Getting to Know Your New (or Old) Staff

Take the 5 Day Trial Today and learn all about our membership options. Learn more about this Call Center VIP membership site now.

For new team leaders: In this article by Don Blohowiak, you will read his thoughts on the first steps a manager should take when taking on a new team or department. We hope it provides insight you can use in your call  center.
"When you take over a new department, how do you get up to speed with all your new staff?," a client recently asked.

The answer is a series of queries.

These suggested questions, intended for private, one-on-one conversations, are appropriate not only to the manager who's orienting herself to her new associates, but they are also quite useful to a long-entrenched manager.

Try asking the following questions—a few at a time—over time.

    * What were your early hopes, aspirations, and anticipated high points that led you to this line of work?

    * What first attracted you to this organization?

    * Without being too humble, what strengths do you bring to this organization and its mission to "_______________" ?

    * What keeps you here? What do you most value about your association with this organization?

    * What accomplishments here are you most proud of?

    * Please tell me a story about a peak experience you had working here: a time when you felt a sense of pride and personal achievement, when you were particularly glad about working in this field or for this organization. What makes it stand out as such a high point for you?

    * Tell me about an event, decision, or project that illustrates the essence of this organization…

    * In your own words, describe the department's vision for what's truly important here.

    * Based on your experience and your understanding of the organization's mission, what is the most valuable work you should be spending your time on? To what extent are you in fact spending your time on this work? Why?

    * Do you have a list of the department's top priorities? Do you have a list of priorities for your own work here? How do you see your individual priorities supporting those of the organization?

    * What would you truly miss if for some reason you no longer worked here?

    * If we were to abandon all our traditions and reinvent the work we do here—and how we do it—what would you want the new stuff to look like? Why?

    * If you were put in charge of the department, what three decisions would you most want to make?

Anytime is a good time to both (re)familiarize yourself with your colleagues at a deeper, more meaningful level, and to get fresh insights about your corner of the organization.

Lead Well® helps organizations to improve measurable results by developing their current and future leaders. For more information, please contact us. By phone, toll-free in the USA: 1-888-LeadWell (532-3935), or 1-609-716-9490. By email, Info@LeadWell.com.
Don Blohowiak, a management consultant and popular conference speaker, is the author of several business books. The executive director of the Lead Well® Institute in Princeton, NJ, he may be reached at http://www.LeadWell.com/.
 

People Are Not Machines

As a call center manager myself, I have thought the same thing…. Time to crank up production/productivity. Take a moment to read Tom Stevens thoughts on the subject.

 Time to crank up production? Get this place running like a well-oiled machine?

The machine continues to be the dominant metaphor of the workplace – meaning we tend to relate to our working world as if it was a machine. We have plenty of experiences each day that reinforce this perception of life-as-machine: We step on the gas pedal and our cars move faster. We push a button and documents get efficiently copied – maybe even on both sides, collated, and stapled.

I continue to be approached by executives looking for that metaphorical lever, pedal, dial, or button that will motivate people, get them to change, or increase morale. It’s the wrong thing to be looking for because it’s the wrong metaphor.

Let’s start by acknowledging that people aren’t machines. We know this because:

•   People have their own intentions, goals, will, and purpose that drive thinking and behavior;

•   People have an unlimited range of possible thinking and behavior responses;

•   The range of thinking and behavior responses people have can continuously increase through learning.

It is true that most of a person’s thinking and behavior is on “auto-pilot”. According to some experts, 95% of what we do occurs outside of our awareness. And perhaps these automatic responses are what fool us into thinking people can be operated and adjusted like machines.

So what are the implications of this information for leaders who rely on human thinking, knowledge, and behavior to create value in their organization?

•   Performance will always be less than optimal unless the organizational goals are aligned with individual goals. Create opportunities to assess, discuss, and align organizational and personal goals. This is valuable at any time, but is especially relevant when bringing people on board.

•   There is always a creative tension between structure and freedom. Structure is absolutely needed to focus people’s range of behavior and direct those items that are on “auto-pilot”. That being said, management cannot be fully reduced to a codified set of rules. I know of no organization that would flourish if everyone simply did what was in their job description. Figuring out the best structure that fits your people and organization is an important undertaking.

•   Competency in human relationships – call it soft-skills, emotional intelligence, likeability, or people sense – is a fundamental ingredient to bringing out talent. As it’s been demonstrated, with the right experiences, people can continuously improve relationship skills. This too is an important investment.

