Every year at the beginning of the (insert your favorite sport here) season there are all sorts of prognostications about that one team that’s destined to win it all. Why will this team be victorious? Because of all the talent it’s bought. Yet time and again these dream teams don’t live up to their expectations, and often they get defeated by some underdog.

    It’s the same in the workplace. Throw together a few folks with good reputations and turn them into a dream team—and they’ll be sure to succeed. In fact, many of these teams fare no better than those “winning” sports teams.

    Successful teams do have talented members—but those members understand each other and draw from each other’s strengths. If you’re ambitious and you want to see this in action, join a volunteer fire department as active fire fighter. By necessity you’ll bond with your team members, and your understanding of teams will change.

Can you describe the personality of each team member?

Do you know what makes them tick?

Do you know how to push their buttons?

Tags: all sorts dream team dream teams favorite sport fire fighter personalities personality prognostications reputations sports teams successful teams talented members team member team members underdog volunteer fire department winning sports
 

One employee’s negligent behavior will always reflect on the whole company. By negligent I mean careless, inattentive, or somehow inappropriate to the situation. The number of consumer complaints about careless employees has increased over the years. Companies should be mindful of this because dissatisfied customers react—usually by taking their business elsewhere.

    Think about how you change your shopping behavior after you’ve had a bad experience with an employee. Yet many companies do nothing to fix this. And don’t think negligence is always about ignoring the rules. Sometimes it’s about following the rules a little too closely. Seth Godin provides a perfect example of this in his blog: a customer who’s been banking at the same branch for 70 years has her signature routinely checked whenever she goes in to cash a check.⁷

Are you thoroughly checking new (and old) employees?

Are you keeping an eye on your teams activities?

⁷ http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/08/clueless.html

Tags: bad experience blog consumer complaints dissatisfied customers negligence seth godin shopping signature
 

There’s no shortage of standards in the business world; sometimes it seems that even standards have standards. Some people equate standards with bureaucracy, but in fact bureaucracy is more about regulations than standards. Still, standards themselves can often be cumbersome—especially when there seems to be competing standards governing the same project. Having said that, what do you suppose would happen if we had no standards at all? Worse still, what would happen if each individual employee worked according to his or her own standards?

    If a company has no standards to follow, its culture will seem inconsistent from the inside as well as the outside. On the other hand, standards have to reflect the work, the culture, and the people at hand. Sometimes you need to adjust or even change standards. It’s a matter of deciding when change is needed and when the status quo is the best choice. Let’s face it: things change, and if you want to keep pace, you have to change, too.

Do you have standards?

Do you control how standards are followed?

Does the team know the standards? Are they realistic?

Are standards reviewed?

Tags: best choice bureaucracy business world ignore standards pace standards status quo
 

How can you demand everything you can get from your team without overtaxing everyone? Too often management sets goals without considering the weaknesses and strengths of the team members. Worse still is when management sets goals for the staff that it doesn’t hold itself to. Sometimes the issue can be as simple as ignoring the calendar. What do I mean by that? Consider the following instructive story.

    A company botched up a huge project, partly because the project represented more work than it could handle. Or was it? The projects time line was supposed to run from November thru February—which of course includes several major holidays for a number of cultures. Employees were forced to work long hours during the holiday season, with little support from management. Why so little support? Because top managers weren’t around. They had chosen that same time to take “well-deserved” vacations. We can’t know whether the project could have been completed on schedule if management had been more involved, but it’s hard to imagine that the staffers were feeling particularly motivated during those long hours of work.

Are goals extremely high—but still reachable?

Is know-how seen as an investment?

Does management keep the teams’ morale up?

Have incentives for them?

Do you demand the best while giving the best support?

Tags: cultures demand encourage holiday season holidays huge project incentives instructive story managers staffers team members time line top managers vacations
 

Management by objectives and management by delegation go hand in hand. Is there a need for followers when the leader does everything? Well, let’s think about it in different terms: Can any leader dance at 50 weddings at the same time?

At how many weddings are you dancing?

Remember: Delegation is good management and a sign of strength.

Tags: followers good management management by delegation management by objectives weddings