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FROM JIM SIRBASKU’S DESK
Getting Our Teams in Gear
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One of the ways to
understand how teams operate is to
imagine gears meshing. In gear
theory, we have drivers, followers
and idlers. We “gear up” and “gear
down.” Following this theory, we
know that when gears are not
properly meshed, friction results.
Work teams operate the same way.
Team players are like the followers;
they do the useful work. Team
leaders are like the driver, the
gear with applied force. And, just
as the meshing of followers and
drivers can speed up the gear train
and increase torque, team players
that mesh well can accomplish great
things.
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But what happens when a
driver or a follower needs to be replaced and
the new player just doesn’t match? It’s like
pushing a screwdriver between the gears. The
jolt can throw everything out of whack, and we
learn just how fragile a team can be.
The growing emphasis on
formalizing work teams to cope with changing
workplaces is healthy, but keeping together a
successful team requires an understanding of the
importance of team mix. The most important
ingredients of a team are its people, and each
time we add a new or different person, we run
the risk of creating friction and derailing an
operation unless we ensure that each new member
is a team player, gets along well with others,
and understands the culture and style of the
team.
Although the structure,
purpose and makeup may vary, each well-built
team needs these important features:
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Your Team May Be
Ineffective If...
- Members cannot articulate group
goals
- Participants are repeatedly late or
absent to meetings
- Squabbling among members results in
tension and prevents frank discussion
- Meetings are repeatedly cancelled or
postponed, and no one asks why
- The team leader does all the talking
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CASE STUDY
Fine-Tuning a Financial Services Team
with PXT™
Employee teamwork is
important in all industries, but the stakes are
among the highest in the competitive financial
services sector, where employees must be
detail-oriented and mesh like a finely tuned
machine. The intricate mix of federal and state
regulations that employees must follow also
heightens the importance of teamwork.
When a national financial
services firm wanted to increase the revenue
production of its loan originators, they used
the ProfileXT™ to identify candidates with the
greatest probability of good productivity.
ProfileXT™ looks at workers’ traits, interests,
and cognitive abilities as benchmarked by other
successful individuals in the position.
Participants
The study included 116 loan originators
to examine the relationship between employee
productivity and the dimensions measured by
ProfileXT™. Loan originators are front-line
mortgage sales employees who must comply with a
web of federal and, usually, state laws. They
are licensed professionals and need excellent
communication and interpersonal skills to be
successful.
Read More
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PRODUCT FOCUS
Playing Nice at Work Makes for Nice Work
Producing Art with
Profiles Team Analysis™
A team that works well together can
produce a work of art. Think of the Vienna Boys
Choir, a group of individuals with perfectly
tuned, trained voices. Or envision a team of
Clydesdale horses harnessed together, each
raising the correct hoof at precisely the right
time, as if following the lead of an imaginary
conductor. Marching bands and football players,
surgeons and teachers – all are capable of good
things individually and potentially great
accomplishments when working together.
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No matter how easy
they make teamwork appear, great teams
do not just happen. Mayhem could result
if the team’s goals are not clear. What
if the Boys Choir decided to play
baseball instead of sing, or the giant
Clydesdales ran amok during a parade?
Each individual’s performance needs
analysis. Effective teams need players
who want to participate and who bring
different strengths to the group. The
team leader must be able to elicit and
orchestrate individual strengths to help
the team reach its goals.
Profiles Team
Analysis™ not only helps to
analyze the teams that your organization
relies on, but it also helps your
leaders determine how to coach their
teams to obtain the best performance
from each participant. |
Read More
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STRATEGIES FOR WINNING
Fire ’em Up! – 21
Days to a Winning, Motivated Team*
Will you give 10
minutes each day for the next 21 days to fire up
your team like never before?
The sooner you can get a new
employee into productivity, the better off you
will be. At Profiles, our managers have learned
the following techniques for managing and
motivating people. These take the usual
new-employee orientation to a higher level. This
program has been successful in integrating our
new team members into the Profiles culture in
just 21 days, or about one calendar month. Not
only has using this system accelerated the
productivity of new team members, but it has
proved excellent in making them feel wanted,
appreciated and accepted. Based upon the
positive results we have experienced, we
heartily recommend you implement a similar
program in your company.
Here’s a distillation of
all you need to know to motivate people – it’s
drawn from all of the great writers on the
subject – along with a simple, 21-day plan.
