The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork

By Regine P. Azurin & Yvette Pantilla

To achieve great things, you need a team. Building a winning team requires understanding of these principles. Whatever your goal or project, you need to add value and invest in your team so the end product benefits from more ideas, energy, resources, and perspectives.

1. The Law of Significance
People try to achieve great things by themselves mainly because of the size of their ego, their level of insecurity, or simple naiveté and temperament. One is too small a number to achieve greatness.

2.The Law of the Big Picture
The goal is more important than the role. Members must be willing to subordinate their roles and personal agendas to support the team vision. By seeing the big picture, effectively communicating the vision to the team, providing the needed resources, and hiring the right players, leaders can create a more unified team.

3. The Law of the Niche
All players have a place where they add the most value. Essentially, when the right team member is in the right place, everyone benefits. To be able to put people in their proper places and fully utilize their talents and maximize potential, you need to know your players and the team situation. Evaluate each person’s skills, discipline, strengths, emotions, and potential.

4. The Law of Mount Everest
As the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates. Focus on the team and the dream should take care of itself. The type of challenge determines the type of team you require: A new challenge requires a creative team. An ever-changing challenge requires a fast, flexible team. An Everest-sized challenge requires an experienced team. See who needs direction, support, coaching, or more responsibility. Add members, change leaders to suit the challenge of the moment, and remove ineffective members.

5. The Law of the Chain
The strength of the team is impacted by its weakest link. When a weak link remains on the team the stronger members identify the weak one, end up having to help him, come to resent him, become less effective, and ultimately question their leader’s ability.

6. The Law of the Catalyst
Winning teams have players who make things happen. These are the catalysts, or the get-it-done-and-then-some people who are naturally intuitive, communicative, passionate, talented, creative people who take the initiative, are responsible, generous, and influential.

7. The Law of the Compass
A team that embraces a vision becomes focused, energized, and confident. It knows where it’s headed and why it’s going there. A team should examine its Moral, Intuitive, Historical, Directional, Strategic, and Visionary Compasses. Does the business practice with integrity? Do members stay? Does the team make positive use of anything contributed by previous teams in the organization? Does the strategy serve the vision? Is there a long-range vision to keep the team from being frustrated by short-range failures?

8. The Law of The Bad Apple
Rotten attitudes ruin a team. The first place to start is with your self. Do you think the team wouldn’t be able to get along without you? Do you secretly believe that recent team successes are attributable to your personal efforts, not the work of the whole team? Do you keep score when it comes to the praise and perks handed out to other team members? Do you have a hard time admitting you made a mistake? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to keep your attitude in check.

9. The Law of Countability
Teammates must be able to count on each other when it counts. Is your integrity unquestionable? Do you perform your work with excellence? Are you dedicated to the team’s success? Can people depend on you? Do your actions bring the team together or rip it apart?

10. The Law of the Price Tag
The team fails to reach its potential when it fails to pay the price. Sacrifice, time commitment, personal development, and unselfishness are part of the price we pay for team success.

11. The Law of the Scoreboard
The team can make adjustments when it knows where it stands. The scoreboard is essential to evaluating performance at any given time, and is vital to decision-making.

12. The Law of the Bench
Great teams have great depth. Any team that wants to excel must have good substitutes as well as starters. The key to making the most of the law of the bench is to continually improve the team.

13. The Law of Identity
Shared values define the team. The type of values you choose for the team will attract the type of members you need. Values give the team a unique identity to its members, potential recruits, clients, and the public. Values must be constantly stated and restated, practiced, and institutionalized.

14. The Law of Communication
Interaction fuels action. Effective teams have teammates who are constantly talking, and listening to each other. From leader to teammates, teammates to leader, and among teammates, there should be consistency, clarity and courtesy. People should be able to disagree openly but with respect. Between the team and the public, responsiveness and openness is key.

