Type of Training: Leadership Training - Creative Synergy (Day 7 of 10)
Client: DMCI Homes, Inc.
Date: April 10, 2013
Venue: DMCI Homes Corporate Office, Makati City
Showing posts with label teamwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teamwork. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Creative team decision making
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Type of Training: Leadership Training - Creative Synergy (Day 7 of 10)
Client: DMCI Homes, Inc.
Date: April 10, 2013
Venue: DMCI Homes Corporate Office, Makati City
Type of Training: Leadership Training - Creative Synergy (Day 7 of 10)
Client: DMCI Homes, Inc.
Date: April 10, 2013
Venue: DMCI Homes Corporate Office, Makati City
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Are you ready for teamwork and team play?
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Assess your teamwork quotient
NEVER DISMISS ‘TEAM’ as just another four-letter word. Successful companies swear by the effectiveness of teams in propelling business. That is why when companies look for new employees and select candidates for promotion, one’s ability to work well in a team is given primacy as a desirable ability. Are you fit for teamwork and team play? There are only five questions to ask in assessing your teamwork quotient.
Do you have a specific competency? Do not join a team only because it is an elite assignment. Do so when you know you have something solid to pitch in. Your usefulness to the team depends on your unique contribution to the collective effort. Only when you possess at least one competency for which your skill is at resource person level that you can claim indispensability. You are deadweight to the team if you are mere copycat of another team member. Define your relevance – identify your expertise and how it complements the efforts of fellow members in fulfilling team objectives. If the team will function properly without you, then you are not needed.
Are you committed? Being in a team invariably results in extra work. It uproots you from your routine and forces you to squeeze in a special demand on top of regular demands. Team membership demands commitment – to the team, its goals, its members. Your time management skills, sense of humor and patience will play critical roles in ensuring your resilience in the face of detailed work, pressure and temperaments. Find motivation that will help you give sustained peak performance.
Do you relate well with people? A team is composed of several members working as one to fulfill a common purpose. Through his undesirable attitude, an anti-social member isolates himself from the rest of the team. One has to have the basic social skills that will enable him to interact with others in a manner that brings out their best productive selves. This is not to say that conflicts have to be avoided altogether. What are to be avoided are dysfunctional conflicts that tend to block team success. What is more challenging is being socials-savvy when you are in a virtual team where members do not have physical facetime as they engage one another only through emails, phone conversations and other technology-supported channels. In any case, effective communication skills and professional decorum are very important. Build unity in diversity. Bonding occurs when team members work and play well with one another.
Are you trustworthy? Teams are based on trust. Difficult to earn and easy to lose, trust is the delicate element that cements the relationship among team members. In a team environment, trust is not built by pledging loyalty to a faction. Trust is earned by performing responsibilities. Be accountable to the team. Trustworthiness is generated when proper communication channels are used. Being candid about feedback and accepting constructive criticism are preferred over gossiping and griping. Trustworthiness is increased with openness about asking for and giving help and with graciousness in sharing credit with others.
Are you a passionate advocate? It is a conscious management decision that individuals from different backgrounds and of varying competencies are gathered to form a team. The intention is to collect an array of ideas and perspectives. Each team member is duty-bound to offer ideas and solutions. Each is expected to passionately argue the case in favor of his ideas. You have to be mature and courageous enough to challenge others’ ideas and to dislodge groupthink that leads to complacency and arrogance. In the same manner, be aware that teamwork abhors bloated egos. Back down and compromise if your intentions do not help move the team forward.
Expertise, dynamism, result-orientedness and engagement are individual qualities that promote teamwork. Equally important, teamwork requires leadership traits. It doesn’t matter whether you are a team leader or member because team leadership is not a solo event. It is the sum total of group dynamics. With the proper motivation, the gains in joining a team include material and social rewards and career development. Now that you know your teamwork quotient, are you ready for teamwork and team play?
(Published in the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 9, 2008, Sunday)
By Roel Andag
Contributor
Assess your teamwork quotient
NEVER DISMISS ‘TEAM’ as just another four-letter word. Successful companies swear by the effectiveness of teams in propelling business. That is why when companies look for new employees and select candidates for promotion, one’s ability to work well in a team is given primacy as a desirable ability. Are you fit for teamwork and team play? There are only five questions to ask in assessing your teamwork quotient.
