The Importance of Building Strong Teams
Did you ever take on a really big project, a project that challenged you, stretched you, excited you, touched your soul, and was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
We just finished one of those projects: we worked hand-in-hand as partner and marketing/PR agency with The Buckeye Real Estate Group for an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!
The deserving Toledo family was announced on Sunday, September 7, with demolition and construction that following week. Ty Pennington and his crew of designers helped our community call for the bus driver to “Move that bus!” on September 14.
All of this surreal activity got me to thinking about the characteristics a team needs to have in order to successfully navigate through such unfamiliar waters, especially when the stakes are so high and the deadline is so tight.
Building strong teams: The importance of interdependence
When we got the call to help with the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project, I had just begun my semi-sabbatical on Pelee Island in the middle of Lake Erie. While only five hours from my office in Toledo by ferry boat and car, Pelee Island is officially designated as a “remote” location — a point proven by the FedEx overnight delivery from my pharmacy that took eight days to get there. I was available to my staff by phone and email, but wasn’t much help for the day-to-day, in-the-trenches management of this huge undertaking.
My staff dug in and whipped this project into shape like you wouldn’t believe. Their ability to work together to do what needs to be done is almost astounding, even to me. They didn’t need to be supervised. They are all leaders in their own right, but have the ability to work smoothly together, like a well-oiled machine, for the success of the project and the good of the company.
My company has a solid culture of interdependence, and we rely heavily on it when we need to get a large amount of work through our shop with efficiency and excellence.
Build a culture of interdependence
At first blush, it sounds like a good idea to hire people who are self-motivated and can work independently, rather than interdependently, and I’ll agree those are good qualities to have. But the temptation with employees like these, for managers, is to put them at a desk and just let them do the job, thinking, “Good, that’s one less thing I have to worry about.” Leaving employees to manage themselves can get you into trouble over time, in more ways than one.
First, all employees need direction and feedback, no matter how self-motivated and able to work independently they are. I’ve yet to meet an employee who wants to be left entirely alone unless he was up to no good. (And I’ve had a few of those, too.)
Second, people who prefer to work on their own may not be good team players. An interdependent team knows the value of working together for the good of the company or team versus gaining glory for themselves. The tactics used for building a culture of interdependence can help teams to rely on each other, which can alleviate all the craziness of problems like withholding of information, sabotage, cliques, prima donnas, and a raft of other tricks that people resort to when they don’t feel valued as part of a team.
For more on team building, see my special report, “From Problem Team to Money-Making Machine.”
[tags]team building, strong teams, problem teams, employee retention, employee engagement, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Extreme Makeover, Ty Pennington, Pelee Island[/tags]
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