I have asked the same question to two different large team building & leadership groups this week. One group was Corporate HealthCare staff the other was High School teachers. Both groups developed great ideas and support that they need in order to be more effective in getting their work done.

With the HealthCare staff I asked What do you need from your patients in order to be more effective at getting your work done?

With the High School Teachers I asked What do you need from your students in order to be more effective in getting your work done?

Following the question, in both groups, we worked to define, create and develop continued training, coaching and consulting to work with the patients and students to make these ideas into reality.

On to the inquiry:

• Choose who you directly affect through your work, meaning who do you serve in your role. For health care group it’s patients, for teachers it’s students, for managers it’s subordinates, etc… The challenge may come if you work internally, for example an accountant within a company who doesn’t see the customer, think about it…
• Ask What do I need from them in order to be more effective in getting my work done? What else? What else?
• Is any of this happening already? Even a little?
• How did you manage to make that happen?
• What is the next step you can take to implement what you need to make your work more effective?
• When can we go-and-see what you have done?

Please share your responses and feedback.

michael cardus is create-learning

image by kevin dooley

BUT without the Goal you will have failure, or if the work does get done it’s late, over budget, below quality standards, and people are angry and demotivated.

I recently led this Team Development activity with a company of Environmental Consultants and it created a great discussion about the knowledge and lack of knowledge about the goals of the Organization and the people who work there.

What’s The Goal?

Objective

• Complete quality work on time, within standards
• Create a discussion about the companies overall goal
• Clarity of why the company is in business
• Enable employees to make decisions that are aligned with the Organizational goals
• Employees to discover how their work, is aligned with the goals of the company

Materials

• Flip chart paper
• Markers

Group Size

• Works best with teams of 6 or less

Preparation

• Take some time and research the company see if you can determine what their goal is. Generally you can find some version of this on their website and materials.
• Make sure you have flip chart paper and plenty of markers
• If you want to get fancy, you can have the questions written before hand or on a power point slide

Instructions

Break people into teams of 6 or less there are a variety of ways to do this.

I suggest you try to mix people who don’t normally work together, that will create a richer discussion.

This is a 2 part activity, in their groups they are going to answer the following two questions. Then create a shared visual / metric / representation of all your responses as a team. The shared information must be visual with no words or letters.

The questions.

What is the Goal of the company?

• The larger organizational goal, why we are in business.

How does your role within the company contribute to this goal?

• Create a shared visual / metric / representation of all your responses as a team.

Allow for ~15 – 20 minutes of discussion and drawing. Walk around answer any questions and listen to the discussions going on.

After the 20 minutes ask the teams to take turns sharing their responses to the 2 questions. Facilitate any question and answer time – then tape the flip charts to the wall so everyone can see the responses.

Connections and Concepts

Goals drive everything a a company. Many manages and C-level executives believe that people ‘should just know’ what the goal is, and they themselves may not be too sure of the goal! Having a discussion and hearing from the employees what they see as the goal and how they think their work contributes to this goal will strengthen the work that everyone does.

Keeping it visual will also keep it simple. The goals should not be too complicated the visual representation will keep people engaged in the discussions.

The power of this activity is in the discussions that happen, keep them talking and gather the information for people to use later.

Processing and Reflection

Now that everyone has shared and you have the images hanging on the wall, it’s time to see what we can do with this information. Here are some discussion questions.

• In your small teams how did you reach agreement on the goal of the company?
• In your small teams how did you reach agreement on how your work contributes to the company goal?
• Looking at these representations, what commonalties did we discover?
• If we all knew, with certainty what the Company Goal is – how would these images be different?
• How would your contribution to the goal be different?
• What about this activity was useful to you?
• What about this activity was useful to the company?
• What is one step that the management can take to make the goals clearer?
• What is one step that you can take to understand the goals better?
• How will we know that this has happened?
• When can we go-and-see?
• Once those steps are accomplished, what will be better about your work?
• Once those steps are accomplished, what will be better about the company?
• What is already happening that shows up progress is being made?

Variations

Instead of company ask about the Department you work in, the project you are working on, the people you work with, etc…

Hire Mike

Need experiential and hands-on ways to create lasting memories and content in your programs / workshops / and lessons.

Mike is your answer. He will create and develop customized activities and simulations for what you need. Contact Mike (mike@create-learning.com)

Mike will come to you to facilitate the action learning and processing, or can just send you a document with videos and photos of how to do everything you need.

Mike will make you a success and your next meeting and training program better than ever.

Defining the goals of an organization and how your role contributes to that goal is tough and necessary.

Tough because as managers we think that everyone just knows…and sometimes we are not even all that sure ourselves.

