Are you concerned about your team member effectiveness? Check out these tips!
Do you think all your team members have the same motivation? Do you think they are your most valuable company asset?
Think again, say Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t. He holds up Nucor Corporation, a steelmaking company, as an example of great team building. They created a work environment where hard working people were rewarded and lazy ones were chased out of the company – by guess who? Other fellow team members!
According to Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, Co-Authors of Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management:
- Superior performers produce 48% more output than average performers
- Superior workers in jobs that require high skill levels were 32% more productive
- Superior workers in low skill level jobs were 19% more productive and
- Team members that made 10 times the errors of other company teams were the most successful.
How Do You Find Those Superior Team Members?
First, you need to identify your shining stars. These are usually the persons that are bored with their job, always coming up with better ways to do things, or they are complaining about the workflow process. These individuals have kinetic energy just waiting to be tapped. The reality is if you don’t tap their potential, they will walk out the door and work for someone who does.
Second, let your team fail. Many moons ago, I worked for one of the most conservative organizations in the world, IBM. They were so risk adverse and tried really hard to never fail. The problem? In the 1980s and ’90s many competitors rocked their world because IBM was not prepared to fail. Nowadays, I don’t even think like that. I KNOW I am going to fail sometimes, but I will learn so much from the experience. Thomas Edison said he failed over 1,000 times during his invention of the light bulb. Failure helps us improve and learn.
Third, reswizzle your team members if needed. Sometimes really bright people are not in the right job or right role. Team leaders need to figure out who needs to be where.
Fourth, sometimes your best and brightest team members are not the most obvious. Every work environment has quiet and introverted employees. That doesn’t mean they are not worth their weight in gold. Check out their actual work output and measurements – don’t focus on their personality traits.
How Fun Team Building Can Help
Participate in fun and energizing team building activities that turbo-charge morale, teach respect, and build trust. Refresh, reboot, re-energize, inspire, excite, and celebrate! Call Owner, Larry Lipman today to learn more about what Fun Team Building has to offer at 770-333-3303!