SUPERCHARGE YOUR WORK TEAM Seven Steps To Create A High Performing Team By Bart Allen Berry Smashwords Edition Copyright 2013 Bart Allen Berry Discover Other Titles By Bart Allen Berry at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BartAllenBerry This book or its parts may not be copied or reproduced without the permission of the author. Table Of Contents Introduction Step One: Create A Rationale For Teamwork Step Two: Establishing The Ideal State Of The Team Step Three: Establishing The Teamwork Baseline – Where Is The Team Today? Step Four: Learning By Experience, The Team Practices Better Teamwork Together Step Five: The High Energy Shared Experience, Tapping Into The Emotional Commitment To The Team Step Six: Individual Contribution And Commitment To The Team Step Seven: Capturing Team Learning, Commitment And Follow Through Appendix About The Author Introduction All organizations, even the smallest, depend on teamwork for their success. A high performing team is not only capable of more but serves as an inspiration to others by demonstrating what’s possible when people work together well. Creating a high performing team is a structured, proven process through which you can tap more of a teams’ potential to attain significant improvements in performance and productivity. An additional benefit is the improvement in job satisfaction for all concerned. ‘Synergy’ might seems like an overused term in management science lingo, but there really is no better word to describe the dynamic effect produced when: - Barriers to teamwork are removed - The work team defines a stronger identity for themselves as a high performing team - The work team learns more effective group process skills and approaches - Individuals mitigate their own dysfunctional team behaviors - A strong commitment and plan is established by the team with 'buy-in' from each of its members Does synergy sound like a lofty or even impossible goal? There is a systematic approach to building high-performing teams that will work for you even if you’ve tried team training, team development or team building before. Supercharge Your Work Team outlines the critical steps needed to transform your low or average-functioning teams into high-performing, synergistic units that are recognized for results and widely acknowledged for their strong and positive influence on the organization. This methodology is not only appropriate for low performers or teams with serious problems but also for taking well-performing teams to even greater levels of productivity and team member satisfaction. Who can benefit from this book? Any work group Training and HR Directors Company Presidents and CEOs Executive Teams Sales Teams Engineering Teams Any functional work group whose members have an interest in working better together Individual team members who want to be a catalyst for improvement on their own dysfunctional teams SUPERCHARGE YOUR WORK TEAM –Seven Steps To A Create A High Performing Team is based on our work with over 200,000 employees and managers over the past 28 years. The best practice approach described here has repeatedly validated itself with work groups from nearly every industry in six different countries. Why Team Building Must Be A Priority There is one simple answer to this question: Work groups without good teamwork cost the organization money. Poor teamwork impacts the organization’s bottom line. Dysfunctional, underperforming and ineffective teams create inefficiency, waste, rework and mistakes. They can be the cause of low morale, they undermine worker commitment and initiative, and can be a major cause of stress in the workplace. If poor teamwork is pervasive, it can rob an organization of its competitive advantage and threaten its very existence. Consider some of the ramifications of low levels of teamwork: Excessive sick leave Stress-related illnesses Missed deadlines, quotas, or production goals Poor quality of products and services Conflict Lack of communication within and between departments Customer dissatisfaction Lost customers Lack of creativity Stifled initiative Workplace sabotage (disgruntled employees who erase vital computer files, etc.) Work teams who never reach their potential Retention problems resulting in the need for costly recruitment and training of replacement workers A negative atmosphere that turns away the best talent Upset workers who file expensive lawsuits Lack of confidence and support for management The list goes on. The costs can escalate exponentially over time if teamwork issues are not identified and corrected. These issues can jeopardize even a successful business in today’s competitive marketplace. A comment you often hear about a company on the ropes is “They just can’t get it together.” Lack of teamwork can almost always be identified as one of the central issues when a company is floundering, identifying it as a symptom or a cause. Investing In Teams—One Of The Best Investments You’ll Ever Make The major expense in most companies is not in equipment or materials but in human capital. While almost all companies spend profusely on maintenance and upgrades to keep their expensive systems and machinery operating at peak levels, only the best organizations invest in their work teams in the same way. Any organization is only as good as the people who work there. Investing in Team Development means to invest in your human capital, to create an environment where increasingly more self- directed groups of talented individuals take pride in what they do, have a strong sense of identity and purpose, and excel in productivity because of the nature of how they work together. These teams give off positive energy that is contagious across the organization, are recognized and respected as leaders and can be counted on to deliver. Consider any commodity industry where the products and services are mostly the same. Whether linoleum flooring, light bulbs or life insurance, the true differentiation between a successful