.Share practice and experiences. (Have we practiced together?, Do we understand everyone’s roles? Do we trust each other? Do we communicate intuitively? Can we withstand conflict?) Spending time together, doing “things” (both unrelated and specifically related to the shared, prioritized objectives mentioned in number 1) builds mutual trust. This includes practicing on the job, organized team building experiences, meetings, and even going out after work for “12 ounce teambuilding”. The presence of trust “frees up” “headspace” for team members to actively support each other-leading to intuitively coordinated efforts and the feeling and appearance of “being on the same page.”

Obviously, there is a lot to making all of this happen on your team-but these 3 “keys”, all implemented and pursued with intentionality will lead to a team that “gets the job done” intuitively and effectively.

This team hits all 3 keys! (click here)

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Posted in Team Building, Teamwork, Training, Work Life

Tags: Team Team Building Team Leadership Teams Teamwork

Do you like easy to find information?

April 20th, 2010

FInd business, team building and leadership information fast

Easy enough for one finger typists!

In the interests of bringing exceptional learning tools to our readers, clients and staff, we are building a categorized and linked list of outstanding team building, training, leadership, and business reference resources. (We have added a tab at the top of the blog, titled ” Team Training Links and Info ” ) The sites, books and articles we list there will all be chosen based on “useability”, the coolness factor, and whatever other stringent guidelines seem good to us at the time!

The categories we have started with are: