Maximizing Team Performance

August 19, 2019 By // by Andrew Shaffer

Are you maximizing team performance? How do you know if your team is working at maximum capacity? Here are some of the symptoms of a team that struggles with low productivity.

Difficulty meeting deadlines and goals
Flat or decreasing revenue or profits
Increase in product quality issues (increased defects, customer complaints, returns, fewer repeat orders, etc.).
Increasing or unacceptable employee turnover and absenteeism

When a company, or team experiences these symptoms for too long they generally think they can’t do anything about it. This week, I am going to talk about how you can maximize the performance of you team and see real impacts on your bottom line!

Maximizing Team Performance

Businesses either grow or die. Keep in mind, if your business is growing slower than your competition, you are in the process of dying. Some business owners might think this is acceptable, as long as they can ride it out until retirement. But think about it, if your business is dying, how well are you really servicing your clients? Are they getting the high level of service they expect or deserve? You’ll have to answer that question. Today I am going to talk about how to maximize your team performance, and make sure you stay in front of your competition today an in the future!

Talent Development

An employee development system is not an annual performance assessment. It is not long drawn out conversations about why someone needs to improve. I have 2 boys that play sports. I do my best to coach them both. When a player strikes out, as he’s walking back to the dug-out I often give him a quick piece of advice. Adjust your hands so you can get the bat around or shift your balance so you can get a more level swing. Something quick and immediate. I didn’t wait until the end of the season (like an annual review). We try to make corrections now so we can see improvements at his next at bat.

To continue with the coaching analogy, there is one coach, one piece of advice, and one conversation. I don’t overload the ball player with three for four pieces of advice. It’ll clutter his head, and he’ll certainly fail again next time. We don’t have every coach giving advice at the same time (I do see this at times). Again, keep it simple, direct and understandable. Normally the change doesn’t come immediate in a game, and that is OK. But at our next practice I remind the player what we needed to work on, then we practice it until we get it right.

As a coach I develop my players on a game by game, day by day system. I work to elevate performance, so at the end of the season we are better ball players. Hopefully at the end of each practice we are a little better. When creating an employee development system, these same fundamentals apply. A quick, simple, timely process for feedback, with the intent of elevating talent, will improve productivity, lower retention, and drive profits that you will see in your financial statements.

Employee Engagement

Companies pay consultants to come in and do employee engagement surveys. (find out how ours is different). Based on the results of the survey, leaders are encouraged to create action plans with their teams. The idea is to work on something that will get your team engaged and working towards a common goal. Most of the time, teams would pick something easy to do, something they knew they could accomplish without too much interference with their “real jobs.” As you might imagine, this didn’t really get teams engaged and had very little impact on actual engagement.

In most cases I observed that “focusing” on engagement often had the opposite result from the intended effect, and many times company leadership completely missed the point. The word “engagement” lost its true meaning and become a chore. Engagement isn’t about one more thing to do. Engagement is about building commitment and loyalty to a project or a company. Engaged employees give that discretionary effort needed to see a plan succeed under any circumstances.

Accountability

Believe it or not, your people like to be held accountable. Holding them accountable for doing their job is a sure-fire sign that their job is important. Accountability leads people to strive to do better. It isn’t necessarily the fear of being held accountable that motivates someone to succeeded. Success builds confidence and momentum. People genuinely like to be successful and it makes them feel good. We can all appreciate this, as we’ve all had days that were successful and others that just went down the drain. Which one makes you feel better at the end of the day?

Holding people accountable means, you, as the leader, need to hold yourself accountable. Hold regular meetings, or whatever form you use for accountability and stick to it. If you ask someone to finish a project by the end of the month and wait until the end of the month to check for status, don’t be surprised when your team member lets you down. They let you down, because you didn’t tell them the project was important. Therefore, develop a schedule and a system for accountability, follow it, and watch your engagement soar.

This Week’s Challenge

Is your team working at maximum efficiency? In which areas could you improve performance? Do you know the root cause of the lack of performance?

Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Team Integration

August 12, 2019 By // by Andrew Shaffer

Many companies I meet with struggle with the team performance. Their teams aren’t integrated and operating at maximum efficiency. What does a lack of team integration look like?

A lack of integration in business is evident by infighting. For example, production blaming supply chain when they don’t have necessary parts. Or, a sales teams blaming marketing for lousy marketing material. Perhaps, managers blaming employees for lack of production or, employees complaining because management doesn’t get it. Sound familiar?

Scroll down to read this week’s blog post all about team integration.

Team Integration

There is a lot of information to be found on team building. Some of it is good, and some of it is not so good. Most businesses inherently understand team building, and some companies spend small fortunes on team building exercises and off-sites to leverage the benefits of team building.

Team building and team integration is something different. To illustrate, I’ll turn to my experience with youth sports. Every coach builds a team. The coach identifies the needs (the positions needed to play) and, assigns players to play those positions. The coach and their staff will work to develop the players skills to be successful at that position. This is team building. Come game time, the coach has a team.

Team Building vs Integration

I have had the experience of coaching teams with and without integration. The team that wasn’t integrated struggled during each game to be successful. Each player knew his position and responsibilities. However, some of the kids didn’t trust or rely on their teammates. As a result, kids wouldn’t pass the ball to each other, offer help on defense. As a result, when we lost (which was almost inevitable) they would blame each other and never take responsibility for their part in the loss.

When I had a well-integrated team, my players relied on each other, and did everything they could not to let each other down. There was more comradery, the season was more fun, and we won a lot more! When the team was integrated, they were in it for more than personal success. They were there for the team.

Vision

There is an old story about President Kennedy visiting NASA during the early days of the Apollo program. President Kennedy was doing a tour of the facilities and met a janitor wearing coveralls and holding a mop. The president asked the man what he was doing there. The janitor replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.”

Now I can’t believe that story happened, but it does make a point. This janitor felt integrated as part of a team. He saw the vision of putting a man on the moon and he was doing his part. His part might have been moping the floors, but it was a necessary job that enabled the engineers to do their job.

Teams that are integrated are working for something larger than them their actual job. They see a bigger picture. Therefore, it is important that leaders share their vision with their employees, so everyone knows how they are contributing, and why their job is important to the company. Many times, people get so focused on the day to day aspects of their jobs, they lose focus of the bigger picture. When this happens teams will start to dis-integrate.

Outcomes

Well integrated teams see much more success than other teams. Again, when you look at sports, players that practice together in the off seasons are more “in tune” with each other than players that don’t. That translates to more victories on the field.

Integrated business teams tend to be more entrepreneurial. This helps companies find faster cheaper better ways to compete. The entrepreneurial spirt helps companies see beyond the horizon and develop the “next best thing.” Integrated teams develop and retain the best people to help ensure success both in the short and long terms.

This Week’s Challenge

Is your team working at maximum efficiency? Are you seeing finger pointing and blame in your company? Do you see other signs of a lack of team integration?

Give us a call for an assessment and consultation and see how you can start improving your bottom line.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Complacency in the Workplace

July 22, 2019 By // by Andrew Shaffer

While meeting new people over the last few weeks, the common question I’ve been asked is “Why did you start your business?” Great question. While the answer can’t be boiled down to just one reason, there was basically one motivating reason. To help companies reduce complacency in the workplace. This week I am going to share with you some of the common symptoms of complacency I saw in the workplace, offer some insight into how to combat them.

Complacency in the Workplace

Businesses either grow or die. And remember, that if your business is growing slower than your competition, you are in the process of dying. Some business owners might think this is acceptable, as long as they can ride it out until retirement. But think about it, if your business is dying, how well are you really servicing your clients? Are they getting the high level of service they expect or deserve? You’ll have to answer that question. Today I am going to explore a few examples of complacency that I saw and offer some solutions to help reinvigorate you and your team!

That’s just how it is

I’ve also worked with teams that struggle with the same problem from project to project for decades. DECADES! I have watched people work themselves to burn out because they just keep fighting the same problem repeatedly. Eventually these people just accept the problems as the normal course of life and continuously live on the edge of burnout. This is not healthy for your company, and not healthy for your employees! As the famous infomercial line goes, “there has to be a better way!” There is!

Comfort

The second symptom of complacency I have seen is the talented employee who had early success in their career only to flatline early only to stop growing. I get it. Early in our careers, we don’t have a lot to learn and a whole lot to gain by taking risks. As careers progress, our reputation is on the line, maybe we have a family and can’t risk losing a paycheck. Whatever the cause, I have seen talented people basically do the same job, year after year for twenty years, or more! I don’t know about you but doing the same thing for that long just doesn’t sound exciting to me. These people peak in their early 30’s and from there are just waiting to retire. Even though these people are filling a need, are they helping your company grow? Are they realizing their potential? No, and that is sad.