company and an unsuccessful one is the often people. How employees work together can make the difference between a motivated and energized enterprise, recognized for its efficiency, focus and innovation and its competitor which is staffed by clock punchers who are unempowered and motivated by fear. Make no mistake—the latter organization will eventually lose its most talented workers- and often to that other firm with a better environment of teamwork. Every Team Needs Maintenance No matter what the organization or industry, it is statistically improbable that everyone in a given work group will get along with one another, and that there won’t be problems, issues and relationship difficulties. Astute managers recognize that every team can benefit from team building, skills development and support. Training Cost And Time Considerations The decision to invest in team development or team building has been difficult for some organizations because they haven’t had a clear picture of the cost-benefit relationship. The benefits mentioned here, as well as the risks for not investing in team development, have not seemed tangible enough to justify the expense of such a program on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Herein lies the problem: Any organization needs a complete process for team development, not a hit-and-miss strategy. There are many incomplete approaches to team development today. Consultants are usually willing to build a program around whatever the company is willing to spend in time and money regardless of whether it is really what the organization needs or whether it will produce lasting results. Most training companies would never admit to this, of course, but let the buyer of training beware! While such trainers are well intended, there are dangers inherent in fragmentary approaches to team development. 28 years of teamwork consulting and training reminds us that our challenge is always to get the client to commit to a process that is actually going to achieve their desired outcome of creating high performance teams. In today’s downsized business environment, time is as much a factor as cost when making a commitment to team development programs. In the 1980s, three to five-day team training programs were the norm, and significant change could be accomplished in that length of time. The time companies were willing to invest became shorter in the 1990s until today the trend is toward one and two-day team programs, sometimes shrinking to half day or one to two hour segments. Such time restraints make it extremely difficult for a teamwork trainer to achieve the desired results. Shorter programs like these miss the mark and create a bad reputation for the teamwork consulting industry. Such ineffective team development models set unrealistic expectations and give the entire concept a bad name with employees as well as training decision makers. The Seven-Step Team Transformation Process There is another way for companies who are willing to abandon this shortsighted approach and make a deeper commitment. We are not talking here about some huge, multi-level long term consulting and training initiative, but an efficient methodology for real team transformation- driven at the departmental level. This process incorporates the aspects necessary for real change, but in most cases it does not involve a long drawn out process. Designed for efficiency and with affordability and practicality in mind, the Seven Step Team Transformation Process is your most direct route to building high-performing teams. The process outlined in this book is both measurable and actionable. It has a strong “train to production” orientation. Not a collection of abstract theories or pie-in-the-sky concepts, this book represents a time- tested process whereby teams can develop synergy—ways to apply their collective efforts to their work life to produce a real return on investment while creating a very positive team environment. This methodology can produce a complete change of atmosphere and culture within a functional work team. Functional work teams in every company department are where things actually get done and where the rubber meets the road. The Reward For Making The Commitment This book addresses the human side of the work team dynamic. Team training programs missing any of the elements in the Seven Step Team Transformation Process will not create optimal return on investment or sustained behavioral change. Purely informational teamwork education is not a holistic approach and will not motivate team members enough to change their ways of thinking and operating together. The exercises presented here have been developed and refined over the past 28 years through our experience with scores of forwarding-thinking organizations in many different industries. Follow this process or develop your own interventions for some or all of the steps, but don’t skip any of the seven steps—all the steps are vital to lasting change. Follow these steps all the way through if you want tangible results with your work groups. Support From The Top Support from the organization is essential as a team begins the transformation process. It is possible for a team to “self administer” these steps without support upper management, but it is much more beneficial to have the backing and blessing from upper management. It is important to understand that this support is necessary not just for the short teamwork training process but throughout the team’s evolutionary process. As the team’s activities begin to yield positive results, additional support will be required from the organization. In the later steps of the process outlines in this book, the team will develop an action plan for improving their effectiveness—again it will be necessary for upper management to back their efforts so positive intentions and motivation are not stifled when a team with a new identity begins to initiate change and improvement. Once you have read the book and