•   The context in which people work matters, and matters significantly. Many organizations undervalue the impact of company culture and environment, even though these factors are huge drivers of that 95% of behavior and thinking that occurs on auto-pilot. Attention to creating environments and cultivating a company culture that is congruent with company objectives can have far-reaching results.

Cultivate is the word to emphasize. When it comes to people, think cultivate like a garden, not operate like a machine. There are no magic levers or buttons when aligning personal and organizational goals, establishing the right structure, increasing interpersonal competencies, and attending to the organization’s culture. But all these activities can have tremendous influence on the level of performance your people give to the organization. Cultivate goals, structure, skill, and culture with care, and watch the value from the people in your organization grow.

  By Tom Stevens  (c)

 

Esquare Leadership LLC

 

919 245-1026

800 727-9788

or email

info@esquareleadership.com

Passion Plan at Work..Increase Passion for your Work

This is a great article by Jody Urquhart of idoinspire.com who totally believes in the power of play in your worklife. Take a few moments to read her thoughts on the subject and see if they can benefit you and your call center team.

Passion is the single most powerful competitive advantage an organization can claim in building its success

Many organizations possess the same technology, resources, equipment, and expertise, but it is the organization that runs on passion that thrives. The passion-driven organization inspires its employees, invigorates its customers, and reaps the benefits of their shared enthusiasm in its success

Passion Matters

Both employees and customers have feelings that compel them to act the way they do. Employee’s performance can be directly linked to their feelings toward their work. Customers do not buy just anything. They make their decisions based on emotional responses to products and the organizations that provide them. We all operate on emotion, we make decisions on emotion.

Passion is something deeper than policies and practices that give an organization meaning and life. A passion for what you do makes every day invigorating and rewarding.

A recent study highlighted in the Wall Street Journal revealed that customers gravitate toward companies that appeal to them on an emotional level (Alsop, 1999).

To attract customers and employees, compete solely on price the relationship has no loyalty the relationship ends when a better financial reward is found. To have people committed during the ups and downs of business you need to build loyalty with passion. Passion builds advocates for your business.

Passion is uncommon. Not many people jump out of bed fueled by their passion to go to work. More often in organizations people are disengaged, cynical and cranky.

Many management methods alleviate the symptoms that afflict the modern company; few treat the disease that causes them, lack of passion.

Benefits of Passion
Provides direction and focus
Creates energy
Inspires creativity
Heightens performance
Builds loyalty
Attracts employees and customers
Unites the organization
Provides a critical edge
Brings the organization to a higher plane
Inspires action
The benefits of passion are obvious, so why don’t more organizations harness it? At some level there is passion present in most organizations, but it does not form the framework. Leadership may feel it, but not understand how to communicate it. Employees may sense it, but be uncertain or confused as to how to act on it. Customers may detect it in products and services, but may not feel it is consistent or compelling.

Somewhere along our journey we lose sight of what inspires us. We compromise our passion to get the job done. Unbridled growth, increasing technology, multitasking, fierce competition, labor shortages all have forced business to do more with less and what suffers is passion.

Define passion and have a way to sustain it. What is the core thing that people can be proud and passionate about? Link this to your overall business operations. Communicate it often.

(IDEA- Have regular team “huddles” where employees communicate what they are most proud of)

Brainstorm- What specific acts communicate passion? (i.e. - going out of your way for a customer, recognizing other team members, celebrating success, smiling, skipping down the hallway….( as one CEO does)

 Keep overall enthusiasm and energy high. Strive to increase overall energy in your work environment. You need this energy to fuel passion. Smile, laugh, and engage in fun activities to keep energy levels high.

Fake it until you make it. The trick is to act passionately even if you aren’t, eventually it becomes a habit and in the meantime your energy will lift everyone up.

Everyday our body language comes through loud and clear. Is yours inspiring confidence and energy in others or is it tired or just uptight?

Be innovative. Try new and different approaches to your work to fuel passion

Sharpen your skills.

What are you insanely great at in your Work? Recognize people for their contribution to your organizations purpose.

Copy write Jody Urquhart  www.idoinspire.com

Checklist for Changing Me to Change Them

Since most call centers work hard at building teams to improve performance, we thought this article by Jim Clemmer might be interesting to our readers.

