Building the Perfect Team, Part 3

Building the perfect team isn’t a one-step job. It’s a process that takes time, focus and little incremental steps.

Let’s look at some other tips from Disney in building the dream team:

• Tapping into each person’s passion means knowing that person. As you get to know each employee better you’ll get a sense of whether he or she is in the right job – the job that truly fits. Are work assignments one that the person loves? Are they tasks the person feels he/she does well in? Researchers have found that the tasks we say we love are most likely the tasks we’re best at – so pay attention to those complaints and those success stories you hear about.

• Knowing your staff members also means knowing what will reward and motivate each of them, too. One manager tells a story about getting McDonald’s gift cards for everyone on staff and feeling proud that she had a great motivation/reward tool at her fingertips at all times. One problem – about half of her staff didn’t go to McDonalds. For those people, this was less a motivation and reward than a clear indicator that their boss didn’t know them very well.

• Make work fun. Yes, working at Disney seems like it would be fun anyway, until you think about the actual tasks involved. How fun would it be day after day helping people into and out of rides? Serving popcorn and soda pop? What makes it fun is the atmosphere. Is your work atmosphere fun? Do people laugh – or at least smile – throughout the day? Are you being a leader in creating a fun environment for work?

Building the Perfect Team, Part 2

We've talked about the importance of sharing your dream with your team.

Let’s look at how we can develop a dream that the entire team is a part of creating. Here are some ideas to get you going:

Finish this sentence: “I dream of working on a team where:”

You might take a minute to answer this question yourself first. What’s important to you? You might list:

• Everyone puts forth their best efforts
• We reach – and exceed – our company goals
• We have extremely satisfied clients
• We all feel like good friends

How does your team finish the same sentence? Try it – and then be open to a full, rousing discussion about how the team will work together to become the “dream team” we all want to be working with.

Ask your team to finish a couple more sentences, too, and see where that discussion leads. Here are some you might try:

I want to work for a manager who:
I want to work with coworkers who:
I enjoy my work most when:
I wish there was more: here at work.

Get the conversation going – engage your team in the journey and in reaching for the dream!

Building Your Dream Team, Part 1

One of my favorite current books is Fred Lee’s “If Disney Ran Your Hospital:9 ½ things you would do differently.”

I heard Lee speak at a conference a couple of years ago, and was completely sold. If we could capture the team – the energy – the enthusiasm of Disney in our building, people would not only want to live there, people would want to work there, too – in droves. What a nice mental picture that makes!

In the conclusion of the book, Lee poses this question:

“Have you ever worked very hard along side other people and absolutely loved every minute of it, even though you were physically exhausted at the end of the day? Is so, what made it so enjoyable?”

Lee goes on to answer the question for himself, sharing a story of backbreaking work side by side with family members, repairing his mother-in-laws house. Using precious vacation time to do it, too. And loving every minute of the work.

At the end of the story, Lee remarks,

“…I would describe the perfect work environment as finding an unsurpassed level of joy in hard work with good friends, doing something important for someone else who cannot do it for themselves. What comes closer to this picture than being a caregiver in a hospital [or senior care community]? The question is, how does one create such a team, and maintain such a spirit?”

Lee goes on to share some of the ways he believes this can happen.

One of the lessons we can learn from Disney in building the dream team of caregiving staff is simply this: Have a dream.

When either candidate for President today articulates a dream for this country people flock to listen. Whether you are a supporter of that candidate or not, it’s hard not to feel the passion of the dream. One example of this is the Youtube video that Obama supporters created - whether you're a supporter or not, you can feel the passion.

In days past, Martin Luther King shared his “I have a Dream” speech – a speech that lifted our national discussion about race and relationships to an entirely new level.

Goals, objectives and mission statements don’t really motivate people to stretch outside their usual behaviors. Dreams do.

Some days, your dreams may simply include having every shift filled and never having to pull a night shift yourself again.

But to truly motivate your own team to work at their highest level, share the dreams you had when you first began in this field. Did you dream of creating a caring environment that felt like a home? A team that loved every single person in your care? A place where people came together to accomplish more than they could do on their own – and had fun, laughed and hugged freely?

In our office, we’ve written the dream on the wall – literally. Through an inexpensive website we ordered vinyl lettering and carefully applied our dream (borrowing from the words of John Quincy Adams) on the wall: “If your words inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

It is our dream to become leaders by inspiring others to do all of those things.

What are your dreams? How do you share them with your team?

Staff Retention - It's all a Game

Ask any group of managers what their number one challenge related to employees is and you'll hear the same answer: retention.

"I'm spending hours and hours of time, interviewing and selecting just the right people - and then they leave," says one.

"We invest a ton of money in training new employees - and then they leave," says another.

Whether we're talking time or money, they're valuable resources. Finding a way to keep the people we've invested in is crucial to building the "dream team" of employees.

It's time for a little creative thinking. It's also time to look for ways to boost retention that doesn't cost more money, or take more management time. Let's face it: we simply don't have any more money - or time - to throw at this problem.

But wait just a minute. One thing we've learned from the people at the Gallup organization is that people stay, and are more engaged in their work, when they count co-workers among their best friends.

So what if we found simple ways to nurture friendships among our employees, starting with day one?

Perhaps we could match a new employee with an experienced, capable employee. You might call it mentoring - or maybe even "secret pals." You might structure a regular time each month for interaction - maybe a "dollar store only" gift exchange on payday, followed by an unveiling of friends every few months. Or maybe you could provide computer access for trusted staff to send new employees encouraging emails or messages that the new employee picks up when he or she is logging in for online training.

Creatively coming up with ways to encourage friendships - right from the start - may be one simple, low-cost way to improve the most important element of bottom line results - retention.

Do you want to be an "employer of choice?" It's about Leadership!

Today I came across an article on the internet titled "Six Principles for Excellence." It's a great article (here's the link), and the six principles are my favorite kind: a short, to the point, bulleted list.

1. Use your word wisely. It is important to communicate with employees with honesty openness, and respect. Communications should focus on what is possible.

2. Be accountable. Employers should act proactively and be committed to truth telling, focusing on the question behind the question rather than offering excuses or explanations.

3. Focus. By focusing on independent goals, employers can extract the greatest value from the efforts of employees.

4. Mine the gold. Employees and managers should strive to bring out the best in their employees, and be committed to collaboration and cooperation.

5. Strive for balance. Employees will be vital and energetic at work as a result of a balanced life. Employers should therefore give their employees the opportunity to refresh and renew.

6. Lighten up. Perhaps the most difficult of the six principles, employees should not take themselves so seriously. Employers and their employees should seek to bring laughter and joy to the workplace and look for opportunities to make other people's day.

I particularly like the last one. We know from some of the studies on employee engagement that people love to work where they have friends. They perform best where they enjoying working, too.

Do people laugh a lot at your workplace?

Another key point: all of these principles don't just happen. It takes true leadership to set an example, every day, in each of these areas. To reinforce these behaviors, too, in department heads, team leads and middle level managers.

Do people want to work for you? Do they see you as an employer of choice? If you're not sure, or not able to say, "absolutely!", focus on your own leadership style, and focus on these basic principles.