Thoughts on Teamwork and Alignment
I want to keep these thoughts simple, since we tend to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. Occam’s Razor is useful!
So much research continues to support the reality that many people do NOT know the real goals of their organization and that most managers cannot effectively explain them! People are unmotivated and uninvolved and there are issues of trust and respect between workers and managers.
Yet so much seems to be simply issues of communications and involvement. Doing things to get people to work together more effectively is relatively simple and the impacts can be significant. While you can do formal corporate team building simulations and similar kinds of training interventions, often it is simply a matter of having straightforward discussions between people.
Alignment can be straightforward, too. You can see more about this idea of getting the cows into the barn in my blog by clicking on the image below:
Working is different than working together. Teamwork requires alignment and shared goals. More often, people are actively running around in chaos and confusion.
So, here is a Haiku on how things work and how to improve:
Square Wheels and Chaos are the realities of how things seem to work in most organizations.
While the key is alignment to shared goals and visions, clarifying expectations and goals, and providing excellent feedback on performance. Plus, generating at least a little bit of “work fun” on the job is very useful. SO many workplaces these days, with the small cubicles and the heavy push on doing things, makes the work environment pretty dull and dreary. Those things all contribute to the issues of engagement and involvement and we have a number of efficient and inexpensive toolkits on our website that you might find of interest.
For the FUN of It!
Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.
Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/
Scott’s blog on themes of People and Performance is here.
Square Wheels® is a registered trademark of Performance Management Company
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