"The cruelest lies are often told in silence." — Robert Lewis Stevenson, 19th century Scottish poet, novelist, and essayist

We can't build a team or organization that's different from us. We can't make them into something we're not. Failing to follow this principle is the single biggest reason that so many team and organization change and improvement efforts flounder or fail. The changes and improvements we try to make to others must ring true to the changes and improvements we're also trying to make to ourselves. The following is a checklist:
Are You Trying to Make Your Organization or Team Into Something You're Not?

To What Extent am I:

__ Attempting to change my organization or team without changing myself?

__ Prodding my organization to be more people (customer/partner) focused when I am a Technomanager (driven by management systems and technology)?

__ Driving for industry or market leadership when I am afflicted with the Pessimism Plague and/or Victimitis Virus?

__ Striving to stimulate and energize others when I am not passionate about my own role and life's work?

__ Promoting organization or team vision, values, and mission when my own picture of my preferred future, principles, and purpose aren't clear and/or well aligned with where I am trying to lead others.

__ Pushing for a customer-driven organization while controlling and dominating, rather than serving (servant-leadership)?

__ Aspiring to develop new markets and fill unmet needs while spending limited time with customers, partners, or those serving them?

__ Trying to build a learning organization when my own rate of personal growth and development is low?

__ Declaring the urgency of higher levels of innovation while I stick to familiar personal methods and traditional command and control management approaches?

__ Aiming for disciplined organization or team goal and priority setting when I am not well-organized, a poor personal time manager, and fuzzy about my own goals and priorities?

__ Setting organization improvement plans without an improvement process of my own?

__ Promoting teamwork and a team-based organization without providing a personal model of team leadership and team effectiveness in action?

__ Supporting high levels of skill development — for everyone else?

__ Forcing accountability, performance appraisal, and measurement on others while I defend, avoid, or half-heartedly gather personal feedback?

__ Proclaiming empowerment and involvement while controlling and limiting people with a centralized structure and systems that constrain rather than support?

__ Talking about the need for better communications without becoming a strong and compelling communicator?

__ Establishing formal reward and recognition programs when my personal habits of giving sincere recognition and showing genuine appreciation are weak?

__ Espousing support for change champions while suppressing "off the wall" behavior and pushing people to follow my plans and stay within my established system?

__ Advocating reviews and assessments while doing little personal reflection and contemplation?

What do my answers tell me about my leadership? Does this exercise help explain the positive, negative, or so-so results of the team and organization improvement efforts I lead? My reflections are important, but an even better source of feedback are the people on my team or those in my organization who know my leadership behavior well enough to give me some feedback. Ironically (and tragically), managers who need it most — the weakest leaders — are the least likely to ask for this kind of feedback.

 

Jim Clemmer’s practical leadership books, keynote presentations, workshops, and team retreats have helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide improve personal, team, and organizational leadership. Visit his web site, http://jimclemmer.com/, for a huge selection of free practical resources including nearly 300 articles, dozens of video clips, team assessments, leadership newsletter,Improvement Points service, and popular leadership blog. Jim's five international bestselling books include The VIP Strategy, Firing on All Cylinders, Pathways to Performance, Growing the Distance, and The Leader's Digest. His latest book is Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work.

Do You Want Dessert With That Turnover?

Here is an article by Roberta Matuson to help reduce call center attrition.
 
What would your waistline look like if every time you ordered a meal you added dessert? If you were like most people, it wouldn't be long before you needed to purchase larger clothes. Eventually you might reach the point where you realized the answer to your tight fitting jeans was in front of you all along.
 
Like waistlines all across America, employee turnover is expanding at an alarming rate. Yet companies are still following the same regimen, hoping to control their expanding costs. Is your company's recruitment budget bulging because your turnover costs are out of control? How much are you wasting on satisfying your short-term needs? If you knew you could shave hundreds of thousands of dollars off your recruitment and hiring costs, would you be willing to try a new approach?
 
The cost of turnover
 
The time has come to take a closer look at what's causing the expansion of your recruiting budget. While companies know replacing an employee costs considerable time, energy and lost productivity, few can put a dollar figure on the actual cost. Lack of hard data means investments in retention and recruitment programs get placed on the back burner.
 
Cost of turnover estimates for a single position range from 30 percent of the yearly salary for hourly employees (Cornell University) to 150 percent, as estimated by the Saratoga Institute. The McQuaig Institute puts this into terms that most of us can relate to. A fast food restaurant must sell 7,613 children's combo meals at $2.50 each to recoup the cost of losing just one crewmember. To recoup the cost of losing just one sales clerk, a clothing store must sell almost 3,000 pairs of khakis at $35. How many of your products or services must you sell to make up for one employee?
 
