teamwork Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

17
Jul 20
-

Teamwork Give, Are You Doing It?

Tags : culture environment give leadership teamwork

Giving more, means more. What are you willing to give? In the workplace, teamwork give may be one of the most constructive things you can do.

People often ask, “What do you have to lose?”

Instead we should be asking, “What do you have to give?”

The psychology of work drives everything. It is an element of culture, the associated environment, and the outputs of the organization.

What happens when we give more:

patience
trust
empathy
responsibility
benefit of the doubt?

Do any of these have a positive return on investment? Do they make a difference?

Culture or Environment?

Many organizations believe that they have a thriving culture. Yet, they often lack some of the essential ingredients.

When you ask about culture do you get answers connected to the environment?

We brightened the room.

We provided a walking trail and a fitness room.

Some of our cubicles went away and were replaced with open space.

In a general sense, these are all related to the environment, not the culture.

Culture has some connections to the environment but environment alone does not illustrate the culture. Culture is comprised of many things and it starts with behaviors, attitudes, and a feeling that develops from the people.

What are you giving to your team?

Teamwork Give

We can give a lot of things. More respect, more trust, and even more patience.

Empathy matters. So does negative bias and stereotyping.

Is there ridicule or more benefit of the doubt?

Do you want employees to care more? Give them more responsibility, empowerment, and involve them in decisions.

Working overtime on your culture may be the simplest thing you can do to make the organization better.

Are you getting a good return on your investment?

Give more.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

08
Jan 20
-

Marketing Perspective and the Change You Seek

Tags : communication decision marketing perspective teamwork

Change is always happening. It is happening in front of you, of me, and your neighbors and friends. Is change somehow based on a marketing perspective?

You’ve heard before that we all sell. Guess what? We all market too. We advertise what’s happening, what the direction is, and which path to follow.

Not everyone agrees, and sometimes that is the beauty of it all.

Throw something on the wall and what sticks may be what matters the most or at least is the hardest to remove.

Change and Pivot

The change, pivot, or transformation that you are in right now is conditioned by marketing. Yes, of course, it may be some form of push marketing, but it may also be compelling. Pulling others along.

Marketers, all of us, are responsible for what happens next. The narrative we tell, the examples we give, and the expectations of future outcomes that we set. We’re all involved.

Marketing is a powerful tool and with great power comes great responsibility.

You have a responsibility to do the right thing.

Is the change you’re involved with right now, the right thing? Is the jury still out?

Marketing Perspective

Sometimes the best change takes more time. It isn’t a light switch with a full on or full off. Things aren’t always black and white. In some cases, step A and B need to materialize before the end result of C reveals itself.

You don’t want to get a bad rap for being a bad marketer. The perspective that you create, the one wrapped around your presence and wisdom is the one choice you will always have.

Be sure you are doing the work that matters. The work that creates the kind of change that makes you and others proud.

Sometimes all we need is a little more marketing perspective.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
Aug 19
-

The Short Supply of Workplace Patience

Tags : buy-in cost patience teamwork workplace

Most workplace teams are driven by time. As individuals, many people express a need for improving their time management skills. Do your employee teams illustrate workplace patience?

Often when the conversation of patience emerges there is a contradictory feeling connected with speed, pace, or customer expectations. It is true, time does tend to directly connect with money.

Should patience be a core value?

I often suggest to groups and teams that it should.

Patience is a learned skill. Patience should be practiced to be improved. A lack of patience costs.

Cost of Workplace Patience

There are at least two forms of cost connected with a lack of patience.

One cost is that of the work completed in a hurry or work completed through haste. The work becomes inferior. The idea often is, the more quantity across time, the better. Of course, the quality needs to be a recognized factor.

The other cost is more intangible. It is the cost of a lack of engagement, lower morale, bad attitudes, employee absenteeism, and turnover.