15. The Law of the Edge
The difference between two equally talented teams is leadership. A good leader can bring a team to success, provided values, work ethic and vision are in place. The Myth of the Head Table is the belief that on a team, one person is always in charge in every situation. Understand that in particular situations, maybe another person would be best suited for leading the team. The Myth of the Round Table is the belief that everyone is equal, which is not true. The person with greater skill, experience, and productivity in a given area is more important to the team in that area. Compensate where it is due.

16. The Law of High Morale
When you’re winning, nothing hurts. When a team has high morale, it can deal with whatever circumstances are thrown at it.

17. The Law of Dividends
Investing in the team compounds over time. Make the decision to build a team, and decide who among the team are worth developing. Gather the best team possible, pay the price to develop the team, do things together, delegate responsibility and authority, and give credit for success.

10 Ways to Start Living a More Meaningful Life

Today many of us live like goldfish, swimming in the same orbit day in and day out feeling uninspired, tired, bored and sometimes worse. Life is much too precious to waste that way. Every person has a unique purpose in life. I implore you not to waste your days berating yourself for what you don't know and don't do well. Instead, discover your strengths, passions, purpose and build your life on those.

Here are 10 ideas about living a meaningful life, as I understand them. Embracing even a few of these will help you begin the exciting journey of self discovery.

1)We are all here for a purpose. Your being here makes a difference. Your purpose may be obscure to you and a challenge to discover. Start now. There are many resources, coaches and books to help you with this endeavor.

2)The secret to fulfillment is self knowledge. Start the exciting journey of discovery.

3)The second part of the secret to fulfillment is to apply your self knowledge to what you do and how you live. The more you know, the more you can actively pursue your true purpose.

4)Don't waste time lamenting what you don't do well. Concentrate on your strengths. Those reflect who you are. Leave the other things to people who do them well.

5)Build on your strengths. Do more of them and give yourself recognition for doing the things you do well.

6)Pay attention to the small details that you enjoy in your everyday life. Do more of them.

7)Pay attention to the small details you don't enjoy. Find ways (such as delegation) to eliminate as many of them as possible.

8)Keep a journal and put particular emphasis on the things about yourself and events in your life for which you are grateful.
 9)Make an effort to release the negative aspects of your past. Try not be imprisoned by your past. Do not define yourself by your past.

 10) Jump start your self-esteem by giving back to the community. Volunteer in a meaningful way that suits who you are and your interests.

Enjoy the journey. You will get to know and like yourself in a whole new way. Work with a friend, hire a coach, and use the resources out there, to help you with objectivity. Have someone point out the good things about you that you have a tendency to overlook. As soon as you stop doing what you hate and start doing what you love, you may find your life more meaningful and fulfilling.

The Top 10 Steps for Giving Effective Feedback

By Doris Kovic

Successful companies do not accept failure but transform the problems into opportunities to learn and grow. A key to this transformation is effective feedback around the problem. The model below will help you provide feedback in a way that will help people learn and change. Feedback may be used to reinforce a behavior that is considered to be positive as well as to change a behavior that is considered to be negative. As the leader you have a responsibility to create an environment within your team where giving and receiving constructive feedback is considered the norm. Healthy effective teams regularly exchange feedback between all team members.

The following outlines the steps to take to provide feedback effectively. Your goal is to deliver feedback in a respectful and constructive manner, which will help the listener hear your feedback in a positive way. Although there is no guarantee that your message will be heard as intended, this process will maximize your probability of success.

1. Identify the problem clearly and specifically.
Take the time to identify the problem clearly and then organize the issues that need to be addressed. Is this an isolated problem or can this be seen in many areas of their performance? How does this issue impact the success of the individual's performance? How does it impact the rest of the team/organization?

2. Select an appropriate time and place.
Pick a time and place where you will not be interrupted, and where the environment is appropriate to the type of message you are delivering. Explain the value of feedback and that you want to give feedback to support an individual's growth and learning.