These examples represent the cost of turnover, which encompasses replacement costs, training costs, separation costs and lost productivity. You may be thinking that positions in your company are considerably more sophisticated than those found in fast food restaurants or retail organizations and that it's impossible to come up with a number. But even an approximate number is better than no number at all.
 
Calculating your cost of turnover
 
If you feel overweight, you know how awful it can be to step on the scale after avoiding it for so long. You might be lucky and be in better shape than you think. Like losing weight, it can be painful to take that first step. But once you do, you will feel empowered knowing that you are one step closer to getting your organization back into shape.
 
Calculating your cost of turnover is simpler than you think. Begin by looking at everyone who has left your organization this year. If you want to capture a full year's worth of information, consider capturing the data for those who left the company the previous year as well. The business costs and impact of employee turnover can be grouped into four major categories: 1) costs due to a person leaving; 2) hiring costs; 3) training costs; and 4) lost productivity costs.
 
Costs due to a person leaving
 
Once an employee has announced their resignation, they have begun to transition out of the company. While working out their notice period, their full attention is no longer on your business. Others in the organization are picking up their slack, which prohibits them from giving full attention to their own jobs.
 
In addition, consider the following costs:

• Employees who must fill in for the person who leaves before a replacement is found;
• The addition of temporary help or the use of consultants to fill in while the position is being re-staffed;
• The cost of a manager or other executive having an exit interview with the employee to determine what work remains, how to do the work, why he is leaving, etc.;
• The cost of training the company has invested in this departing employee; the cost of lost knowledge, skills and contacts of the departing employee;
• Cost of lost customers the departing employee is taking with him (or that leave because service is negatively impacted) and;
• The increased cost of unemployment insurance.

Hiring Costs
 
You might be lucky and find a candidate on a free website, but most likely you will need to post and advertise elsewhere.
 
Consider the following hiring costs:

• The cost of advertising, internet posting, employment agencies, search firms, employee referral awards;
• Increase in starting pay as salaries have risen since you last hired, bringing everyone else in the department up to market rates;
• Time spent screening resumes, arranging interviews, conducting interviews (by both HR and upper management), checking references and notifying candidates who were not awarded the job;
• The use of assessment testing, background checks, drug screening (usually done on more than one candidate) and time spent interpreting and discussing results;
• Time spent assembling and processing all the new hire paperwork, explaining your employee benefit programs and entering the necessary data to ensure the employee receives a paycheck.

Training costs
 
It would be nice if employees were able to integrate into their organizations without any training, but usually this is not the case. Things are done differently in every organization so you must factor in the following costs:

• New employee orientation or onboarding;
• Specific training for the person to do his job, such as computer training, product knowledge, company systems;
• Time spent by others to train this person and money spent on outside training to ensure they are able to do their jobs.

Loss of productivity costs
 
Because new employees do not enter the organization completely trained, it will take time before they are fully productive.
 
Factor in the following productivity costs:

• During this time of lost productivity, the person's manager is also spending more time directing, reviewing work and possibly fixing mistakes. (Errors will be made that are not caught right away and will cost money to correct down the line such as with a customer who receives an incorrect price or an incorrect shipment due to the new employee's lack of experience);
• Add loss of goodwill as you scramble to preserve your relationship with your valued customer or client;
• Employee moral plummeting as overworked employees assume responsibility while the new hired is being trained.

Now that you've closely examined the costs associated with each person leaving you can then plug this information into a spreadsheet to determine the real cost of employee turnover in your organization. How do you measure up? Are you in better shape than you thought? Or is it time for an intervention?
 
Given the high costs involved and the impact on productivity and customer retention, a well thought-out retention program can easily pay for itself over and over again. Employee turnover is a lot like eating dark chocolate. In moderation, both are fine and can even be healthy. In excess, both can have serious ramifications. Are you still interested in ordering dessert?
 
 
About Roberta Matuson
Roberta Matuson is an expert at creating intergenerational harmony at work. She's President of Human Resource Solutions, a firm that provides consulting and training to resolve intergenerational conflicts and help companies capitalize on the unique generational perspectives of their workforce. She has appeared on FOX's "The O'Reilly Factor" and has been quoted in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and many other national business publications.

