Make Teamwork Happen

Teams want to have fun.  Spontaneous, unconstrained fun that ranges from the subtle to over-the-top playfulness.  Humor at no one’s expense.  Fun that makes us smile, giggle or laugh until our sides ache.  Fun allows us to whistle while we work, enjoying the time we spend with our team.

Many team leaders feel it is their responsibility to create fun in the workplace.  So they create the “fun” committee with representatives from each department.  They schedule the “fun” around birthdays, the company picnic, and other significant events.  Team leaders make sure the balloons arrive on time, the banners are up, and the production is ready to go.  And the rest of the team feels obligated to attend and smile throughout the entire ordeal. 

To put it bluntly, team leaders suck the spontaneity out of fun.  They can’t be the ring masters because they are compelled to organize, schedule, and manage everything around them.  It’s in their job description to manage and control the fun. 

Fun and playfulness has to come from within the team rather than the top.  To allow an environment that encourages fun:

Talk About Fun.  Have a great discussion within the team about what fun and playfulness is all about.  Allow the team to kick around ideas that might work.  Give them verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage their involvement.

Be Spontaneous.  Encourage the team to seek out ways to play “in the moment.”  Fun is all around us.  We just have to take advantage of those moments.  For example, a team keeps a digital camera in their workspace so that anyone can take a picture of something fun and share it with the rest of the team.

Have a Kitty.  Let’s face it.  Some fun things cost money.  Not a lot of money, but a few bucks here and there.  Let others know that they can be reimbursed when they create fun.  For example, on “Eat Your Green Vegetables Day,” two women on the dietary team served lunch in rented green artichoke costumes.  It was a small amount of money that had the entire organization laughing for days!

Keep Your Preferences to Yourself.  As a team leader, you might prefer to go to an Admirals hockey game.  If you mention it (or anything else) they might go along with your idea – and you have the huge potential to start coordinating the fun.  Back off.  You have lots of other things to do.  Let the team figure out the fun.

Question:  What is the last fun event that you team enjoyed?

To book Kristin to speak or view her products go to www.ExtraordinaryTeam.com

Potlucks have been a team-building mainstay for decades and what better time than during the holidays.  A simple activity to orchestrate, potlucks are an occasion to bring food and people together in an informal atmosphere, usually around lunchtime.  Potlucks are especially popular in office settings, (but any work environment will do) when you want to bring together the team, even if they work on different shifts or schedules.  Potlucks are usually organized by team members rather than the team leader. 

I suggest sharing these general guidelines for office potluck lunches:

Pick a Day.  Don’t wait until the last minute.  Schedule the potluck at least three days in advance, a full week before is even better!

Have a Theme.  What would otherwise be chaos becomes organized around themes.  For example, a Christmas Holiday potluck is more fun than a boring, regularly scheduled potluck.  People will hook into something fun, unique and creative.

Strike a Balance.  While sign-up sheets are helpful (especially if everyone typically brings potato chips), balance the need for structure with others’ need for spontaneity.  Many teams post a sign-up sheet with categories and people adjust their contributions by noting what “holes” in the menu need to be filled.  Regardless, do what works for your particular culture, ensuring that people enjoy the process rather than resenting it.

Dish It Out.  Let people bring what they want to bring, preferably homemade.  Here’s the opportunity to try out that new recipe or bring in your favorite dish.  Let people be creative and don’t slam them for trying something new!  (By the way, have you ever noticed that most people eat their own food at potlucks?)

Be Gracious.  Recognize that not everyone can cook or has the time to bring a homemade casserole.  Prepared foods are fine as long as they don’t bring in the same thing time after time and/or bring in gacky chow you wouldn’t even feed to your dog.  Then again, we all know some people who are simply food-impaired; let them bring the paper products or soft drinks.

Drift Away.  Allow team members to participate within a window of time, usually an hour or so.  This allows people to drift in and out, depending on their schedules for the day.  No need to stay the entire time, but feel free to come back to help clean up!

Enlist Others.  Success is directly proportional to the number of people involved and energized in creating a festive event.  From picking the date, theme and dishes, make it a team effort and let others coordinate the activity as much as possible.

If you are looking for an outside-the-box idea for promoting teamwork, check out what Steve Priest, Senior Vice President of DaVita Inc., is doing.

Question:  What is the most outside-the-box idea you have had for building teamwork?

To book Kristin to speak or view her products go to www.ExtraordinaryTeam.com

I had to laugh when I saw the headline, “Teamwork gets pumpkin into hotel.”  The writer, Tom Dalton, must have a sense of humor, too.  Evidently, a giant pumpkin arrived in the lobby of the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, MA but it was too big to get in the front door. Dalton explains:

“The hotel used a pallet jack from the Peabody Essex Museum to transfer the pumpkin from a pickup truck to the hotel’s catering truck, which has a lift gate. It was lowered to a heavy cart with large wheels and rolled through the hotel’s side door.

While this went on, Lederhaus was standing on an island in Hawthorne Boulevard talking to the pumpkin crew.

“Do you want me to stop traffic?” she shouted.

Just as she spoke, she heard a voice behind her say, “I don’t think you have the authority to do that.”

Lederhaus spun around and saw a familiar face, Congressman John Tierney, who was in town for a public meeting.

The big pumpkin is part of a “family of pumpkins” on display in the hotel lobby.

While it was, indeed, a comical series of events to get the Great Pumpkin into the lobby, I have GOT to believe that Congressman Tierney was making a joke, too.  It’s not whether she has the “authority” to stop traffic – because traffic is going to stop by the very nature of the work being done.

Here’s where it ceases to become funny. I know there are people working in teams who feel they need to ask permission to facilitate the flow of traffic or make things easier for the team – in spite of the events of the day.  Why do you need permission?  As Nike says, “Just do it.”  Help out.  Don’t wait for someone to rain on your parade…or would that be your great pumpkin?

http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_279001117.html?keyword=secondarystory

Question:  Do you wait for permission to facilitate the flow of traffic on your team?

To book Kristin to speak or view her products go to www.ExtraordinaryTeam.com