Do you have a specific competency? Do not join a team only because it is an elite assignment. Do so when you know you have something solid to pitch in. Your usefulness to the team depends on your unique contribution to the collective effort. Only when you possess at least one competency for which your skill is at resource person level that you can claim indispensability. You are deadweight to the team if you are mere copycat of another team member. Define your relevance – identify your expertise and how it complements the efforts of fellow members in fulfilling team objectives. If the team will function properly without you, then you are not needed.
Are you committed? Being in a team invariably results in extra work. It uproots you from your routine and forces you to squeeze in a special demand on top of regular demands. Team membership demands commitment – to the team, its goals, its members. Your time management skills, sense of humor and patience will play critical roles in ensuring your resilience in the face of detailed work, pressure and temperaments. Find motivation that will help you give sustained peak performance.
Do you relate well with people? A team is composed of several members working as one to fulfill a common purpose. Through his undesirable attitude, an anti-social member isolates himself from the rest of the team. One has to have the basic social skills that will enable him to interact with others in a manner that brings out their best productive selves. This is not to say that conflicts have to be avoided altogether. What are to be avoided are dysfunctional conflicts that tend to block team success. What is more challenging is being socials-savvy when you are in a virtual team where members do not have physical facetime as they engage one another only through emails, phone conversations and other technology-supported channels. In any case, effective communication skills and professional decorum are very important. Build unity in diversity. Bonding occurs when team members work and play well with one another.
Are you trustworthy? Teams are based on trust. Difficult to earn and easy to lose, trust is the delicate element that cements the relationship among team members. In a team environment, trust is not built by pledging loyalty to a faction. Trust is earned by performing responsibilities. Be accountable to the team. Trustworthiness is generated when proper communication channels are used. Being candid about feedback and accepting constructive criticism are preferred over gossiping and griping. Trustworthiness is increased with openness about asking for and giving help and with graciousness in sharing credit with others.
Are you a passionate advocate? It is a conscious management decision that individuals from different backgrounds and of varying competencies are gathered to form a team. The intention is to collect an array of ideas and perspectives. Each team member is duty-bound to offer ideas and solutions. Each is expected to passionately argue the case in favor of his ideas. You have to be mature and courageous enough to challenge others’ ideas and to dislodge groupthink that leads to complacency and arrogance. In the same manner, be aware that teamwork abhors bloated egos. Back down and compromise if your intentions do not help move the team forward.
Expertise, dynamism, result-orientedness and engagement are individual qualities that promote teamwork. Equally important, teamwork requires leadership traits. It doesn’t matter whether you are a team leader or member because team leadership is not a solo event. It is the sum total of group dynamics. With the proper motivation, the gains in joining a team include material and social rewards and career development. Now that you know your teamwork quotient, are you ready for teamwork and team play?
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Open communication builds trust
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“Big companies run on trust. Our company is set up so that information – both good and bad – travels upward at a rapid pace. And I insist that none of our leaders block the information flow. At the heart of every good team is open and honest communication.” – Jeff Immelt, GE CEO
Is trust such a pricey commodity that only corporate giants like GE can afford?
Judging by former GE CEO Jack Welch’s book Straight from the Gut, the company cultivates trust via open communication. Immelt’s statement merely reiterates the fact. The company has a profound understanding of its multifaceted relationships with its stakeholders and publics – the board, consumers, employees, investors, suppliers, competitors, media, policymakers, the community where it operates, and even critics. GE dialogues with all of them. The company keenly appreciates the long-term impact of meaningful communications, both internal and external, on business vitality.
Trust is not bought. Neither can it be obtained through intimidation. Communication builds trust. Trust builds teams. Trust establishes brands. Trust emits from honesty. And honesty is not size-related. It applies to all packages. It is not its monolithic size that compels GE to observe honest and open communication.
A company operates in two modes: business as usual (BAU) and crisis (CRI). When a company is dishonest in its communications during BAU, it will be very difficult to become honest in CRI. If a company is sneaky about promotions and incentives, expect it to be less forthcoming about looming mergers and other emergencies. The crop cannot be harvested without planting the seeds. To begin with, dishonest companies are prone to CRI situations. Dishonest communication has exposed the clay feet of otherwise respected companies and individuals.
Make communication a trust-promoting tool. Follow these tips:
1. Inculcate honest and open communication. Categorically include this thrust in key statements such as company vision, employee policies and speeches. Lead by example.
2. Specify reasonable parameters. Open communication is meaningless when not imbued with a sense of responsibility. Open communication should be congruent with corporate governance principles. Trade secrets, for example, should never be shared wantonly with outsiders.
