Teambuilding Secrets.
People are messy.
If you don't start there as a leader, you're gonna have your heart broken, go stark-raving-mad, or think there's something really really wrong with you. All of which are inevitable if you put your hand up to take responsibility for a motley crew of individuals also-known-as a team.
True story.
Lead is a bit of a stretch. Because, all we ever can do on our very best days is lead ourselves. If we don't begin there, we've got nothing of substance to stand on. No frame of reference to speak from. Nothing really worth modeling or teaching to those entrusted to our care.
Every team is functionally-dysfuntional. Just like every family.
Most teams are made up of people-pleasers, overachievers, underachievers, out of control egos, people who don't know how great they are, and a few folks just rocking up to make a paycheck.
You know, people like you and me.
We're all broken in some beautiful way. Needy. Temperamental. Moody. Lacking in self-awareness and self-belief. Hungry to be noticed, liked, and engaged.
Teams are made up of people.
People are not problems to be solved; they are souls to be loved.
And, love is hard to do.
A wise man once told me that business is business, and love is bullshit.
I don't know how you separate the two.
Love and business.
Because if you don't love what you do, and who you do it with, what in the hell is it all for?
It's gotta be more than a paycheck. Personally, I believe work is good for the soul. A big part of why we're here. Part of our calling.
Which brings me back to teams.
Teams are made up of individuals all searching for something.
Social anthropologist and best-selling author, Daniel Pink, believes our drive to work boils down to three things:
Mastery - becoming really really great at something
Autonomy - freedom to express yourself through your craft
Purpose - finding meaning in the pursuit of excellence
I reckon Pink's onto something.
I have the privilege to take part and lead in a lot of amazing off-sites, strategy days, and professional workshops around the world. And, as I've reflected over the past 20+ years of working with and building teams I've learned a few things.
Like the myth of motivation.
You can't motivate anyone. The word itself means "to move". It's an inside-out word. Personal motivation never translates to the old stick-and-carrot external song and dance. Most of that is about manipulation.
Guilt and fear work for a minute, but they eventually destroy folks' motivation in the long run.
Money is a poor motivator as well. You can throw cash at people, but you're only appealing to their lesser side.
We're social creatures. So, the fastest way to ruin a team is to play off comparison and competition. I reckon only about 15% of the total population keep score this way.
The other 85% aren't fooled or motivated by shiny things. They see through it.
Compassion is the music they hear. Compassion means "to suffer with" by the way.
I'll let you chew on that one for a moment.
Deep deep down, if you want to capture the hearts and minds of the people on your team, you have to figure out what makes each of them tick.
This takes time. Patience. Shared struggle. There are no shortcuts in this discovery.
Which complicates things, because the workforce today is more individualistic, job-hoppy, and opportunistic in their pursuit of a career than any in history.
Yes, they sometimes get a bad wrap. But for good reason. Too many to mention here.
What I'm trying to say is that a team is just a bunch of different people who have convinced themselves to pursue a common goal. They'll stay as long as they believe in what they're pursuing, or find a better gig that fits the season of life they're in.
Like friendship, some people are on your team for a reason, some for a season, and a rare one or two souls - for a lifetime.
Which means if you find yourself trying to manage any group(s) of people towards a common goal, you better be part story-teller, part coach, part teacher and part psychotherapist.
And, to think you're doing that for the title and the cash.
Pretty sure there's something deeper going on in you than that.
Don't you?
Which brings us to the topic of team-building secrets. Here's a short list of 20 things I'm pretty certain about when it comes to forming and/or building a team:
1. You have to work really really hard at making a common goal simple, repeatable and understandable.
2. You need to invest most of your time in your "B" players because they have the greatest potential to move the needle.
3. You need to hire based on fit, then talent.
4. The greatest threat to building a healthy team is perfection.
5. You should always be willing to sacrifice the one for the many, especially liars, gossips, and instigators.
6. Teams only work if they feel safe; and they only feel safe if you care.
7. Great teams run on individual encouragement, personal challenge, and knowing the unique value they bring to the table.
8. Your best people will be promoted or leave, build them up and invest in them anyway.
9. Peer-pressure within teams is a real thing that can be leveraged for good.
10. Excellence is subjective, so work really really hard to be clear about defining what it means to you.
11. Competition and comparison should be kept in check by compassion.
12. Your team absolutely has to retreat to advance.
13. Communication works best in person, second best over the phone, and poorly over email and text.
14. Regularly meeting together is non-negotiable.
15. Collaboration has more to do with individual motivations than it does with group activities.
16. The leader of the team is the lesson. Always.
17. You can't manage what you don't measure is somewhat true, but you have to translate what you measure in meaningful ways to the individual not to the group.
18. Your team is asking three simple questions: Can we trust you? Do you really care about us? Where are we going?
19. Building a healthy team is more of an art than a science.
20. Team-building requires outside insight.
I could write another 3 or 4 thousand words on the topic, but I'll stop here. I've given you twenty truths to wrestle through. If you'd like a bit of help, then we should talk. Just reply to this post.
At the very least, break out pen and paper and write about the top two or three ideas above that resonated the most with you.
I'll leave you with one final thought on the subject: there are no weak-links, just misaligned, misplaced and misguided souls.
You know...you getting the right folks in the right seats and all that.
If you don't, then we should definitely talk.
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Steve Knox | Houston, Texas
Thanks for reading! Please share this with anyone in your orbit who is in leadership. Until next time, be patient with yourself, and especially with those entrusted to your care. They're just like you. Searching for significance and meaning in their everyday lives.