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High Performance Teams7 Transformational Secrets to Creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team

Kenneth KwanHigh Performance Strategist

A www.DeepImpactOnline.com ebook

web: http://www.deepimpactonline.comemail: [email protected]: +65 6274 5145

http://www.DeepImpactOnline.com


http://www.deepimpactonline.com

http://www.deepimpactonline.com

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DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH OFFICE POLITICS AND A DISPIRITED WORK ENVIRONMENT?

Are your colleagues constantly talking about problems in the work place or new challenges they are excited to overcome? Do they become guarded when they share or do they display open trust and support whenever they talk?

What’s the difference between a Great Team and a Mediocre one?

In all the organisations that I have been to, they set specific objectives for the whole year. They expect their staff to achieve higher profits, better efficiency or reduce operational costs. While this is important, my question is: “How many of them actually take time to develop and coach their teams in achieving better

dynamics and cohesiveness? It is a deliberate strategy on your part to set them out to win.

If you want results, you need to first start with the team. This means that you have to first build strong relationships internally and do what you can to help them achieve the collective goals of the team. Having a cohesive team is also vital to achieving high performance. This is important because when the team is under pressure to perform, it wil l be the strong relationships between colleagues that will prevail and NOT the management’s expectations of their performance.

There are seven transformational secrets that I want to share with you right now to propel your team to greater heights. Follow them and people will follow you.

Copyright holder is licensing this eBook under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Please feel free to post this eBook on your blog, email it, or link to it with whomever you believe will benefit from reading it.

7 Transformational Secrets To Creating A Dynamic And Cohesive Team

How to Slash Staff Turnover And Create Transformational Change In Your Team Performance

W H A T D R I V E S Y O U R P E O P L E T O W O R K EVERYDAY?

Are they there to work for a living or are they going to a work that is purposeful and engaging? In my experience, most people start off trying to find a sense of purpose and fulfillment in their work. Over time, they lose this sense of WHY THEY HAVE TO DO THINGS and everything starts to become just meaningless work.

It is important as a leader to always remind each person on your team WHY they are doing things, WHY they are involved in a project that is not part of their work scope, WHY they have to put in more effort and so on. Without the WHY, there is no

ownership in the work. It is important to constantly remind and realign staff, especially when the going gets tough and they are under tremendous pressure to achieve results.

Every year, Fortune magazine lists out the Top 100 Companies to work for. The top executives of a pharmaceutical company within the top ten list recalled how they were able to share the Corporate Vision with the rest of their employees.

From the Head of Departments right down to the administrative staff, all know that they have a vital role to play in creating a better quality of life for their patients who suffer from life-threatening illnesses. Even in

the annual staff meetings, this company invites a few of their patients to give testimony to how the drugs were able to give them a new lease of life and extend their fragile life by many more years. The staff that are constant ly reminded that whatever work they do, will cont r ibute the company ’s mission and vision.

If you have a mission driven organisation, it compels people to work towards a common g o o d . T h i s t r a n s c e n d s compensation (in terms of their pay) and helps your staff to constantly remember that they are contributing to a mission that is b igger than the i r individual lives.

1. Purpose And Mission Driven

This eBook courtesy of Kenneth Kwan, a High Performance Strategist. http://www.DeepImpactOnline.comPlease feel free to post this eBook on your blog, email it, or link to it with whomever you believe will benefit from reading it.



WHAT ARE CORE VALUES THAT EACH PERSON IN THE TEAM SHARE?

D o t h e y h a v e a c l e a r understanding of it and are able to recite them by heart? This is important because it governs h o w t h e y w i l l c o n d u c t themselves within a team.

In most companies, usually it is only the management team that espouse the values of the company. Most of the time, it is not translated down to the rest of the staff. This creates a discrepancy in the way people make decisions. I often share with my clients that without a clear set of core values, decision making becomes very tough.

A CASE STUDY

The most popular case study was the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol incident. At that time, Tylenol was the absolute leader in the painkiller field accounting for 37 percent of the market share and accounted for 13 p e r c e n t o f J o hn s on a nd Johnson’s year to year sales. In 1982, someone replaced a few Tylenol capsules with laced with potassium cyanide in a couple of bottles. The poisoned capsules were purchased and then consumed, leading to seven deaths.

This lead to Johnson and Johnson to do something unprecedented, they withdrew all the estimated 31 million

Tylenol bottles from the entire country, with a retail value of US $100 million. They were so concerned about the safety of their clients that they would rather lose immense amounts of money than to risk losing more lives.

David Clare, president of J&J at that time, commented that "Crisis planning did not see us through the tragedy nearly so much as the sound business management philosophy that is embodied in our credo. It was the credo that prompted the decisions that enabled us to m a k e t h e r i g h t e a r l y decisions ...".

2. Shared Values




Therefore having core values is vital to help you make principled decisions, whether facing or not facing a crisis.