When employee teams see a team assignment slacking, they may jump in to pick up the pieces. In many cases, this is important and a sign of good teamwork.

The other side of this is that an employee who doesn’t fully participate often lacks buy-in. As a result of not being bought-in, they become more disengaged. They may take a back seat, the easy road, all the while knowing that whatever they don’t accomplish, someone else will do.

Time Factor

The mindset and performance of people is hard to measure with time.

Give ten different employees an individual assignment and not all ten will finish at the same time.

Easy enough to understand.

Yet if we monitor the performance of the fastest seven or eight and then pull the plug on the assignment, we know the unfinished two or three are somewhat disconnected.

Simple enough.

Is there an adequate supply of patience in your teams? How do you balance quality and quantity? Have you measured the impact of a shortage of patience?

Sometimes everybody needs a little patience. Just trying to get it right.

-DEG

H/T (Patience, is a 1989 song released by the band Guns-n-Roses. It included the lyric, “Just trying to get it right.”)

Originally posted on August 14, 2019, last updated on August 31, 2020.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

22
Jul 19
-

Are You Working Today?

Tags : ethics integrity motivation teamwork winning

Life is about choices. Often so is the work that we do. If you are working today, what is your motivation?

In the United States sports are big business. One sport or another many people show up to cheer on a team or curse an opponent.

We see it in many places, American Football, Soccer, Baseball, and even various forms of Motorsports.

Have you stopped to think about, “What is the goal?”

Often it is the collective enthusiasm of beating the opponent, the competition, or winning the championship.

What is the talk in the locker room? Do you think anyone in professional sports is talking about how they will lose?

Are they talking about the controversy among the team? The mistake from two weeks ago? How a couple of seasons ago there was a bad decision?

Unlikely, unless they have a twist on those aspects to increase motivation.

Working Today?

Your job and the work that you contribute to may be similar to professional sports. Are you arriving with a plan to win?

Today I’m going to close the sale.

Let’s be sure to ship 150 packages today.

Let’s build today without any mistakes or errors. Total quality.

One aspect that is always true about sports and our work, winning today (short run) is important but winning the championship (long run) is a collection of on-going wins.

Employees cannot sacrifice integrity just to win the game.

Maintain Integrity

Closing the sale in the system in the final hours of the day with the hope that the customer will buy tomorrow doesn’t work.

Throwing a few extra packages on the truck that will ultimately be refused at the customer site isn’t winning.

Fudging a little on quality to say, “We finished it, ship it.” will come back to harm your future reputation.

Are you working today?

Go do work that matters, work you are proud of, and work that will win the championship.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
Aug 18
-

Why Cooperation Is The Better Path

Tags : connection cooperation leadership teamwork

A popular workplace complaint. People can’t seem to get along. Often the trend is to take a different position, go against the flow, cause some havoc and get noticed. Have you considered why cooperation beats opposition?

Everyday Challenges

Diversity challenges us every day. When you break it down the real challenge with diversity is that we see differences as the other side, an opposition.

We often don’t agree, but believe we should. We believe we are practicing diversity. It is true across generations, sexual orientations, and protected classes of people.

This often breaks down to the agreement to disagree. That’s opposition, not harmony, not collaboration, and not teamwork.

Leadership and Connections

Individuals who are supported by the leadership style of some people move up while others move down creates an energy. Is that energy constructive?

Hierarchy has value and is important. So is respect and even authority. In a connected economy has that changed?

People often throw around buzz words. Things like servant leadership, emotional intelligence, and six sigma. Certainly, many components of these practices work. Do all components?

The climate of the organization conditions success.

Whether we like it or not we are living in a networked world. People converse all around the globe quickly, easily, and by desire. New contacts and relationships are made and older ones are reinvigorated or repaired.

Why Cooperation

Much of our lives and economies are being stimulated by connection. Push marketing still has value and deep roots, but the connected economy is much more about pull.

