As a free tool on our website, we have shared many detailed “write-ups” of team training exercises. We get hits (about 700 a day – not a lot by YouTube standards, but not half bad) from all over the world from trainers who take and then use these exercises to great effect with their teams.
“Keypunch” is one of the classics that we’ve used and shared. Since we penned that write-up, we’ve modified how we set it up and facilitate it to focus the team on how they ensure quality work, done safely, within tight time frames. “Quality,” “safety” and “timeliness” are often in tension, so how do you help a team understand these pressures and then make daily decisions which reflect your goals and the priority that you place on these values? For starters, you try the new, improved “Keypads”!
In the video (about 11 minutes long), you’ll hear from me and one of our strategic partners, Sardek Love of Infinity Consulting, as we take a group of engineers through the exercise. I include a picture of the flipchart that I usually prepare and post to set up the work. Detailed notes follow at the end. Enjoy!
I’m thinking of one business unit within a client organization which needs to clarify how to work as a team. This company has multiple offices; because of acquisitions and mergers, these offices house different functional units – one office focuses on business development, another on production, a third on support services. The employees at each of these geographically disperse locations need to better understand how to work as a team at their particular sites, the offices need to know how to work as a team and the business unit manager needs to know how to provide these teams leadership. Where to start?
Teams are not work groups or committees. The individuals within these teams, and the teams themselves, need information and structure so that they can effectively concentrate on and accomplish the task at hand.
KNOW WHAT TEAMS NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL. Then help the team answer these 5 Simple (but not simplistic) Questions:
I’ve been asked (and I’ve consented) to deliver the keynote at a conference of community-based groups, all of which are focused on reducing drug dependancy in their communities. A great opportunity to assist and encourage those who are doing important work.
My contact wants for the participants to leave the conference with a new idea or tool to use in their work, and she wants them to leave with more enthusiasm and motivation. You see, they are tired, and the odds are stacked against them …
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Last week, we referred to the “building blocks” of a high performing team. In that article, we suggested that prior to doing (or failing to do) team building, you ask yourself the counterintuitive question “what type of team do I need? What is the strategic import of my group performing as (or failing to perform as) a team?”
I should have started with a more basic question: do you believe (really) that high performing teams at work are even possible? When we ask workshop participants about their “best team experiences,” we frequently hear about sports experiences, rarely about work.
While uncommon, high performing teams are possible at work. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing what we have learned in our years of team facilitation about what great teams need, and how to help them grow.
For now, I’ll simply share a few details about the BEST team of which I was a part. In 2003, I was invited to join a team of consultants who were assembled to develop and implement an online grants management system for a federal agency. (I can hear the yawns from here, stay with me. You … yeah, you in the back row … get your head up!) This system had to support a nationwide application process – literally, dozens of applicants from each of the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico. It had to be fully up and running within 6 weeks, and we had to train ALL of the grant applicants nationwide in the system within 4 months.
You may not know grants management, but that’s OK. What you should know is that this had not been done before … it was a huge step forward into the 21st Century for this agency and would dramatically streamline their grant processes. It was also a very short timeline for the amount of work that needed to be done, almost impossibly short.
Looking back, I can see that we were a talented group of individuals. We had a very clear, measurable, almost impossible goal and benchmarks that, with exceptional leadership, caused us to dig deeper individually and pull together corporately to get the job done. We each knew our role in the structure and why that job was important. We had clearly defined communication channels and structured opportunities throughout the project to provide feedback and think together about continuous improvement. Over the course of the project (all told, about 7 months), we came to really respect one another.
A real High Performing Work Team. It’s totally doable. So back to last week’s question: How important is it that your work group really come together as a team? Have you had enough of the silos yet?
If you say “it’s important” that you become a real team, then stay tuned in to this blog series. You really can structure work team success. If you compared my account above with the team building blocks in last week’s article, you’ll see each of them there. I’ll be explaining these more fully in upcoming posts.
If you say it’s “very important and we need to do it ASAP” then contact us. Let us help you put your group on the path to becoming a team. Read more about our Executive Team Building on our website.
This was not the case in a lot of other situations …
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We regularly get calls to assist with “team building.” A manager remembers the fun time that she once had on a challenge course long ago and thinks that this is the ticket for her team. When asked what she hopes to achieve, the sponsor usually responds with something like “I want them to get along better … you know, help each other out.”
She is expecting a four-to-eight hour session on the challenge course to help her team magically pull it together; unfortunately, with this degree of specificity, any intervention with her team is a shot in the dark. The time on the challenge course may produce (temporary) good feelings, but it will fail to get at whatever the root cause(s) may be.
If you’re dealing with a team or department that isn’t working together as you’d like, we recommend two preliminary steps …
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