Skirt Strategies offers a monthly leadership technique, and this month’s training is all about the advantages of using team concepts and teams too!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Katie: Hi – from Skirt Strategies. Another month – another topic for our successful women leaders out there. Here’s one that everyone needs to know.
Carol: “Teambuilding.”
Katie: And here’s my question to the viewers – and you can answer on behalf of the viewers.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: What is it that the women that we work with – high potential women in all sorts of situations needs to know about Teambuilding?
Carol: Oh! How to build a team?
Katie: How to be a part of one? There you go.
Carol: Yeah. How to play fair? Doesn’t it start in grade school?
Katie: I don’t know. Women are on that many teams when compared to men. So I would wonder – Do we see teaming as something that is as important?
I would say – we see it more because we’re so collaborative. But we don’t learn it from sports team. We learn it from being collaborative with one another in different ways.
Carol: Right.
Katie: Community projects, hands on at the workplace, that sort of things.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: So my question might be – “If I’m out there and I’m looking for being more successful as a female leader, tell me the three things that I’ve got to know about teambuilding that will work for me.”
Carol: Alright.
Katie: Number 1 – To know that teaming and teaming concepts are not always the same thing.
Carol: Interesting.
Katie: “Do you have to be a team to get the benefit of the concept of teambuilding?” Do you know where I’m going with this?
Carol: No, I don’t.
Katie: No, you really don’t.
Carol: You confused me.
Katie: If I’m telling you that in your office – you need to have everybody be more team collaborative, work better together, build a men to a team – that sounds like a tall order, it could be a tall order.
Gosh! That means they need to go to training. That means they need to understand the concepts, stages of team development, forming storming, norming blah, blah, blah… And you’re thinking, “Do I have to do all that?”
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: The answer is no. There’s a huge difference between being that team – something I would call a team and something that I would say was – “You know, you guys are on your way to be high performing.”
Carol: Right.
Katie: Versus – “What would be some of the things that have to do with teaming that I can just get a benefit from – without going through all the work in the world being a team?”
Carol: Alright. So give me examples.
Katie: “Learning to make decisions as a team.”
You don’t have to be a high performing team to do that. You don’t even have to be really pretty good team.
You know, the concepts of leveraging the different skills around the table – who does what well and how do I build upon that? That’s a team concept that you don’t have to be a standalone team for.
Carol: Right.
Katie: Oh! Thank God!
Carol: Well, interesting. And I’m trying to apply this to my life and how I build my team. And really – we all work in silos to a certain extent, but we have one overarching goal – which is to serve our members and things like that.
So I think that’s helpful to – is when you’re going to start building a team, you have to have an overarching goal for what that team is being put together.
Katie: Right. Because – what constitutes a team? What makes you a team versus a group of individuals? This just got known to be an elevator together. 10 random people – Does that mean they’re a team?
Carol: No.
Katie: If the elevator breaks down.
Carol: Then we become a team.
Katie: Now they have a common purpose, right?
Carol: That’s right.
Katie: Get the hell off the elevator.
Carol: “Get me out of here and somebody do it quick.” Okay, good.
Katie: So that’s one thing – is the concept between being a team and just using the fundamentals of Teambuilding that you can pick and choose and do whenever you like. And there’s lots of those – by the way. I will bring those up as my second point.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: “What are the most important concepts that are good to know – with respect to teaming?”
So having a common purpose, collaborating well, getting through conflict management, decision making, making progress, stuff like that – all those are great characteristics of team development.
Carol: Right.
Katie: Perhaps my favorite that I don’t see very often is the important concept of knowing how to self-correct.
To me – a real team is good at saying, “Hey. We’re really good at this. We’re getting things done. We’re accomplishing.”
But a true team – looks at how well. They kind of step back and say, “Look at how goes it with us – as a team.”
Carol: “Are we really reaching that?”
Katie: Yeah. And – “What do we need to be doing different?”
Carol: Right.
Katie: A lot of times, teams will just focus on it and they’re getting something done, they very rarely step back. “Look at what we’re doing well.”
Well, you can do this. Successful women can do this anytime with themselves as an individual or with a board that they’re working – whether their leadership team or colleagues on a project.
“What are we doing well? Does anyone have a feeling for where our high points have been? Did anyone get the sense that maybe we were stumbling over the last six months – because every time we came up against a tough decision, we took the easy way?” Just observations that have to do with being good at self-assessing.
Carol: I think that’s a fabulous idea. Just make one of your meetings. If you’re meeting on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, let’s get back out to that 30,000 foot level. Everybody – take a look from that level.
I did that just the other day in a board meeting. I said, “You know, we’ve got so many things going on. And I’ve got my head kind of in the weaves. I’m forest through the trees. I’m not prioritizing right now. I know that.”
So I needed my board to get around me and say, “Okay. Let’s look at this from a 30,000 foot level. Let’s know what it is we’re doing right. Know what it is – where we’re going with our strategic plan.”
And we corrected it and it was fabulous – because I had everybody on board with me and they…
Katie: Nice!
Carol: Yeah. It was necessary and needed. And I needed that team to tell me.
Katie: Shake you by the shoulders.
Carol: Exactly.
Katie: “Girl! Come out of your funk.”
Carol: Yeah.
Katie: Last – the third point.
Carol: Okay.
Katie: “Teaming can be fun.” You cannot have fun without a little dysfunction. Fun is in the middle of dysfunction. Somehow, I could’ve worked with the fun into dysfunction.
“We put the fun in dysfunctional.” That’s what some teams say. But also that there’s a value. It’s just the basic concept of – “Three heads are better than one.”
Carol: Right.
Katie: Unless you’ve got experts on it. If you’ve got subject matter experts, you often want them to be working independently.
But even then, you want to know how to tap your experts. And that takes teambuilding.
So that last point is that teaming is almost always a better way to go than individuals working independently.
Carol: Yes.
Katie: And it’s more fun – which I like. I think it’s dynamic. I think it keeps the energy up. You’d have to be pretty much of a hermit – not to appreciate the value and concepts.
Carol: Well, another thing is that women do this really well, right?
Katie: I think so.
Carol: Teambuilding and using your team for their talents. Just remember to pick people on a team that are going to have the talents you need and use them for those talents – because you know what? That’s where they shine. That’s where they do their best. And that’s where we do our best – is bringing those people in and helping them shine.
Katie: Assessing people’s assets, talents, what they bring to the table, ground rules. So there’s a host of tools and skills that have to do with teambuilding.
And at Skirt Strategies, we’re going to be covering a lot of those through the next four weeks.
Those of you that are our subscribed members know that you Monday morning detox – we’ll give you a little piece of something further into the Teambuilding concept.
If you’d like to be a subscribed member, we always welcome you. It’s for a small monthly fee. You can have the podcast each Monday where we’re giving you a challenge and assessment or some sort of an assignment along the topic. The topic this month is Teambuilding. Go team!
Carol: Go team!
Katie: Good. Anything else?
Carol: I thought.
Katie: Oh, that’s it. We’ll see you next time.
Carol: Bye, bye.
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