What can you can do?

The good news is that both these conditions are curable, and your company can still thrive. The bad news is there isn’t a singular solution. You are dealing with human beings, and now two humans are exactly alike. When I work with companies dealing with these conditions, I teach leaders to connect with their employees. Not in a superficial team building way, like happy hours or lunch outings, but in a meaningful way. Take time to talk to every individual on your team. Understand their journey, where they have been, where they are, and where they want to go. Learn what motivated them. It isn’t your job to motivate employees, but you can help create a culture, job, assignment, career path etc., that aligns with their motivations. Meet with your team and co-create a development and career plan for each employee and help them achieve it.

When you do this, your team will be more motivated, creative, and innovative.

This Week’s Challenge

Find time to meet with your employees and talk about their journey and aspirations. Help them create a development path that is inspiring to them and aligns with your company’s mission. When you do this, you’ll begin to challenge the status quo and your business will begin to thrive.

As a loyal reader I am offering a 25% discount on our motivational assessments. Do you want to know what motivates your employees? Contact us now and let’s have a conversation.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Team Building Ideas and Misconceptions

June 3, 2019 By // by Andrew Shaffer

During a conversation over coffee with my friend Steve Morris, founder of Catylator, we had an interesting discussion on some common techniques for team building and why they fall short of the goal. One thing we both agreed on was that some techniques for team building, while fun, don’t actually achieve any objectives of team building. Steve has a unique, interesting and effective method for team building and problem solving. If you think you could use his help or want to learn more, I encourage you to check out his website. This week I am going to share some ideas and misconceptions of team building.

Team Building

Most of us agree that working on a cohesive team improves productivity, engagement, and business outcomes. The terms “team” and “teamwork” are ramped in job descriptions and prospects inevitably boast about being team player or team leader. Many organizations I know will attempt team building through some social activity as a way to get to know each other outside of work. They might invite teams to a happy hour, lunch outing, or bowling. Is this the best way to build a team?

While these activities are fun, and can help build friendships, they don’t always build teams. I mean think about it, how is bowling or a beer going to help you be more productive at work? Personally, I prefer to have a beer or go bowling (actually golfing) AFTER I’ve established a relationship with someone.

Common Purpose

For a team to be highly functioning, they have to have a common purpose. Sports is the best and simplest example of this. The common purpose of any sports team, at least the good ones, is to win a game or championship. That’s it. Everyone in the organization from the owner, to the GM to the rookie that just signed this morning, all have the same goal. To win games.

In the business world, the common purpose could be a project completion, customer satisfaction score, or sales goals. The best teams I’ve ever worked with was when we were ALL focused on the same goal. The team was diligently working to complete a task. The team leaders were actively removing obstacles that impeded progress. Everyone knew what success looked like, everyone was keeping score, and everyone participated in achieving results. I’m actually getting excited just remembering these successes!

Belonging

Being part of a team, is more than just having a role to fill. Being part of a team was a sense of belonging. I’ve been coaching little league baseball for several years now. One of the most exciting days for the boys are when I hand out the uniforms. Actually, from the first day of practice I generally have someone asking when we’ll be getting uniforms. Why? Because when we all have our uniforms on, we feel like we’re part of something. I make sure the coaching staff is always dressed like part of the team as well. Again, we ALL belong and it makes a difference.

When someone belongs to something, they recognize they are part of something bigger. Being part of something bigger tends to help us be less concerned about “me” as we are about “we”. When we’re concerned about “we” then we can help each other and the team improve.

Trust

Trust is a foundational aspect of any team. I need to trust that the other members of my team will be there when I need them. Going to back to my hobby of coaching little league. Sometimes my pitchers get focused on getting a strike out, and will get frustrated when players get a hit. When this happens, I’ll remind them that it’s OK, and there are 8 other players on the field that are there to make a play. Actually, the other players are hoping the batter hits the ball so they have something to do!

Trust is essential to everything in business and in life. My kids trust that someone will pick them up from school each day. My wife and I trust each other to uphold our responsibilities in the family. I trust my employees to do the jobs they say they are going to do. When the trust breaks down, the team breaks down and sooner or later you stop winning. Once trust is broken it is very hard to repair.

This Week’s Challenge

I want you to think about what you do to build a team at your company. Does it help you work towards a common goal? Does it foster a sense of belonging? And, does it help build trust?

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

team building