understand the design of this program for teamwork improvement, you will be much better prepared to begin working it in your own organization. You can then determine what time commitment will be necessary from team members in addition to their regular job responsibilities and what additional resources, if any, may be needed. The additional resources should only be necessary in areas that directly impact the team’s productivity and effectiveness. These investments in better teamwork should yield a rapid return, as is their purpose. SUPERCHARGE YOUR WORK TEAMS Seven Steps to A High Performing Team represents a much more cost-effective and efficient approach to team improvement than any other method or strategy in practice today. Selecting Teams For Transformation If you are convinced that team transformation is right for your organization or one of the may functional groups at your company, where do you begin? As stated before, any team can benefit from this process. As you select the team(s) for improvement, keep these four criteria in mind when selecting teams who would benefit from the Seven Steps Process: The team serves a vital function The team is expected to remain intact over a reasonable amount of time The team’s success would positively impact the organization Problems on the team are negatively affecting productivity of themselves and others Read this entire book and share it with others in your organization to see if they also have interest in finding an efficient and effective process to improve teamwork. Sometimes it is easier to get agreement to follow a proven recipe, than to start baking from scratch. ~~~~ Back to top Step 1. Create A Rationale For Teamwork When I stand before the functional work group members who have shown up for their first team building session, I can read their minds. They’re looking at me sideways, thinking, “This is the latest flavor-of-the-month training program,” or asking themselves, “How much do I have to fake a sense of cooperation with my co-workers while my boss is in the room? Everybody knows this team will never get along.” Some are worried about how they are going to avoid interacting with their co-workers or looking bad or being embarrassed by some ‘touchy-feely’ exercise I might introduce. Others might be hoping that this workshop will not result in some new work assignment, or worse, that they’ll be appointed to some new committee set up with the usual vague goals and objectives which will inevitably fizzle out over a few months as other priorities emerge. Most really wish they were just back in the office or on the shop floor getting all their work done instead of attending some stupid team-building workshop. And all of them are wondering how fast they can leave at the end of the day. Skilled team trainers and facilitators understand the feelings and emotions participants bring to the workshop setting. Awareness of these attitudes is essential if a teamwork trainer is to establish rapport and credibility with the group and inspire some level of cooperation so that learning can begin and ultimately, new teamwork benefits can be realized. What employees in today’s organization need to know is why teamwork makes sense—in other words, they want to know ‘what’s in it for them’ before they are willing to take it seriously. Most already feel stretched in their jobs, and need reasons why they should expend even more energy in what may seem a futile effort to work better with others. There are difficult personalities on almost every team, and getting past old rifts and conflicts can be a big challenge to overcome. Some find it easier to keep their heads down and sweep interpersonal challenges and conflict under the rug. These scenarios describe the average workgroup in most organizations today. Resistances to efforts to improve teamwork are often based on a series of past experiences—well-intentioned programs that were not received well, were undermined by negative members of the team, were unevenly administered or were not supported by the organization. The term ‘hunting and pecking’ is used to describe the continual experimentation with different methods or approaches organizations use, especially when it comes to teambuilding. Building committed, efficient, high-functioning teams is a challenging task, but it is possible with the seven-step process outlined in this book- despite the reservations about team development held by many. The steps of the process outlined in this book are specifically designed to address and overcome these common types of pessimism and resistance, and to build teams that actually produce better results together, not just feel good for a short period of time. Beginning The Transformation Process It is assumed here that the work group we will be working with has been pre-defined as a functional work group with vested interests in working together in a functional relationship, and that there are potential benefits for both the individual, the work group, and the organization in forming a better way of working together. Individuals without functional relationships should not be placed in team development programs together. In order to discover and claim their own potential excellence as a team, it is first of all critical for groups to understand that building a high performing team is a process, not a didactic lecture or one-time event. This is not necessarily a long process, (our typical high performing team program takes a weekend), but it will require active involvement and participation of all the team members to work together on developing themselves. I cannot walk into a session with any group and tell them how to ‘do teamwork’. Most work groups will resent being told what to do. What I can do, however is to guide group members through a process in which they will come up with the answers to their own challenges themselves. While I have a good idea of what they need to learn, I don’t always know what each group will value, prioritize or commit to in terms of working together. I am there to represent the process; the team members themselves represent the content, and the potential depending upon their level of commitment and involvement. Supercharging a team, means fundamentally that a team develops a higher level of commitment to one another and to their work than they ever have before, eliminating the blocks to higher levels of performance, developing a stronger skill base for better teamwork, and tuning the teamwork behavior and commitment of each individual team member. These are of course the goals of the Team Supercharging program, but getting there is a journey the work team must make together. The easiest place to start with any work group is with basic logic. Define the Rationale for Teamwork Teamwork makes good sense for both the organization and the individual. When “team building” or “teamwork training” is mentioned, many employees envision a picnic- type corporate event with sack races and Olympics style activities or perhaps some sappy slogans and posters hung around their work area. These quite understandable attitudes create a barrier to team building. In order to change this perspective, our high performing team programs start with a very simple process that effectively articulates the ‘business necessity’ of teamwork in the organization. Here’s how it works: Participants are divided into two equal size groups. 1) The first group is directed to make a list of all of the benefits to themselves, their department, and their organization if they had great teamwork and synergy and if they really enjoyed working with one another. 2) The second group is tasked with listing all of the negatives, penalties and potential costs when teamwork is absent in their organization. This simple and short process is quite revealing, and the results of what work groups produce in this exercise are quite consistent. Usually the lists will look more or less like this: The Benefits of Teamwork Increased morale More efficient production Better communication Better quality Elimination of redundancy (less effort and waste) Clarity of individual roles and function Empowerment of individuals and the team A more comfortable work climate Clarity of strategic priorities More creativity and innovation Process improvement Problems solved sooner Conflicts resolved more productively Healthier work force Higher level of enjoyment and personal satisfaction Individual professional development Happier customers Career advancement Company becomes more profitable Individual wages increase On-time execution of goals and plans More respect from customers and the rest of the organization The Costs/Penalties of Lack of Teamwork Stress Job-related illness/sick days Lack of job security Higher incidence of employee claims against the company Lack of clarity/focus Inefficiency/redundancy Waste Missed deliveries Political infighting Lack of professional development opportunities Low morale and poor working climate Lack of employee involvement Co-worker conflict Customer satisfaction shortfalls Lack of trust/honesty More dependency on strict policies and procedures Mistakes and errors Lack of creativity Low commitment Low initiative Most of these are the common elements we have found in working with all types of organizations. Rather than a teamwork trainer writing these items on a white board as the basis for a lecture, the team is much more involved in the ‘process’ of defining these impacts themselves. With this approach team members are forced to think about the teamwork in their own unique situation. When they define the benefits of teamwork and the penalties to the organization when it is absent, their curiosity about how to ‘do teamwork better’ begins to emerge. When teamwork issues are self-defined this way, the “carrot” then becomes the first list since it clearly describes an environment in which most employees and managers would prefer to work. The second list becomes the “stick”, or the obvious ‘bad list’ of descriptors most teams would like to stay away from. Even though this very simplistic view of teamwork seems obvious, the real process going on is to begin to lay a logical foundation for team development. When the lists have been created, we ask the group to make some rational and logical deductions about the monetary value of teamwork to their organization, and what the financial costs might be when teamwork is absent. We then ask whether team building and team development make good business sense. The discussion then proceeds with two questions: Which of these lists represents the organization you want to help build? Which represents situations that place the organization in peril? These are loaded questions to be sure, but the logic of the argument is undeniable. It serves an important purpose to ask workers to articulate their answers to these simple questions. In nearly every situation, this exercise begins to help start to shift attitudes about teamwork. Team building does make good business sense, after all. That’s hard for any worker to deny This pure rational logic about teamwork is something most employees don’t think about when team building is mentioned. By placing teamwork in this perspective, workers begin to understand that it means organizational profitability, efficiency, and personal satisfaction that translate into higher levels of work team productivity. At this point, workers may be saying to themselves, “OK sure, I can see what’s good for the company, but what about what’s good for me? ” They would be right on. The individual worker needs to see a clear benefit for himself if he is going to make a commitment to improve teamwork. This is a vital element in the first step towards team transformation. Workers must see how the list of benefits impacts them personally. If workers are going to be fully engaged, there must be a benefit in it for them, plain and simple. Without a motivating personal benefit, employees can only