True
teamwork is the rarest, most exhilarating, and most productive
human activity possible. Every business wants to harness this
incredible energy, but achieving such a level of motivation
and esprit is not always easy.
A team is not just a group of individuals who work at
the same location or have the same logo on their business
card. A real team is made up of people who may be unequal
in experience, talent, or education, but who are equal in
their commitment to working together to achieve the goals
and good of the organization, each other and their customers.
If we are going to be successful, we can no longer look
at our organizations as departments, divisions, or branch
offices. We must look at the bigger picture and resolve
to work together in ways we may never have done before.
We may even need to cooperate with the competition. Think
of all the mergers and acquisitions in the past few years.
Your number one competitor today could be your partner tomorrow.
Futurist Bob Treadway CSP, from Littleton, Colorado often
gives the Mensa IQ Test to participants in his seminars.
He has found that many "average" people, when working as
a team, test at "genius" level or higher. Participants contribute
in different ways. Some brainstorm. Some work alone and
then report back to the group. Treadway finds that a team
"becomes a genius when everyone works together."
Treadway also noticed that when a team is working at optimal
performance, it is hard to know who the leader is. In other
words, the team runs the team.
Such teamwork doesn't happen by accident. It requires
commitment and effort, a willingness to accept the uniqueness
of others, and an appreciation of diversity. We build teams
in our companies the same way we build relationships with
our friends and coworkers. High-functioning teams establish
us and our companies as reliable, internally and externally.
We then project this image to our customers, vendors, competitors,
and communities.
With downsizing and restructuring, many managers today
are responsible for as many as 250 people. More than ever,
these managers need to build responsible and committed team
members if they want the best performance from them. But
how do they go about it?
A very dynamic, productive example was the team led by
Mike Powell, when a senior scientist at Genentech. Because
of its past successes, his ten-person team was given the
most important assignments. I asked Mike how he managed
to keep his people highly motivated in an environment with
long hours and a great deal of frustration.
"I keep them happy," he said. Now, every manager wants
to do this, so I pressed Mike for details. "Ten years ago,"
he continued, "I told team members only what I thought each
needed to know. Now I tell everyone everything. It may slow
them down a bit while they are filtering through all the
information, but they get the big picture. Then they can
then decide what it is they need to know and do."
He added, "I also gave them lots of positive feedback
via email and voice mail. One group at Genentech lost their
leader, but they stayed incredibly productive. I left a
voice-mail message for one of them, saying 'Everyone in
the company is talking about how well you all are doing.'
They were really effective as a team and appreciated knowing
it."
Building a real team gets real results, but it can't be
done with slogans and directives. Ed Stair, Senior Vice
President at Gap talks about 'Gap Heroes,' everyone who
uses innovation to find ideas to save money or improve productivity.
Start by respecting each person's individual contribution,
showing appreciation, exciting them about their possibilities
for achievement, and sharing with them that their group
effort has the potential for real genius. Good luck!
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Patricia
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