You want everyone to give you their best effort AND work as a team, right?
Of course you do.
That’s why you’ve probably worked hard to develop your company mission/vision statement – to create a purpose, explain your ‘why’ and give people a feeling that they are part of something.
Then you spent even more time devising your company values so that you could align people’s behavior and thinking towards accomplishing the stated mission/vision.
All good stuff. Because, as Peter Drucker famously said, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast.’
Look I get it, ‘you want your people to feel part of something’ …
But, have your people bonded?
Because, if they haven’t then [WARNING: CONTROVERSIAL OPINION COMING UP] … most of that ‘culture-building stuff’ is a waste of time.
Now, you probably don’t have a KPI for bonding, so let me help you out on this one.
You can tell if and how well your team has bonded by …
How often do they laugh … AND ‘cry’ together?
You see, if your people only have a transactional relationship with each other, they will only ever have a transactional relationship with your business.
If you want them to be emotionally connected to your vision/mission, they have to be emotionally connected to each other too (and first).
But few companies create an opportunity for that to happen.
All of those team meetings are a good example.
They are almost always transactional – created with efficiency in mind and designed to improve some KPI or another.
Important of course.
But try and have a few ‘waste of time’ meetings – held purely for the purpose of enabling people to really get to know each other.
You will be surprised at people’s vulnerability when they have an opportunity to talk about their lives.
Tears may be shed.
But watch how peoples ‘performance’ changes and they connect to the companies ‘why’ – individually and within teams – when people begin to understand each other’s ‘why’.