be expected to give lip service or minimal effort to the activities—certainly nothing that looks like extra energy or commitment to an ongoing initiative. Does this mean that all workers are inherently selfish or disloyal? No, but it is difficult to sustain any new behavior without an eventual reward. It is much easier to motivate teams if individual members can trace great teamwork to personal benefits at work. Are these personal rewards for workers financial? Hardly. It has been my own experience in working with hundreds of organizations that the rewards for teamwork are often not measured by money. What motivates individuals are the elements that foster more employee participation, involvement, greater personal responsibility, and the opportunity to make a more meaningful contribution. The chance to establish better relationships with co-workers is also high on the list. Salary increases are often further down the list of items workers come up with in the exercise. The point here is that every organization, and every department or functional work group, needs to spend the time and energy to demonstrate the relationship between better teamwork and personal worker benefit. If a new team work approach is going to mean extra work, more meetings, and a more demanding work environment, most would prefer to work alone. [...]... only way a team can really learn about teamwork and apply it to the dynamics of their own work team situation is to have the experience of working together differently and learning together in a well structured set of exercises A good experiential learning program can accelerate a team s development by leaps and bounds in a single day and serve as a key to dramatic changes in team performance A well-designed... not advocating a group therapy session here, as we all know if might take weeks to talk about every behavioral nuance in a particular work group’s history Instead, an efficient and data driven process it utilized to pay homage to the real issues and blocks to team performance that are there and that are the cause of jaded attitudes and pessimism that stand as a roadblock to the development of the team. .. motivation rather than by cracking the whip all the time to make things happen For this reason, good management is a true art Taking today’s work team from where they are today to a SUPERCHARGED STATE means to them, that they are living and working every day to their own ideal operating standards, and they are tapping into core motivations for the energy that will drive their commitment to better teamwork... to top Step 3 Establishing The Teamwork Baseline—Where Is The Team Today? How can we develop a team if we don’t know what they need to work on? We’ve already set a vision for teamwork in the previous chapter The Team Ideal State Process defines where a team says they want to go, but from where are they starting? Common sense says that any effort to improve a team should start with the areas of teamwork... Leadership 16 Team Leader(s) maintain the respect of all team members 17 Team Leader(s) solicits input from the team 18 Team Leader(s) keep team informed 19 Team Leader(s) keep the team focused 20 Team Leader(s) keep the team motivated Add together all scores for category Team Skills 21 Team communicates well with one another 22 Team solves problems well together 23 Team is creative 24 Team makes good... they are at today so they can start moving towards where they want to be tomorrow Gap Analysis-Clarifying and Accepting the Issues As the third step in the Team Transformation process continues the team should be warmed up to the possibility of taking healthy steps towards improvement in teamwork The Functional Workgroup Teamwork Survey presents the team s data in an objective and unambiguous fashion... (lowest) to 10 (highest) Team Atmosphere 1 Team is satisfied with themselves 2 Team treats all members with respect 3 Team exhibits humor 4 Team has a positive identity 5 Others find this team easy to work with Add together all scores for category Team Commitment 6 Team is clear about their purpose 7 Team works hard together 8 Team members give extra effort 9 Team members take initiative 10 Team is... that measures 50 specific teamwork constructs, in ten domains or teamwork areas It integrates universally accepted teamwork behaviors as well as incorporating the characteristics of high performing teams The Functional Workgroup Teamwork Survey©, included here in its full length, is administered anonymously to each team member- usually online a week or so before the team development engagement All team. .. proactive 40 Team takes responsibility when things go wrong Add together all scores for category Team Growth 41 Team s work is important/vital 42 Team regularly integrates new approaches or technology 43 Individual team members are growing professionally 44 Team participates in regular training and development 45 Team plans for the future Add together all scores for category Team Maturity 46 Team members... in the team transformation process To get to a SUPERCHARGED STATE as a work team, this territory must be crossed Targeting specific improvement areas that the team has self-selected is ultimately focused on efficiently, eliminating blocks to performance and commitment Acknowledging strengths credits a team with areas that can be relied upon more Overall team scores give the team a realistic idea of where . together Individual team members who want to be a catalyst for improvement on their own dysfunctional teams SUPERCHARGE YOUR WORK TEAM Seven Steps To A Create A High Performing Team is based. whip all the time to make things happen. For this reason, good management is a true art. Taking today’s work team from where they are today to a SUPERCHARGED STATE means to them, that they are. ten domains or teamwork areas. It integrates universally accepted teamwork behaviors as well as incorporating the characteristics of high performing teams. The Functional Workgroup Teamwork