Consistently I find that those that are seen as high-performers get more work. They come to be resentful of the extra work so they slow down their rate of production or lessen the quality of their work or stop trying so hard or fall into victimhood or seek to transfer out of the company all together.
Team Building and Leadership notes and slides from a kick-off meeting with a management team. Focus on increasing Trust (within departments and between departments); Accountability (determining where accountability belongs and creating a culture of that is accountable); Working within the Matrix (using the teams existing knowledge and know-how to improve their existing work and to offer input to the Management team on how to improve their work)
Should all people be fully autonomous, able to carry out things when they wish in whatever manner that feel is appropriate? How can this idea fit within a Managerial-Accountability-Hierarchy.
Images from the University at Buffalo Campus Living Staff’s team building day, we were at Old Fort Niagara.
For team development and team building to happen, the facilitator must know how to build the team. Leading a series of “games” that have no purpose is recreation. Read ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Team Building is Sweet Frosting on a Shit Cake.’ The facilitator must be aware of the team, the individuals on the team, … Continued
It is nice if people at work are all friends, but not necessary.
It is necessary that people at work know what the Goal is and understand how the work they are doing contributes to accomplishing that goal.
Organizations don’t hire teams, don’t fire teams, and can only provide feedback based upon the work of the individual and how they contributed to the team goal.
For people to effectively work as a team, there is a requisite need for understanding and knowing the background context in which they are operating. Once there is understanding of the context + background of the work then each person can use their initiative to complete their own work and contribute to the teams work, with certainty that they are within the guidelines and expectations for doing great work.
The method can be thought of as “how” to work gets done. Method is often overlooked or seen as touchy-feely and is where the majority of team based projects fail. The necessity of defining and determining the methods that will be used will catapult team based projects into a rapid growth phase.
For the method to work a focus on facilitative preventions, determining possible problems and ensuring that quality tools are utilized.
As teams develop and improve their performance over time a s-curve pattern emerges. In this video Michael Cardus shares the S-Curve for Team Development and references it to developing high performance teams.