3. Eliminate layers of communication screens. Install processes and technology that facilitate unfettered flow of information. Establish a streamlined documentation system.
4. Do not cultivate ‘assets’ assigned to spy on their colleagues. These assets are liabilities because they breed betrayal. Demand objectivity through peer evaluation instead.
5. Establish rewards for honesty (alongside performance) and sanctions for dishonesty. Be impartial in dealing with employees. Administer rewards and penalties fairly. Reinforce ethics.
6. Foster dialogue with key stakeholders. Set quality time for formal and informal discussions. Information is power. Learn from stakeholders’ insights and implement their ideas whenever practicable. Acknowledge their contribution.
7. Be honest, sincere and consistent in your message. Never mangle, twist, fabricate, or sugarcoat information. This especially applies in high-stress CRI situations when difficult messages such as bankruptcy, dissolution, and job loss have to be communicated. Honest communication need not be traumatic. Words and phrases have been coined to deliver truth tactfully.
8. Measure results. Monitor public interest (as evidenced in customer inquiries, job applications and media attention, among others), improvement in lead times, and sales increase, when attributable.
Organizations that thrive on secrecy attract unnecessary scrutiny. Trust is not contingent on the size of the company. Honest and open communication promotes trust. Trust cultivates respect and loyalty.
(Published in the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 9, 2007, Sunday)
By Roel Andag
Contributor“Big companies run on trust. Our company is set up so that information – both good and bad – travels upward at a rapid pace. And I insist that none of our leaders block the information flow. At the heart of every good team is open and honest communication.” – Jeff Immelt, GE CEO
Is trust such a pricey commodity that only corporate giants like GE can afford?
Judging by former GE CEO Jack Welch’s book Straight from the Gut, the company cultivates trust via open communication. Immelt’s statement merely reiterates the fact. The company has a profound understanding of its multifaceted relationships with its stakeholders and publics – the board, consumers, employees, investors, suppliers, competitors, media, policymakers, the community where it operates, and even critics. GE dialogues with all of them. The company keenly appreciates the long-term impact of meaningful communications, both internal and external, on business vitality.
Trust is not bought. Neither can it be obtained through intimidation. Communication builds trust. Trust builds teams. Trust establishes brands. Trust emits from honesty. And honesty is not size-related. It applies to all packages. It is not its monolithic size that compels GE to observe honest and open communication.
A company operates in two modes: business as usual (BAU) and crisis (CRI). When a company is dishonest in its communications during BAU, it will be very difficult to become honest in CRI. If a company is sneaky about promotions and incentives, expect it to be less forthcoming about looming mergers and other emergencies. The crop cannot be harvested without planting the seeds. To begin with, dishonest companies are prone to CRI situations. Dishonest communication has exposed the clay feet of otherwise respected companies and individuals.
Make communication a trust-promoting tool. Follow these tips:
1. Inculcate honest and open communication. Categorically include this thrust in key statements such as company vision, employee policies and speeches. Lead by example.
2. Specify reasonable parameters. Open communication is meaningless when not imbued with a sense of responsibility. Open communication should be congruent with corporate governance principles. Trade secrets, for example, should never be shared wantonly with outsiders.
3. Eliminate layers of communication screens. Install processes and technology that facilitate unfettered flow of information. Establish a streamlined documentation system.
4. Do not cultivate ‘assets’ assigned to spy on their colleagues. These assets are liabilities because they breed betrayal. Demand objectivity through peer evaluation instead.
5. Establish rewards for honesty (alongside performance) and sanctions for dishonesty. Be impartial in dealing with employees. Administer rewards and penalties fairly. Reinforce ethics.
6. Foster dialogue with key stakeholders. Set quality time for formal and informal discussions. Information is power. Learn from stakeholders’ insights and implement their ideas whenever practicable. Acknowledge their contribution.
7. Be honest, sincere and consistent in your message. Never mangle, twist, fabricate, or sugarcoat information. This especially applies in high-stress CRI situations when difficult messages such as bankruptcy, dissolution, and job loss have to be communicated. Honest communication need not be traumatic. Words and phrases have been coined to deliver truth tactfully.
8. Measure results. Monitor public interest (as evidenced in customer inquiries, job applications and media attention, among others), improvement in lead times, and sales increase, when attributable.
Organizations that thrive on secrecy attract unnecessary scrutiny. Trust is not contingent on the size of the company. Honest and open communication promotes trust. Trust cultivates respect and loyalty.
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