Guard Your Hive

Attrition of employees is an issue that plagues many call centers. This article by Roberta Chinsky Matuson provides tips that you may find helpful in reducing your call center turnover.

Your company has important resources that are worth protecting—they’re called experienced workers. If this sector of your workforce flies out the door tomorrow, their wisdom will follow. Their staff will also follow, because they have more of a connection to these people than they have to the organization. 
Think about it. What will become of your organization if these people disappear? It will take years before you can replenish this valuable resource. So why are so many companies helping these workers find the door?

Critical resources  I’d like to relate a story about honeybees and how most of us had been unaware of the integral role they play in our ecological system. Only after they started disappearing did we realize how dependent we are on this tiny sector of nature to fuel our food systems. 
An organic farmer in Wellesley, Mass. recently reported an attempted hijacking of his honeybee hives. Fortunately the attempt was unsuccessful or the farmer would have lost his ability to cross-pollinate his crop of organic vegetables. His entire business could have been lost overnight because he would have been unable to replace the honeybees in time for his crop to flourish.

Suppose someone swarmed in and tried to steal your one of your most precious resources. Would your colony collapse? Could your organization survive? Here are some ways to prevent others from stealing the experienced talent you have worked so hard to cultivate:

Climate control  We hear managers say they had no idea exiting employees were unhappy. Perhaps this is so because they never asked. Take your organization’s temperature so you can make adjustments before you have a mass exodus. There are a number of ways to do this including climate surveys or employee focus groups. Check in semi-annually or annually to track your progress as you work toward building an environment that is comfortable for all. 
Reassure your talent   I am constantly hearing workers over the age of 40 express concerns they will be reorganized out of the company the next time a wave of reductions hit. It is difficult to focus on performance when you are worried about getting whacked the next time the big guys come to town. Before you finalize your next lay-off list, make sure you are not sending the message that experience is no longer valued in your organization. 
Don’t give them a reason to leave   Imagine a company where people solicit the advice of those with more experience. This would be a place where older workers would have flexibility in scheduling their hours so they could enjoy the fruits of their labor. Would you ever want to leave if this were your workplace?

It is easier than you think to create an environment where older workers feel welcome. Begin by asking your experienced people how you might improve the workplace so they feel more engaged. You may not be able to change everything overnight, but at least you will send the message that you value their contribution and are willing to make changes to retain them. 
Make your workplace more accessible    Mention the word accommodation and visions of large dollar signs pop up in the heads of leaders. There are many things you can do to make your workplace more accessible for older workers that will not break the bank. For example, offer preferred parking to those employees who find it difficult to walk from the end of the parking lot to the employee entrance. If a job requires standing for long periods of time, supply anti-fatigue mats or chairs. Employers with large campuses could invest in Segway Scooters to allow older workers to move about the campus more freely.

Headhunters are becoming more aggressive as the labor pool tightens. Protect your hive and you will be well positioned to thwart off their attempts to steal your honey and your precious bees.
© 2008 Human Resource Solutions. All rights reserved.

Roberta Chinsky Matuson is the President of Human Resource Solutions (www.yourhrexperts.com) and has been helping companies align their people assets with their business goals. She is considered an expert in generational workforce issues. Roberta publishes a monthly newsletter “HR Matters” http://www.yourhrexperts.com/hrjoin.cgi which is jammed with resources, articles and tips to help companies navigate through sticky and complicated HR workforce issues. Click here to read her new blog on Generation Integration http://generationintegration.typepad.com/matuson/. She can be reached at 413-582-1840 or Roberta@yourhrexperts.com.

Succession Planning - 3 Extra-Special Benefits For Managers

This article by Martin speaks of keeping succession planning in mind when leading your team. This is a  definite plus when leading a call center team.

When you lead a team in a business - any business - you need support from great people. It's a fact, you cannot do it all alone. And you will need every skill going to make the best of these key people, week in, week out.

Because this is an accountability only you can have. No-one else will be there when the lights go out. As a boss, the buck stops with you. Period.

And once you've worked your butt off to get a team that you want, what's to stop these great employees going off and getting a different job and leaving you all in a fix again? The answer is - you are.

By building an exciting, stimulating and developmental set of roles where your people are regularly challenged, they will stay. If you are supportive and encouraging for them, prepared to acknowledge often, the contribution everyone makes.

You also need people ready to take their places when fate or something else works against you. That's why succession planning is here to help you and a key tool to make more of your business, much more of the time.

