Thursday, October 30, 2008

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?

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