Every layer of a company, be it from the group of cleaning ladies to the group of owners/CEO's is defined by the word TEAM.
The strategy to function through this system of teaming is really simple and efficient.
An old Romanian saying implied : where there is just one there is no power but where there are two the power increases... Or we could say alone we could do so little but together we could do so much.
So therefore ,in order for the cleaning part in a company to be well delivered , the cleaning ladies should work together as a machine to get the work done...same thing goes for CEOs or managers...
But what brings this "divide et impera" strategy down?
Because in companies (and not only) that is what teamwork is about, dividing a mass of employers in sole-purpose groups in order to get the best out of themselves to reach the same unique goal.
Therefore we get to this, IDENTITY. Every team has its own identity. But how can you manage to reach out to let's say 5-6 individuals,having their own and unique identities, to get themselves to merge into one defining thing?
You might say that the purpose the team has might be congruent with its identity. And i would say you are mistaken, for example the sales team , must sell, must meet a quota every month/trimester/year,must bring new contracts/leads and so on... The sole purpose is to sell,right? That is the basic and wanted thing to do for a sales team.
But see, from 5-6 individuals forming a sales team,because we used this example, you won't get the same thing; one will sell like crazy, one will suck badly but he is open to learn, one might have good or bad days , one is good at prospecting and one is just wasting his time and your time as a manager of that team because she/he doesn``t care much.
So what do you have there? 6 different approaches/attitudes in a team serving the common purpose of selling. How can you merge that into forming an identity for your team?
Let's use an example for this example. You have a family , mom , dad, two kids and an annoying mother in law living with you. What's the purpose in a family? You have a hard time naming just one of course, let me try, i would say the biggest one is holding the other one`s back in good or bad times.
Every member of the family has his/her`s identity of course, dad is always tired and moody, mom is even more tired and moodier but she keeps it as a secret very good, one kid is very smart and disciplined and the other one is not and wastes his time in clubs and the mother in law is too old to care anymore so she just wines all day about everyone.
So there , you have the different attitudes from each member, but they function as a whole which is not identified only by the name or purpose , this whole it is also identified by the way they work together in order to get there.
So you'll say "OK,so what?"
Simple, in the family example there is a thing to consider. Trust. They trust themselves and well in a team trust is the most important thing to achieve. Teamwork starts right there. And to get those individuals to start trusting each other you should help them overcome the fear of vulnerability. And to achieve that you must be honest with yourselves first, in every family there is "dirty laundry" and as well every team in every company has it too.
Don`t be afraid to point to that dirty laundry , make it shine again! No member of your team will be really on board to pursue the goal you share if he won`t feel that he is listened or if he feels he cannot share his thoughts.
It is all about TRUST.
"It had taken time for him to realize that no one was truly self-sufficient, and that those who thought they were merely took refuge in a form of weakness, the weakness of being unable to ask for help and guidance and thus find greater strength in reliance on close friends and comrades. " - Simon Hawke, The Romulan Prize (Star Trek: The Next Generation )