Here are a three key reasons why succession planning will work for you. It's the richest skill you can develop:-

Make Time

Succession planning consistently creates skilled people, who are capable of taking the weight off a manager, to ensure that he or she doesn't have to do it all. Indeed, these talented, developed people, often can do the business even better in their particular niche skill than the boss.

This is really supportive for a manager and means that they can get back to their real task of focusing on bigger picture issues, where they give the best value.

So time is saved from the manic fire-fighting that happens when key people leave and you have to cope, somehow.

Because you know who it will be who will pick up the loose ends - however inconvenient they may be.

You got it - it's you.

With a great succession planning process in place, you can be assured that this stops - in fact there are much wider benefits too.

Confidence

With succession planning helping to create a healthy business future, managers can build a level of security into how they do their job.

This means that they can try out new things to build their business. Safe in the knowledge that they will have the right people in place, at the right time, their confidence swells and they become far 'bigger' people in themselves.

Once that confidence swells, the risks have a habit of paying off more often. Maybe it's with the confidence of knowing that not only do you have the best people in place, but they are also grooming the next generation too, that a more accurate capacity to make correct judgments kicks in.

Reward

Both financial and emotional. Enhanced performance usually generates improved earnings, since that is the way many businesses reward their people.

And there is more to it than that. It is at least just as, if not more, fulfilling to be rewarded by the emotional return, gained by using succession planning to create a brilliant team. To leave a legacy too. To leave a sustainable future.

It is personally extremely satisfying. This has positive knock-ons into other areas of a manager's wellbeing too.

It's just a simple, straightforward process, this succession planning thing is. All you need to find is the time to investigate it and the time to spend enjoying the results of your efforts.

Team Building Activities For Small and Medium-Sized Groups

Today must be call center team building day. Here is another article  by Anirban Bhattacharya on ideas for building employee morale and bringing a team togeather.

Give them a try and see if they work for your call center.

A company cannot get success until and unless its teams are performing at the desired level. Effective team building activities contribute a lot towards fulfilling the set goals and making cordial relationships among co-workers. Even the large corporations need to enhance their team productivity in order to build a fortune and establish their name in the customer market.

Disintegrate the Team

Team building activities are about inducing sense of togetherness, understanding each other's ideas, respect collective endeavors, and focusing on common goals. In order to improve team's capacity, companies often organize corporate events of different nature. However, activities vary on employees' idea of fun and maturity level.

To get the best results of team building endeavors, it is always better to make smaller groups. Smaller groups are much easier to be taught and interacted with as compared to a larger group. Usually a team of mere 4-5 members is likely to develop a better sense of communication, trust, compassion, and involvement with one another. Less members makes easy to handle the team and members are far more comfortable with working with each other, which could get difficult in a bigger group.

Handling a bigger group can be a difficult job but impossible. For getting success with a big group, an instructor has to know the members personally. Knowing members on personal level helps an instructor to understand the personal trait of individuals working for a team. Interestingly, many companies make a provision where employees have to chat among each other for at least 15 minutes. Talking frequently helps in breaking the communication barriers and developing a better relationship in a team.

Games work as effective medium of enhancing togetherness among members. They lead to increases in team member exposure to each other and different situation. As an instructor, you can choose a game that ensures absolute fun for all.

I webmaster of http://www.southernpursuits.co.uk/ dealing in all types of outdoor activities such as Team Building, off road karting, quad biking, Clay shooting, 4×4 driving, archery, team building, corporate events all over the UK.

Building a Passionate and Motivated Team

In the article that follows, Jan Delmas talks about four different approaches to building a team. We hope you find the article interesting and are able to use it when building your call center team.
By Jan Delmas

Why is it that some teams seem to work together like a well oiled machine and others work in fits and starts or not at all. What is it that makes the difference?

David Powell in his book 'Spirit™ Intelligence -175 Practical Keys for Inspiring Your Life and Business' says that although individuals may be inspired and passionate about their work, you also need to motivate them to be a passionate team. He continues on to say there are two keys to a passionate team and a success culture. These keys are Trust and Assertion.

To have Trust, both the team and team members need to consistently behave in a reliable, open, accepting and straightforward way. Assertion is where we can give our opinions or suggestions in a clear and understandable way without becoming rude or aggressive (or being perceived as such).

Taking this further David Powell proposes four approaches to team culture. The approaches are:

Low Trust / Low Assertion

This team has very little trust in each other and they also don't speak up about what they think. Besides what must be a very de-motivating and uncomfortable atmosphere for team members, anything that the team produces is often low quality.