So when we see something different in our workplace and psychologically label it as the other side, we lack connection. Agreement to disagree is not a win-win.

Every moment as the organization moves across time, something new is created. What does that look like in the connected economy?

Cooperation reminds us of the value of connections. It reminds us that differences are not the opposition, but opportunity. Within any culture some differences are not tolerated. They never enter the system, or at least they shouldn’t.

The climate of your organizational success has an opportunity.

To become a force for the market, you must have a force within.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating a Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

04
Aug 17
-

3 Ways to Get the Team to Work Together

Tags : goals harmony leadership project teamwork

Are you working with a team on a project? Are you trying to start or launch something new, make a change, or simply make forward progress? How do you get the team to work together?

People have been asking the same question for years, “Why can’t we all just get along?” Answers to this question can be challenging. Finding mutual agreement in several key areas might help.

Discovering Harmony

Here are a few things that might help your team find harmony.

Understand the goal. Sometimes co-workers lose sight of the fact that you are all in it together. It shouldn’t be this person against that person or this clique over that clique. Teams that can agree on the goal are a step ahead of the rest. You might have different ideas on how to there, but the goal is understood.
Agree on measurement. Can you agree on how you will measure success? What are the timelines and milestones? If you can agree on the goal, you should be able to form some consensus on the measurement. What will you measure and how?
Accept the facts. A willingness to search for and understand the facts might be critical. Evidence is often hard to disregard. At the same time, working too hard to prove the point isn’t necessarily the best approach. Consider facts to be tools. Use them as appropriate to help create effective measurement.

Teams that are on the same journey are the most effective. Those who can’t agree on the goal, measurement, or facts have additional challenges.

Work Together

We might need to accept that there is more than one way to get to the end result. Sometimes the process needs to be fluid, but the goal remains unchanged.

What would you do if you were ship wrecked? Most would prefer to cooperate and never crash in the first place.

Work together, it seems to make the most sense.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

08
Jun 17
-

Building Your Future or Predicting It

Tags : career decisions future predictions teamwork

Organizations face commitments to the future. Do employees face decisions for the same kind of commitment? Are you building your future or predicting it?

I often hear stories from people reminiscing. Stories that if they only would have known then what they know now. It is true for their investments and often for major life decisions. It might be different if they had that crystal ball.

Decisions we make are important. They help to shape our future. So do our actions and behaviors.

Predicting What’s Next

Many people confuse making a decision with predicting the future. Certainly, some things will just happen but far more important than predictions might be what you will do or how you will handle what happens next.

If you are an employee within an organization, you should have a commitment to help build it. The problem that most people see is that within the organization they don’t make the decisions for their future so they try to predict what will happen next.

In many ways, this seems like a truism. However, their individual contributions will somehow make a difference for the outcomes. So perhaps the outcomes are not so much of a prediction but more about how each individual helps to co-create.

Granted the contributions of just one individual seem minuscule when compared with an entire operation. However, we shouldn’t forget the story of what can happen with just one bad apple.

Building Your Future

If everyone on the team is needed then the contribution of every individual must matter. It isn’t necessarily about predicting the future. It might be about creating it.

If your contribution doesn’t matter or doesn’t make a difference then the prediction should be clear.

If it does, there shouldn’t be as much prediction necessary. You’re co-creating.

Reputations, brands, and entire organizations don’t just happen. They are built.

Sometimes it might be better to focus on building and stop trying to predict.

Predictions are for meteorologists.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: teamwork

Jul 20

-

Culture or Environment?

Teamwork Give

Jan 20

-

Change and Pivot

Marketing Perspective

Aug 19

-

Cost of Workplace Patience

Time Factor

Jul 19

-

Working Today?

Maintain Integrity

Aug 18

-

Everyday Challenges

Leadership and Connections

Why Cooperation

Aug 17

-

Discovering Harmony

Work Together

Jun 17

-

Predicting What’s Next

Building Your Future

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