CODE OF HONOUR

A code of honour is another form of values that teams can use to guide their code of conduct. Here is a list of a Sample Code of Honour that is extremely useful. Explanations are in brackets:

i. Speak Supportively and with Good Purpose.

ii. Take Personal Responsibility for all outcomes. Do Not Lay Blame, Justify or Complain!

iii. Celebrate every WIN.

iv. When there are problems, look to the system first before looking at the person.

v. Allow others to love and support you while you love and support others.

v i . Speak the t ru th w i th Compassion (This is important when you need to correct a colleague. Even though you think you are r ight, i t is important to win their hearts first and then correct the mistake. Many fall into the trap of “self-righteousness’ and just cor rect a person wi thout th ink ing about the other person’s feelings.)

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2. Shared Values (Continued)

“You may have a fantastic benefits scheme but without a strong work culture and a Code of Honour, you will not be able to grow your team through the tough times.”

Kenneth Kwan




ARE YOUR COLLEAGUES DOING THE WORK THEY ARE GOOD AT?

When we were in school, whenever we were bad in a particular subject, what did our parents tell us to do? Very likely they will advise you to concentrate on what you are weak at. This is “old school” thinking and does not translate well in corporate work. We find our sense of happiness and fulfillment from doing things well, especially in the areas of our strengths. In today’s context, it is virtually impossible to be good in everything. Henceforth, we need to work in teams. With a strong team, we leverage on other people who are strong in the areas we are not, while do they do the same as well.

USING A SCALE

Imagine from a scale of one to ten; One being “extremely weak” and Ten being “extremely strong”. You love to sing but you are a just a four. You practice very hard and after two years of hard

work, you eventually become a five. After a few more years of constant grinding, you finally become a six. Let me ask you a question: Does the world pay a lot of money for a six? Or do they pay for someone who is a nine or a ten?

Let’s change the scenario; let’s say you are currently an eight in singing. You train very hard, but within a few years, you suddenly become a nine. Many years after that, you work hard and become one of the best in the world, a stunning Ten! Let me ask you another question: Will people pay a lot for this talent? In the real world, people pay for top talent and that means a vast difference in earning ability.

Allow your staff to concentrate on what they do best. This is so that they will be more fulfilled and begin to grow from strength to strength. Do not expect them to be able to do everything and multi-task every single task you give out.

3. Play On Their Strengths




HAVING A RIGHT SYSTEM IN PLACE

Whenever there are problems in the workplace, before you start pointing fingers at people, ask whether there are systems in place to prevent such mistakes? In most problems, it is usually due to a lack of a clear workflow of doing things.

One of the first few questions that I usually ask my clients are whether there is a clear system in the way things are done and everyone understands it. I am often amazed to find that people are not very clear who is responsible for a task, and that

a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for it does not exist.

I M P O R T A N C E O F A WORKFLOW

A contact of mine recently shared that she had to process many insurance claims, a task which was extremely tedious and error prone. I asked her if she had a very clear workflow of how to approach her task and she said she did not.

Once she saw the importance of creating such a workflow, she w a s a b l e t o s e a m l e s s l y reproduce every piece of work almost flawlessly. Processes or checklists must be in place to

reduce the complexity of a task and also ensure that the quality of work is duplicated easily.

As a team, it is important to constantly check that there is a c l e a r wo r k f l ow f o r e a ch important task and everyone is clear of it.

4. A Clear Workflow And Systems




BASKETBALL MATCHES

In some o f the Nat iona l Basketball Association (NBA) basketball matches, Time Outs are cal led! A t ime out is basically a moment where any team can call the game to a halt so that its members can discuss an important issue. This break helps players to evaluate certain tactics they need to change and d i s r u p t t h e o p p o n e n t ’ s momentum in the game.

Time Outs are useful during the course of a game because it allows everyone to give their feedback, evaluate progress and make decisions on the way forward.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

In most company appraisals, managers usually wait until it is appraisal time (usually once or twice a year) before they evaluate their team members. This is too late because if there are any behaviourial or attitudes to address, it would have already caused issues within the department.

Time outs should be given throughout the whole process and frequently during the year; to let your team know what they have done well and where they can improve on. It also gives them time to air out their feelings and frustrations. This helps leaders get on top of

things and are constantly in t o u c h w i t h t h e g r o u n d sentiments.

Here are a few good steps to a quick debrief:

i. i. What are we doing well?

ii. ii. What is not working well?

iii. iii. What did we learn from this?

iv. iv. How can we improve it?

The whole idea is not to get emotional and too personal. Allow all participants to speak out and share so that everyone has their say. Most staff have good ideas to contribute and they need to know that you care about their opinions.

5. Create Time Outs




MICROMANAGEMENT

One of the terrible things managers do to their staff is that they tell their staff how to do their work. If you need another extension of you, you just need to clone yourself. However, if you need to work with other colleagues to get things done, I suggest you give them freedom to decide how they want to tackle or perform their tasks. All you need to do is to be clear on your expectations and let them be accountable for their results.

CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

Your expectations should be clear and your colleagues should be able to recite them. This means that it must be short and succinct, or else it is not easy to

remember. One of the shortfalls with most management is that they do not set goals that are easy to remember or are just too many.

