Team-Building

Keeping the rudder straight ahead

July 27, 2012

You can’t be everywhere at once, but you can keep your hand on the rudder. First, make sure your vision is clear and that your people are following it.

Are your people being heard?

July 3, 2012

A Texas executive’s coach asked how employees would rate him as a listener. “I think they would say I’m a bad listener,” the exec replied, “but if you press them, they’ll say I always get their content.”

5 metrics to better team-building

January 16, 2012

Measuring output without measuring input is a little like telling a Little League team to score more runs, without explaining how to swing a bat better. That’s why James Slavet, of venture firm Greylock Partners (investors in Groupon and Facebook), believes great teams should measure five metrics:

At Wegmans, every employee counts

December 16, 2011
On-the-spot, creative problem-solving is something that Wegmans’ team members are known for. That’s because Weg­­mans gives its talented employees the power to meet customer needs using creativity and flair—and good judgment.

Does your team have the skill set?

November 28, 2011
Most employees have skills in creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking and adaptability. They simply need more. “Brain work is more important than ever,” says Pat Galagan of the American Society for Training and Development.

Reaching that goal, one mile at a time

November 16, 2011

In 1911, two teams of adventurers were preparing to be the first in modern history to reach the South Pole. The ­leaders of each team were of a similar age and had comparable experience. But one team reached the destination. The other team failed. What made the difference?

Sacred cows: How to herd ’em out

October 31, 2011

Sacred cows are roaming your hallways. They’re grazing on profits, productivity and patience. To round them up and put them out to pasture, you need to be a constant cow hunter. And you need to get your entire team excited about tumbling those herds.

How the Container Store organizes

October 3, 2011
After the Container Store opened its first store in Houston, chief executive Kip Tindell unveiled the company’s “Foundation Principles.” Tindell dipped into a file of “best thoughts” he’d been gathering for years, searching for the ones that best defined his ideal of doing business. Lesson: Lay down your own foundation principles to help employees act as a unit working toward the same ends.

Encourage staff to share what they know

August 31, 2011
A study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior points out that companies investing in knowledge-transfer software aren’t seeing much improvement in their information flow. One reason: Employees simply won’t share what they know. Keep information flowing in your corridors with these tactics:

Collaborate like Edison

August 25, 2011
Author Sarah Miller Caldicott, great-grandniece of the inventor, is working on a second book about Thomas Edison’s collaboration methods. Edison believed in collaboration not only as a way of accelerating the innovation process, but to expand the solution set, Caldicott says. He liked to create diverse groups of people from diverse disciplines.