It is said that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Thousands of books, articles and quotes have been written about the importance of teamwork. We cheer our teams in sport, but in our businesses we often manage with the assumption that people will be motivated if given an objective and measured by KPI’s.
That’s a big assumption, more often than not it’s an illusion. Do they see and understand objectives in the same way? Are the KPI’s beneficial to how teams work together, to the customer experience? Do they inspire a sense of belonging and / or purpose, or are they an item to check off on a spreadsheet?
How our teams communicate determines the level of trust. How is it with your teams? Not just within each team, but also cross-functionally? If people don’t trust each other, one of the first signals is the avoidance of conflict.
If team members fear conflict, at least two things are going on. They’ve stopped trusting and some, if not all, will pull back from team objectives, focusing on their personal survival.
What are you doing to ensure team members have bought into the direction forward? As our markets and circumstances evolve and we innovate to meet the ever changing needs, we must continually inspire and motivate our teams to remain vested in our collective mission.
This day and age where KPI’s and performance reports greatly influence who gets promoted and who doesn’t, it is imperative that teams work as a cohesive unit. How accountable are team members for their contribution to team results? How do you measure this?
Vision Forward’s approach is based upon the premise that the best teams are ones that embrace differences, not just of ideas and opinions, but also of behavioural styles.
Teams will always need some form of management structure, but have the freedom to organise themselves. Some people are driven by the task at hand, others are motivated by helping others. Whatever the personality mix, at the end of the day it boils down to how team members interact and how they are managed.
With the changing dynamics of the workplace, whether cultural, age group demographics, technical or business expertise, it is imperative that our teams innovate as fast if not faster than our customers. Interested to learn more? Please contact us!
Get in touch
Vison Forward International BV
Hollandse Hout 358
8244 GR Lelystad
+31 (0)320 – 844 170
info@visionforward.nl