Necessary because the decisions people make when faced with challenges and workplace complexity, are based upon the organizational goals.

You…make millions of choices a day about your work, all these choices are based upon what you think the goal of the company is, and how you think your work contributes to this goal.

This is why is must be made clear and consistent in words and action.

Next time you have your team together ask them;

1. What is the goal of this company? What are we in business for?
2. How does your work directly contribute to this goal?

Ask, then listen.

Depending upon what you hear you can educate, coach and inform the team as necessary.

What do you think?

Are the over-arching goals of your company really important to your day to day work?

michael cardus is create-learning

mike@create-learning.com call 1-716-629-3678

Increase the Trust within your organization, team, management.

Trust Happens on Purpose within Teams

…it is not an accidental property. People join organizations wanting to be trusted and trust that the team they are on + the leader they are accountable too is;

• Competent
• Accountable
• Honest
• Aligned with their skills, values and perceptions.

Leaders and teams develop folkloric constructs of “why they behave like they do”

Folkloric Construct = Shared stories within an organization / team / community, that are perceived as being true.

Trust reciprocates with the person, the team, the organization, the culture, the leader, and all of those explicit and implicit values and commitments to each other and themselves.

Outcomes:

• Increase your efficiency and profit
• Decrease the amount of time to make decisions
• Increase on-time completion of projects and work
• Decrease wasted time spent on duplicated processes
• Learn to differentiate Trust Attracting from Trust Rappelling Organizational & management systems
• Learn how to create a system that attracts and increases trust within your team, and management
• Determine your teams current  level of trust, and steps to increase the level trust
• Develop specific action steps to have trust happen on purpose within your team
• Determine metrics to measure increases and decreases in trust within your team

What others have to say;

“It was a pleasure spending the day with you…To say the program that you put together for us had impact would be a huge understatement. This was by far the BEST team building experience that we have ever had. I learned so much more about my team and what we are capable of. We all leave this experience confident that we can accomplish anything we collectively set our minds to. I want to sincerely Thank You for all of your time, patience, direction, and teamwork.”

Neuroscience
Abbott Laboratories

Contact

mike@create-learning.com call 1-716-629-3678

Increase the Trust within your organization, team, management.

Articles of Interest:

• 6 Trust Behaviors for Leaders, Individuals & Teams
• Charisma is NOT a replacement for Competence
• Trust Attracting vs. Trust Repelling Workplaces
• Trust Falls Make Me Hate You More
• The Team Develops and Utilizes Trust?
• 10 Misconceptions About People At Work

michael cardus is create-learning

image by Shockerz bugs

There has been an increase of Companies and Managers wanting stronger connections of the ideas to the work.

This is a great thing.

We still need to understand the theory behind our actions, and the actions will reinforce the theory.

The challenge consistently arises when there is an expectation that what has to happen is major Organizational Change.

It is efficacious to

1. Determine the Goal – within the persons time-span of handling work.

2. Determine where they are right now, in reference to the goal.

3. Determine what they have already accomplished and how they got that done.

4. Ask, What is your next step? When can we go-and-see?

• What is your next step?
• If you were one step closer to the goal, how would you know?
• In the past with the success you have already had, what could you go-and-see that showed that you are progressing?

Try it and let me know your next steps.

michael cardus is create-learning

image by Stig Nygaard

When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

At a coffee shop to meet a coaching client, arrived early to drink some coffee read some emails and prepare.

Order coffee & sesame bagel toasted with butter, sit to eat. Open my iPad and cannot get on the internet.

I’ve been to this coffee shop many time before and never had a problem. I try again nothing…

Walk up to the cashier (at this place they always act like they just woke up and your question is weird, and I kind of like that) and ask, “Is there some sort of trick to the wifi I cannot connect?”

She stares at me, vacantly…I ask again, “The internet I cannot connect, usually I have no problem, this morning it’s not working.”

Her, “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”

Me, “So, anything you can do?”

Her avoiding eye contact, “No”

Me, “Is there anyone here who can?”

Her, “We have been having problems and most people just wait and sometimes it fixes itself.”

Me, “Alright then, it will fix itself you say, thank you.” I walk away…

You might be thinking Mike it’s a coffee shop and you don’t need the internet. Yes, and this apathetic behavior is endemic of your work also.

Right now someone that you manage or your manager is telling someone “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”  NOT offering a solution, an alternative, an attempted solution.

You are paid to make decisions and solve problems

When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

What do you think?

When does your accountability to solve problems stop and your managers begins? What about your work requires you to make decisions and solve problems, how do you measure that?

michael cardus is create-learning

image by LaPrimaDonna