ACCOUNTABILITY

To be accountable, we must first s e t v e r y c l e a r f o r m s o f measurement and get each person to agree on them, e.g. create milestones for project progress, set up a clear work flow of tasks that has to be completed by a certain date or a sales target that has to be met within a specific time.

A specific day of a week could be set up to give updates on what was done and the results generated. Good behaviours should be encouraged and the bad ones to be improved. Once

members get used to the frequency of accountability, t e a m m e m b e r s w i l l automatically check on their o w n p r o g r e s s a n d h o l d themselves to the standard they have set. It is also important to also allow the team to hold each other accountable for their results, rather than to their leader.

6. Give Freedom and Account for Results




OBSERVATIONSIn most teams I know, they are usually made of people who are living and have feelings. Living people like to feel that they are making progress and are closer to their end objectives. Only dead people need not be reminded of that!

LOOK OUT FOR WINS!Every time your team moves forward or achieves a goal, celebrate it! Gather a few members and acknowledge their contributions! Make sure you let other people know about it. This increases morale and tells your team that they are on the right track to success. In many teams, the opposite is true.

People are usually told where they have gone wrong and not to do it again. They do not have a sense of achievement and feel that they are always reprimanded when they see their boss. According to a survey, employees believed was the most important thing to have in the workplace was the acknowledgement of their work.

POWERFUL MOMENTSThis is one of the most powerful things you can do for your staff: Acknowledge Them And Celebrate Every Single Win. This will condition them to know that they are successful and can overcome any challenge.

CONCLUSIONThis eBook teaches you the seven of the most important tips to building a high performance team. Only by applying these principles, you will see results in the your team performance. Follow them and people will follow you.

Be Awesome,

Kenneth KwanTeam Performance and Motivational Speaker

PS: I have prepared a bonus mini workbook for you to fill up your thoughts after you have read this report. Answer the questions and find out how you can shape your organisation towards peak performance.

7. Celebrate Every Win




• Merit Holder of JCI’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World (Singapore).

• Certified Behavioral and Emotional Intelligence Consultant

• Professional Member of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (APSS)

• Spoken to over 8000 individuals in 9 countries• Co-Author of Book “88 Essential Secrets to Achieving Greater Success at work” • Author of DVD “Stirring and Connecting with your audience, anywhere, anytime.”

Kenneth Kwan is a High Performance Team Strategist who speaks to thousands of leaders, professionals and public audiences to get better results in their lives and instill a deep desire for them to grow by themselves. Kenneth’s high impact training and unique ability to get entire groups of people to change their behaviors

quickly have resulted in peak performance levels and achievements in short periods of time. He advocates that the mindset is the first place to start, rather than typical skills training. This translates into better alignment of organizational values, team spirit, higher revenues and trust within participants.

Organizations like AIA, Ricoh, Becton Dickinson, Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Health and many more have engaged Kenneth to give keynotes and training in their Seminars, Conferences and Annual Learning Day Events. He specialises in Intrinsic Motivation and Creating High Performance Teams, where he spurs participants to think differently and challenge them to seek excellence in all that they do.

About Kenneth KwanSingapore . Malaysia . China . Thailand . Kazakhstan . Cambodia . Indonesia . Nepal . Pakistan

You can contact Kenneth at: You can contact Kenneth at: email: [email protected]: +65 6274 5145http://www.DeepImpactOnline.com


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About Kenneth Kwan (Continued)

Singapore . Malaysia . China . Thailand . Kazakhstan . Cambodia . Indonesia

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You can download the articles from our website:

1. Build A Successful Team

2. Go From Good To Great

3. Build Trust With Your Team

4. Be A Better Boss

5. Do Motivational Talks Really Work?








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1. Purpose and Mission Driven

What are two things you can constantly do to remind your staff of the importance of their work?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What are the three ways you can constantly realign your staff to the Mission of your company?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Shared Values

What kind of Shared Values do you want your staff to exhibit? How do you know you have achieved it?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Play On Their Strengths

What are your strengths?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Work BookReading this report is one thing, however, applying it is another. I hope you can take some time to ask yourself honest questions on how you can improve your Team Dynamics.

Page 1 of 3This eBook courtesy of Kenneth Kwan, a High Performance Strategist. http://www.DeepImpactOnline.comPlease feel free to post this eBook on your blog, email it, or link to it with whomever you believe will benefit from reading it.



What are the areas you can leverage on your team to compensate for your weakness?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. A Clear Work Flow And Systems

What are the current work flow issues that are not clear in your organisation? Can you create a Standard Operating Procedure?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What are the checklists you can create for your processes so that people can follow it and reduce human error?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Create TIME OUTs!

When is the best time to have a TIME OUT?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________





6. Give Freedom and Account for results

How can you give freedom to your staff to decide what they want to do?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How will you make a Team member accountable for their results?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Celebrate every win!

What are the five areas you can celebrate with your team on every win?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________





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