Corporate Team Building

Great examples of "team" being the total of sum of the parts…

October 3, 2012 by Jeff Leave a Comment

This past weekend, the European Golf team overcame a large deficit against a star-studded American side to win the Ryder Cup. They did it with passion, purpose and intention. They did it methodically, and as the underdog they did it as a unit, rather than as a collection of individual stars.

Tonight is the last night of regular season baseball in the major leagues. My hometown Baltimore Orioles are in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. They still have an outside chance to win their division away from the vaunted NY Yankees. Either way, this team has defied all expectations this year. Predicted by most experts to be a last place team “again,” they have won with a collection of “spare parts” masterfully assembled and coached. They have done so by playing to the strengths of each player, rather than focusing on their weaknesses. Good coaches and managers in sports….much like good leaders in business, know that playing to the strengths of their team is the way to succeed….rather than the traditional western way of doing business which often focuses on yearly evaluations geared towards focusing on improving employee weaknesses. Instead, these leaders focus on putting their employees, their players in the optimum position to succeed. The Oakland A’s have done the same thing this year as well. Won as a team, largely devoid of stars.

Team-building….team improvement…team fostering….team leading…creating a culture of listening and collaboration where the team comes before individual glory. Oldest cliche in the book…but it’s still true, and still real.

Our team is looking forward to jumping on the van this weekend and heading down to Alabama for a huge team-building event with Listerhill Credit Union. Have a great day all.

Even Law Firms – Are Starting to Move Towards Collaborative Work Space

August 20, 2012 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Good Monday morning from Nashville.

Recently, I’ve read a half-dozen articles or so regarding the work place in terms of real estate or “work space” allocation. In a recent NY Times piece for example, the author talked at length about how Law firms are moving in the direction finally… of less excess with their internal real estate layouts. Long one of the last, great…traditional business models where landing that swank, corner office with a view…large desk and dark wood all around has been a perk to top law recruits, law firms are starting….slowly but surely to reduce the sizes of their offices for partners and top associates. More employees are office sharing, and dark-solid walls are starting to come down in favor of more open spaces geared towards collaboration.

There are many reasons for this set of occurrences. One is quite practical. Law Firms, even the most profitable of them are not immune to the economic times, and so therefore are looking for ways to cut costs.

Another really good reason for this shift however, is the general feeling that senior attorneys in law offices can do a much better job mentoring their up and coming attorneys and other legal staff, by utilizing more common space. Face to face. Along this same line of thought, the overall satisfaction level of employees regardless of field, increases when they are able to see each other more often, and collaborate more readily with their peers. Not only does this encourage faster, and better creative problem solving, it simply fosters more of a sense of belonging, rather then one of isolation.

Ubuntu – Happy Birthday to One of the Great "Team Players" of All Time – Nelson Mandela

July 18, 2012 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Nelson Mandela personified the word Ubuntu. This is an African word for ‘humanity’. Sadly, times of suffering or hardship are often what make us recognize the value of this philosophy…rather than living this way as our daily “default” setting.

Ubuntu, is actually derived from the saying ‘Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu.’ Translated from Zulu, it means: ‘I am because you are, and you are because we are.’ In other words, I can only exist through you. And, as long as there are people who suffer, I suffer too. It is only when each person is free, are we free.

This is especially relevant to building powerful, high performance organizations. Organizations that do not invest in consistent professional development made available to all levels of their employees, have a short-term view of their value to the company. Not keeping an eye on how costly and time-consuming it is to re-hire, retrain…etc.

The importance of each person’s contribution to the team is often lost on those at the top. Yet this crucial missing link causes long term problems. Effective team building programs can be a key ingredient in developing our workplaces to be more efficient, healthier, happier, and more profitable. That is a good thing wouldn’t you say…considering how much time we spend at work?

NAPAREX Saves the Day – Does YOUR Team Work as Well As This One?

March 12, 2012 by Jeff Leave a Comment

When one delivery service…a quite well-known I may add which ends in the letters Ex…blows a delivery that just truly had to be there on time; a much lesser known parcel delivery service stepped up for me and saved the day. Their name also ends in EX…they are Naparex and recently when packages containing hundreds of books for a book-signing in Las Vegas were delivered a day late by Fed Ex – I discovered NAPAREX and found a true “team” player FULL of team players that made everything ok for me.

The books had to be delivered for a Robin Crow book-signing to Caesar’s Palace by March 6th…but Fed Ex dropped the ball and didn’t get them to their terminal outside of Vegas until the evening of the 6th…which meant they would never in a million years make it to the post-keynote book-signing at Caesar’s the following morning by 9am.

Faced with an incredible dilemma some quick online research and phone calls turned up Naparex! And in this instance….they may as well have been a superhero in tights and a cape. They certainly saved the day. After being on the phone with them dozens of times in a 12 hour period coordinating not 1 but 2 couriers to hand pick up and deliver door to book-signing table – I came away SO impressed with Danielle…Tara and their entire team. They were calm…confident and secure in the fact that their couriers would get the job done. They were thorough in the questions they asked me. Had excellent systems in place and when it became apparent that my one shipment of 3 boxes had somehow been turned into two shipments of 1 and 2 boxes each….we all agreed promptly the morning of the event to send a second courier to the Fed Ex terminal get the later boxes to the site on time.

We only made it by the skin of our teeth. No more than 5 minutes separated success from failure in this instance. BUT we did make it. I am a fan…and will spread the word. NAPAREX rocked my world last week and if you’re in a bind give them a call. They are a TRUE team.

When I facilitate corporate team-building workshops; I try so hard to impart the value of amplifying our colleagues strengths. On the phone with Danielle and Tara at NAPAREX I could hear them working TOGETHER to achieve success. I could almost hear the strategy wheels turning between the cogs of their well-oiled machine working towards a common goal. Kudos…Kudos. Oh yes…and thank you.

There Is No I in Team, But There IS an ROI In Corporate Team Building

June 28, 2011 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Look at it this way. All the parts in an automobile engine must work together, in impeccable synchronized fashion. They are assembled with their own particular strengths and functions in mind. THEN, they are maintained on a regular basis with check-ups, oil changes, new tires, balancing, tuning etc..Your workforce is no different then the parts of an automobile engine, or the engine in that plane you’re sitting in flying to the next conference. The oil changes and tune-ups could be compared favorably with team-building activities. These type of re-focusing opportunities enable us to see the team for what it is, in all of it’s glory, and with all of it’s warts. It’s often times difficult to do this from afar, being that so many of us exist in somewhat of an email and text induced coma 18 hours a day. We may be more “linked in” to people these days, but sadly there is a bigger disconnect in real life, face to face interactions than ever before due largely to technology.

Sometimes our workforce so stagnantly exists in each individual department silo, that we forget how to work WITH each other in the most efficient and productive ways possible. Having fun is imperative, but this is NOT all unicorns and popcorn. There is a direct correlation between how well-oiled your teams’ machinery is, and how profitable and/or effective your outfit truly is. THIS is where the ROI comes into team building. Sooner or later a car or lawn mower engine will seize up and stop working altogether if not oiled and maintained. Sharing each other’s common goals and frustrations, recognizing each others strengths, and figuring out how to increase everyone else’s odds for success on the team will reap long-term organizational benefits for everyone involved. Isn’t this the goal? Let’s dig deeper…

With budget constraints and nearly all team members doing more with less, and this trend growing exponentially on a quarterly basis in far too many instances, it becomes even more important to figure out how teams can work together to maximize our resources. Problem solving in an open, encouraging and fun training exercise is just the medicine the doctor ordered.