This is because when a problem occurs it's unlikely anyone will speak up and give an opinion on how it could be fixed. Low trust and assertion affects the quality of any discussions as you tend not to get a wide range of views and thoughts which can then be used to identify the best solution.

This approach can also be described as a Lose/Lose outcome.

High Assertion / Low Trust

Some teams can be very assertive and have minimal trust amongst themselves. This can happen when some team members are more dominant than others and they control team discussions. Because there is low trust, team members who aren't as assertive don't feel confident enough to put forward their suggestions. This in turn has an impact on the quality of any problem solution.

The outcome of this team approach is that the assertive team members feel good about having their say and the less confident feel they've lost out in the discussion and stop trusting the process. As time passes they continue to lose trust until they don't bother to speak up or contribute to the discussion and problem solving process.

This approach can also be described as a Win/Lose outcome.

High Trust / Low Assertion

Another approach is where the team trust each other which in itself is good, however they don't speak up as they don't want to upset each other. The team is not prepared to challenge each other as team members are too nice to put a different opinion forward.

Worse still, this niceness and lack of courage leaves the team open to being taking advantage of by other teams as they won't stand up for themselves. In particular, teams with a 'high assertion/low trust' approach can sweep in and take over and be seen as the 'can do' team who resolved the problem.

This approach can also be described as a Lose/Win outcome.

High Trust / High Assertion

A team with high trust and assertiveness operates at full strength. They not only trust each other but feel comfortable in 'having their say'. They have motivation and passion, as a team and team members, and this creates a powerful and successful team culture. This also sustains them through good and bad times as all agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial.

This approach can also be described as a Win/Win outcome.

Teams, particularly project teams, are formed, disbanded and reformed on a regular basis and knowing what it is that makes a passionate and motivated team gives you a head start in having a successful outcome to your business goals and objectives.

Jan Delmas is the founder of Simple Synergy. Simple Synergy is dedicated to building effective employee and team skills in creativity and innovation.

Visit us at http://www.simplesynergy.com.au to find out how you can significantly improve your business by using your best resources - your employees. Build team skills and capabilities in creativity and innovation and watch your business grow and thrive.

Don't reinvent the wheel and sign up for our enewsletter for lots of practical and easy to use hints, tips and tricks in building team skills. We send it to you every three to four weeks, so sign up now.

Fun Team Building

Here are some terrific Team Building ideas for your Call Center from Jennie Gandhi. Give them a try and let us know how they worked out for you.

Group dynamics is an important aspect for the success of any business - big or small. This is why companies are inviting trainers to conduct programs in team building and leadership. In fact, according to the experts, fun team building activities during the training program bring about dynamic team understanding and synergy.

Given here is an interesting team building activity for trainers…

The Tennis Ball Game
Objective of this activity: To enable participants to experience the various stages of team building; as well as become aware of all that happens at each stage.
Duration for the activity: 20 to 25 minutes

The requirements:
8 to 10 Tennis Balls
A whistle
Prizes for the teams

The Rules:
Divide the participants into small groups, depending on the number of participants.
Have them arrange themselves in a circle.
Give one person from each team a tennis ball and the explain the rules of the game.
Each group is competing with the other groups. The winning team is that which completes the maximum number of 'circuits' in the given time span.
A circuit is considered complete when every member of the team has touched the tennis ball.
Only one team member can touch the tennis ball at a time. The ball should be tossed about rather than systematically passed around.
If the ball touches the floor at any point then the ball should not be passed around in the team for one minute.
Make the teams complete a few circuits and steadily create complex patterns.

Debrief the teams:
Stop the teams after a couple of circuits and ask for feedback regarding how they, as a team, are becoming more efficient.

Bringing in activity modifications:
A co-worker reports sick: Remove one participant from each team. This will teach the participants that teams can continue to function effectively, even if one team member is not present, as each one can fill in for the absent member.
Increased production demand: Give each team a second ball. As time progresses a third and fourth ball can also be thrown into each team. This is how the teams will understand the need to continue working efficiently when production needs have increased, no matter to what extent.
The understanding after this activity:
How did each team perform?
How did each team perform in comparison to the other teams?
Team analysis… Each team member communication, performance, behavior, etc.

Motivation and team building are essential for increasing self confidence and self esteem.

 

Next Page »