Do you want to be on a true team at work? Most of us do.
Teams make our work far more successful, productive, rewarding, efficient, and enjoyable. A strong team is a major competitive advantage.
The top 10% always have a genuine team across the entire organization unified by a shared and strong commitment to the same vision, mission, values, and each other. President Kennedy stopped to ask a maintenance worker at Cape Canaveral how he liked his work at NASA and heard this reply, “I work each day to help put a man on the moon Mr. President.” Now that’s a team.
Teams attract and retain talent. Only teams produce consistent and impressive achievement which is what high performers seek. People may even stay for less pay to be on the right team. They won’t stay for higher pay if it’s backstabbing and dysfunction.
Leadership cannot allow talented team-oriented professionals to endure: 1) the coworker/supervisor seeking to blame others before work on the project begins, 2) information/resources not being shared, 3) the poison of gossip and rumors, 4) the co-worker who steps over dead bodies as their favorite promotional path, 5) constant jockeying and self promotion instead of a focus on performance and integrity, 6) the department who thinks only of itself not the company or customers, and 7) the non-performer whose work must be done by others.
Costs to companies who lack a team culture are very high. Employees spend a lot of extra time, energy, and effort on self defense (e.g., the email that is “cc” to everyone as documentation). Morale, productivity, and retention decrease. Creative thinking declines as collaboration is the engine of innovation.
The team must come first. Legendary Olympic coach Herb Brooks told the 1980 U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey team during one of their first practices, “You’re not going to win anything until you figure out that the name on the front of your uniform is a lot more important than the name on the back.” They surprised the world winning the gold medal for America. They didn’t win on talent. They won on teamwork.
All talent, time, and energy must be invested in the mission and team not self serving thinking and behaviors. You can’t have employees who work part time on the mission, little or none for the team, and full time for themselves on your payroll.
Leaders must recruit, hire, train, supervise, evaluate, promote, recognize, and reward for true teamwork. Leaders must model team culture.Â
Trust is the oxygen of a team. To feel safe to trust others. To be open, honest, and vulnerable. To admit mistakes and ask for help. To treat others as you like to be treated. To seek and give support. To be a giver not a taker.
Those who can’t ever trust or serve on a team must leave. The self promoter needs to promote themselves somewhere else. Their drama needs to win an Oscar on someone else’s stage.
Leadership gets the behaviors they tolerate and reward. Mixed messages destroy trust and culture.
Teams attract and retain talent. Teams produce performance. Teams change history. Talent wins games and teams win championships. Lead like building and protecting your team is everything because it really is.
#LeadershipLessonswithDrSaviak
From the Teacher: Leadership Lessons with Dr. Saviak is a weekly column with the esteemed Joseph C. Saviak, Ph.D., J.D., M.A., M.S., Management Consulting & Leadership Training.
From the Teacher: Leadership Lessons with Dr. Saviak is a weekly column with the esteemed Joseph C. Saviak, Ph.D., J.D., M.A., M.S., Management Consulting & Leadership Training.
