team effectiveness posts
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Emotional Intelligence: Honesty is the best policy
October 07th, 2011
Honesty can really get a meeting moving in the right direction. When I’m in team meetings, I often find myself thinking that self-awareness needs to exist before the courage to reveal oneself openly and honestly can happen.
I talk a great deal about the importance of emotional intelligence and the ability for teams to be productive. Teams can move forward on tasks if individuals, who have a deep understanding of self, are willing to;
- Manage their stress levels and their personality traits,
- Be empathetic to the same in others,
- Lead assertively, and
- Demonstrate social skills.
In a meeting recently, a soft-spoken individual came forward with great clarity about who he was and how he saw the world.
He stated:
“Look, I am a linear thinker and I lead a group of linear thinkers; engineers and financiers. As a result, it is really hard to figure out how to translate what you creative and strategic thinkers are saying. My brain just does not work that way”.
Whether it was a vocal “ah” or “ohh”, a big sigh or the movement of their chair, everyone around the table responded. We all knew that this man’s honesty had shifted all of our perspectives. With his willingness to reveal what he knew about himself, we now had permission to do something differently.
In this case, it allowed everyone to use this information to make their roles in the project more effective. I walked away understanding I needed to be more aware and conscious of taking the time to outline strategies and expand on the reasoning behind each strategy. Honesty really is the best policy.
How about you? Do you have the self-awareness to share something about yourself that might help your team work better together? We’d love to hear what type of response you get.
The Teamwork Challenge Tip #3: Lose Some Weight
June 29th, 2011
Building a high-functioning team takes courage, commitment, tenacity and a willingness to work with one another. In order to improve teamwork, it’s important to try something new, change a behaviour, spice up the team a bit with a new approach and then review to see if it worked or fell short of success.
This week’s teamwork challenge: Lose Some Weight
Juggling day-to-day tasks, navigating project deadlines, running in and out of meetings, building interpersonal relationships, influencing decision-making and trying to manage personal stress simultaneously can often become quite time consuming and overwhelming.
Add to this the fact that many of us on teams are constantly trying to impress our teammates with how competent and committed we are to the team, it’s inevitable we’ll hit a speed-bump and make an error. As errors add up, personal stress is heightened by our inability to keep all the balls in the air.
Has this happened to you lately? Are you trying to ignore that recent expenditure that took the project over budget? Were your responsible for a task that took more time than allocated? Did you throw one of your teammates under the bus in a meeting in which s/he was absent. Urghh. Time to lose some weight!
By telling your teammate the truth and confessing up to your error, you’ll not only decrease some of your personal stress, you’ll lighten your step and bring your teammate into your circle of trust.
Within the next 24-hours, will you throw your shoulders back, hold your head up high and admit your mistake to your teammate?
Remember to try something new, change a behaviour, spice up the team a bit with a new approach and then analyze the results. Did it make a positive or negative impact on the effectiveness of your team?
Next week’s teamwork challenge tip is about speaking your truth.
The Teamwork Challenge Tip #1: Shout-Out the Positive
June 16th, 2011
With summer fast approaching, we thought we’d lighten up our blog. Therefore, for the next 12-weeks, our blog will focus on one topic and it’s up to you to implement it into your team. At the end of the summer, we’ll review what worked for you and what didn’t. Are you up for this summer’s Teamwork Challenge?
This week’s teamwork challenge: Shout-out the Positive
Building a high-functioning team takes courage, commitment, tenacity and a willingness to work with one another. In order to improve teamwork, it’s important to try something new, change a behaviour, spice up the team a bit with a new approach and then review to see if it worked or fell short of success.
So often we are working away on our teams and we forget to celebrate the small stuff or articulate the important stuff. Take a moment today to articulate one behaviour that you have recently noticed one of your teammate’s doing really well and verbalize it to them directly.
For example, one of my teammates is always thoroughly prepared for our meetings. The impact on the team is that meetings run more effectively. So think of one behaviour and it’s positive impact and take a moment to say that directly to your mate.
Within the next 24-hours, will you take a moment to let a teammate know one thing you think they do really well? Remember to try something new, change a behaviour, spice up the team a bit with a new approach and then analyze the results. Did it make a positive or negative impact on the effectiveness of your team?
Stay tuned for next week’s Teamwork Challenge Tip #2: Listen Up!
