10.21.2012

Fostering Relationships: A Quick Study in Teamwork

The following five questions/answers contain the top lessons I teach audiences about effective teamwork. Cross-reference these with your life and examine how you can improve the positive contributions you make to your teams (family, friends, work, school, etc.)

Why is becoming an effective team player important?
  1. Life is a team sport.
  2. When our teams are good, life is good.
  3. People need great people-people around them to give their best.
What is the definition of effective teamwork?
Effective teamwork occurs when each individual clearly understands how their core strength plays a valuable role in the team accomplishing its shared goals.
What are the common traits of great teams?
  1. A trusted leader.
  2. An agreed upon goal.
  3. An agreed upon decision-making system.
  4. The creation and revisiting of big memories.
  5. Each individual engaging a core strength.
What are the common traits of great team members?
  1. Intensely focused on their work, trusts others, are trustworthy and therefore creates an environment where there is low drama and high trust.
  2. Optimistic and create the impossible by focusing on solutions and the positive.
  3. Identify, put into action and develop habits that create an environment of encouragement, excellence and high expectatIons.
  4. Skilled at maximizing change and solving problems by seeing things differently and getting to the true core of challenges.
How can you help team mates give their best?
  • L.E.A.D. - Look for, Encourage, Appreciate and Draw out the best of others. How most people treat you is based on who you are to them, the environment your interactions are in & how you treat them. Make them good.
  • Be a lover of what other people are doing. Be Interested. Make someone else feel more important than they think they are and you instantly become more important to them.
  • Build up others when they aren't around. Stephen Covey said, "A great way to build trust with those in the room is to talk up those not in the room."


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