Employees Want
Management They Can Look Up To – Not Management
that Looks Down on Them
An honest respect for all, a genuine recognition
that everyone has something good to offer – this
is at the heart of the successful motivator.
Without respect, so-called motivation becomes
manipulation, and manipulation is never
successful in the long term. If you or your
managers cannot show respect for your people,
then, before you invest time and energy in
motivational efforts, get someone who can – and
have that person read on from here!
Read More
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A Father-Son Formula for Team Building |
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If you want to
construct successful work teams, go to
the team of experts. In the
fourth-edition classic, TEAM
BUILDING: Proven Strategies for
Improving Team Performance,
change management guru William G. Dyer
and his sons Gibb and Jeffrey continue
to apply their branded balm to troubles
on the job. Fans who read the previous
three editions of this team-builder’s
“bible” should consider this one,
published in March, offers six new
chapters of material designed to keep
apace with today’s challenges.
The book opens with a
compelling description of one
executive’s crisis after he failed at
teams. Although the predicament might
sound far-fetched to believers, the
beginning paragraphs are a lesson for
anyone who thinks top-down management
still rules.
In today’s rapidly
changing and increasingly complex
business environment, the opening of
TEAM BUILDING shows
that the top-down mantra is about as
useful as a top hat.
But the authors
designed the book more for believers
than skeptics, and quickly moves on to
practical advice for putting teams
together and ensuring their smooth
operation. It offers a formula for
building high-performing teams, which it
describes as “those with members whose
skills, attitudes and competencies
enable them to achieve team goals…
members set goals, make decisions,
communicate, manage conflict and solve
problems in a supportive, trusting
atmosphere…”
The four
sections of this book include:
-
Part
One: The Four Cs of Team
Development: Contest, Composition,
Competencies and Change Management
Skills
- Part
Two: Solving Specific
Problems Through Team Building
- Part
Three: Team Building in
Different Kinds of Teams
- Part
Four: The Challenge of Team
Building for the Future
Decades of experience
support the authors’ influence in the
business world. Patriarch William G.
Dyer, who died in 1997, is past dean of
the Marriott School of Management and
founder of the Department of
Organizational Behavior at Brigham Young
University. His work there continues in
many ways, including through the Dyer
Institute for Leading Organizational
Change.
Son Gibb, or W. Gibb
Dyer Jr., is the O. Leslie Stone
Professor of Entrepreneurship and
academic director of the Center of
Economic Self-Reliance in the Marriott
School. His brother, Jeffrey, is the
Horace Beasley Professor of Strategy at
the Marriott School, where he also
chairs the business strategy group.
In the book’s foreword, Edgar H. Schein,
a professor emeritus at MIT, notes his
pleasure at the continuation of the
elder Dyer’s “pioneering work… at a time
when the world needs 'team building'
more than ever." Teams everywhere –
successful or struggling – are likely
chorusing their amens.
ABOUT
THE BOOK
TEAM BUILDING:
Proven Strategies for Improving Team
Performance (fourth edition)
Authors: William G. Dyer, W. Gibb Dyer
Jr., and Jeffrey H. Dyer
272 pages / ISBN-13: 978-0-7879-8893-7
Publisher: Jossey-Bass (imprint of Wiley
Books)
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I love to hear a choir. I love the
humanity... to see the faces of real
people devoting themselves to a piece of
music. I like the teamwork. It makes me
feel optimistic about the human race
when I see them cooperating like that.
-- Beatle Paul
McCartney
The way to get things done is not to
mind who gets the credit for doing them.
-- Benjamin Jowett, English scholar and
theologian
No problem is insurmountable. With a
little courage, teamwork and
determination a person can overcome
anything. – Anonymous
Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only
thing that ever has. – Margaret
Mead, anthropologist
You cannot collaborate with another
person toward some common end unless you
know him. How can you know him, and he
you, unless you have engaged in enough
mutual disclosure of self to be able
anticipate how he will react and what
part he will play? -- Sidney
Jourard, psychologist
The way a team plays as a whole
determines its success. You may have the
greatest bunch of individual stars in
the world, but if they don't play
together, the club won't be worth a
dime. -- Babe Ruth, baseball
great |
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The Profiles
Advantage is a
monthly newsletter from Profiles
International. For more
information, comments or
questions, contact us at
bill@billrobinson.ca |
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