3. Setting the stage.
Acknowledge that it is difficult to hear feedback. The most common error is for people to take the feedback personally, stop listening and become defensive. This does not allow for the person to easily change their behavior. It is therefore useful to state that the feedback is about a specific behavior, and not about them as a person.

4. Describe the behavior.
Describe the behavior that you see. Be specific and stick to the facts, e.g. "You are consistently late to our team meetings."

5. Make your case.
Detail the implications of how this issue affects others, one's self, or the success of the company, e.g. "When you are late to meetings, people do not see you as a committed team member."

6. Hold your ground.
If he/she pushes back you need to listen for new information, but hold your ground and continue to be specific until it is clear that the message is understood, e.g. "I understand that you have been very busy recently, but your being late impacts the rest of the team who are also busy." Often you may only need to go to this step for the person to get it and agree to change, in which case go to step 10. If not, keep reading.

7. Explore the issue fully.
Before you can develop a plan for change you need to fully understand the total context in which the behavior occurs, e.g. "Are you having difficulty managing your time effectively?" At this stage the person receiving the feedback may offer a different interpretation of the behavior or apologize and commit to changing their behavior, e.g. "My tardiness is due to a medical problem that requires time sensitive injections."

8. Describe the positive consequences.
To build a commitment to change, describe the positive consequences of the behavior being addressed, e.g. "If you arrive on time to our meetings, you will be accepted by the team and involved in the decision making." If there is now a commitment to change you can go to step 10.

9. Describe the negative consequences.
If the individual is still pushing back you will need to describe the negative consequences of the behavior, e.g. "If you continue to be late you will be placed on a performance plan and risk getting demoted or fired." (This is an example of a consequence if no new information was discovered in step 7.) This model is useful if the person is prepared to listen and change. However not everyone is open to receive feedback and willing to adapt their behavior. If the person you are giving feedback to cannot use constructive feedback, you will need to decide whether you want to accept their behavior or end the relationship.

10. Plan for change.
The outcome of this process is a commitment and a plan to change. The plan should include agreement of the stated problem and a detailed action plan with milestones for progress reviews, e.g. "As agreed we will change your hours due to your medical condition and communicate to the team the need to change the timing of the team meeting to include you. Let's review if this is working in two weeks."

5 Best Ways To Build Trust At The Workplace

By Dave Bowman

Many experts agree that trust is perhaps the most important element of a harmonious, synergistic and efficient work environment. Organizations that have trust among employees are usually successful, those that don't frequently are not.

So, management often asks, "how can we build trust in the workforce, and how can we avoid losing it?" Well, it all starts at the very top, since trustfulness - and trustworthiness - can exist only if top management sets the example, and then builds that example into every department and unit.

I've found there are five excellent ways for leaders to build trust into their teams...

1)Establish and maintain integrity. It is the foundation of trust in any organization. Integrity must begin at the top and then move down. This means, among other things, keeping promises and always telling the truth, no matter how difficult it might be. If its people have integrity, an organization can be believed.

2)Communicate vision and values. Communication is important, since it provides the artery for information and truth. By communicating the organization's vision, management defines where it's going. By communicating its values, the methods for getting there are established.

3)Consider all employees as equal partners. Trust is established when even the newest rookie, a part-timer, or the lowest paid employee feels important and part of the team. This begins with management not being aloof, as well as getting out and meeting the troops. This should be followed by leaders seeking opinions and ideas (and giving credit for them), knowing the names of employees and their families and treating one and all with genuine respect.

4)Focus on shared, rather than personal goals. When employees feel everyone is pulling together to accomplish a shared vision, rather than a series of personal agendas, trust results. This is the essence of teamwork. When a team really works, the players trust one another.

5)Do what's right, regardless of personal risk. We all know intuitively what's "right" in nearly every situation. Following this instinctive sense, and ignoring any personal consequences will nearly always create respect from those around us. From this respect will come trust.