"The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better"
Tony Dungy
Shortly after I had started with a new company, I was integrated into a program team with others who were also new. It was a dynamic group with some very talented folks. However, the team had way too many "alphas" and not enough cohesiveness to operate effectively in this very competitive industry. The Program Manager who led this group, soon saw the problem and put the wheels in motion on how to make it better.
A call went out to the East Coast to bring in a pro. This man had helped my company before I had joined - he was a legend. He was very good at what he did - he specialized in fixing things - things like broken organizations. The Program Manager called us all together, told us we would be going off site for three days, and not to even think about calling back to the office. He did tell us one thing - prepare to come back changed.
The next week we met at a conference center on the west side of town. With all the business trips I had been on, this was the first where I was going to spend three days in the town I lived in. The first morning we gathered together for coffee and met the teambuilder. An older professorial looking gentleman with a topping of uncombed white hair, he was engaging from the first time he shook your hand. The first day was spent defining what we did, what we thought others did (or should be doing) and how everything played together. It was a long day with lots of notes taken.
That evening we gathered for a social event and talked about the day. Everyone was tired and pretty soon the gathering thinned as people just wanted to go to their rooms to rest for the next day. It turns out, it was going to be needed.
Early on day two, we had breakfast together and then went straight back to training. My thought was this - yesterday we defined jobs, are we really going to go over that again? Nope - we meditated. I had never meditated before. The teambuilder went though the first part of the morning teaching us how to do it. And then we all meditated for the rest of the morning. It turns out, there was method in the madness. After lunch, things were going to get rough.
After lunch, we gathered in a circle and the teambuilder was in the middle. He told us this was the part of the training that would change us the most. With the circle consisting of twenty people, one by one, we needed to address everyone in the circle and tell them three things we liked about them. It had to be what we liked about them as a person (not work related), and we could not copy what someone else in front of us in the circle had said.
Have you ever had to tell someone you really did not care for what you liked about them? The teambuilder had told us from the start that even in the most acerbic relationships, there are always things about each of us that are of value. To change our dynamics, we needed to focus what we liked about each other and minimize what we disliked. What was really going to make this hard for me was a relationship I struggled with daily. One woman on the team and I had not gotten along since I walked in the door. By the nature of our jobs, we needed to work together closely - and some days it was brutal. I was dreading when it would come to my time in the circle and I had to address her.
It turns out she was first in the circle to start. She was very good at her job, but not a "touchy-feelie" type of person. This was going to be hard for her. By the time she got to the third person, the tears were already flowing - I had never seen her cry. Finally, she came to me. I really thought she was going to say "pass" and move on to the next person. She did not. Through misty eyes and a cracking voice, she told me three things that she really admired about me, and then moved on to the next person. To go around the circle, it took her an hour.
The exercise continued on into the next morning. Finally it was my turn. It was very hard, and yet, felt very good. When I came to the woman I had been having problems with, I repaid her by telling her three things that I admired about her. Not made up, truth. From that day forward, my working and professional relationship with that woman changed. We became good friends and our working relationship, although not perfect, was much, much improved.
The reason I tell this story is this - I went to a mandatory off site because I had to. I expected very little out of it. I ended up learning a life skill that went far above what I did for this company. I was reminded that everyone, each one of us, has value and something to offer. Quite often that is minimized or overlooked by the strong pull of negative talk or feelings. It is not often that I have been able to say I had a life changing event. Thanks to the teambuilder, this was one of them.
A call went out to the East Coast to bring in a pro. This man had helped my company before I had joined - he was a legend. He was very good at what he did - he specialized in fixing things - things like broken organizations. The Program Manager called us all together, told us we would be going off site for three days, and not to even think about calling back to the office. He did tell us one thing - prepare to come back changed.
The next week we met at a conference center on the west side of town. With all the business trips I had been on, this was the first where I was going to spend three days in the town I lived in. The first morning we gathered together for coffee and met the teambuilder. An older professorial looking gentleman with a topping of uncombed white hair, he was engaging from the first time he shook your hand. The first day was spent defining what we did, what we thought others did (or should be doing) and how everything played together. It was a long day with lots of notes taken.
That evening we gathered for a social event and talked about the day. Everyone was tired and pretty soon the gathering thinned as people just wanted to go to their rooms to rest for the next day. It turns out, it was going to be needed.
Early on day two, we had breakfast together and then went straight back to training. My thought was this - yesterday we defined jobs, are we really going to go over that again? Nope - we meditated. I had never meditated before. The teambuilder went though the first part of the morning teaching us how to do it. And then we all meditated for the rest of the morning. It turns out, there was method in the madness. After lunch, things were going to get rough.
After lunch, we gathered in a circle and the teambuilder was in the middle. He told us this was the part of the training that would change us the most. With the circle consisting of twenty people, one by one, we needed to address everyone in the circle and tell them three things we liked about them. It had to be what we liked about them as a person (not work related), and we could not copy what someone else in front of us in the circle had said.
Have you ever had to tell someone you really did not care for what you liked about them? The teambuilder had told us from the start that even in the most acerbic relationships, there are always things about each of us that are of value. To change our dynamics, we needed to focus what we liked about each other and minimize what we disliked. What was really going to make this hard for me was a relationship I struggled with daily. One woman on the team and I had not gotten along since I walked in the door. By the nature of our jobs, we needed to work together closely - and some days it was brutal. I was dreading when it would come to my time in the circle and I had to address her.
It turns out she was first in the circle to start. She was very good at her job, but not a "touchy-feelie" type of person. This was going to be hard for her. By the time she got to the third person, the tears were already flowing - I had never seen her cry. Finally, she came to me. I really thought she was going to say "pass" and move on to the next person. She did not. Through misty eyes and a cracking voice, she told me three things that she really admired about me, and then moved on to the next person. To go around the circle, it took her an hour.
The exercise continued on into the next morning. Finally it was my turn. It was very hard, and yet, felt very good. When I came to the woman I had been having problems with, I repaid her by telling her three things that I admired about her. Not made up, truth. From that day forward, my working and professional relationship with that woman changed. We became good friends and our working relationship, although not perfect, was much, much improved.
The reason I tell this story is this - I went to a mandatory off site because I had to. I expected very little out of it. I ended up learning a life skill that went far above what I did for this company. I was reminded that everyone, each one of us, has value and something to offer. Quite often that is minimized or overlooked by the strong pull of negative talk or feelings. It is not often that I have been able to say I had a life changing event. Thanks to the teambuilder, this was one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment