Great Teams
Taking our own advice
A couple of weeks ago, we recommended that teams with too much on their plates take a step back and ask: What can we afford not to do? And then a funny thing happened: We decided to take our own advice. As our loyal customers know, the Teamworks team is a small one. The same person who […]
Clear your brains — and your path — by saying no
Most teams don’t lack for ideas about what to do. More often, the problem is that they have too many ideas kicking around. And all that possibility leaves the team distracted and overwhelmed. Sometimes you just need to ask: What can we afford not to do? Giving yourself permission to ask this can help you take an unsentimental look […]
Making meetings more effective
Meetings are an immutable fact of team life. When you collaborate with other people, you can’t not meet. But you can meet more effectively. Most of us attend 5-10 meetings a week (sometimes more), and many of these meetings suck the life out of us because they run too long or weren’t properly planned. Raise your hand if any […]
Go beyond typical team icebreakers
If you have a team of people who’ve never worked together before, it can be really eye-opening to do an icebreaker that goes beyond the typical get-to-know-you stuff. Sure, it’s fun to learn where someone grew up or who would play them in the movie of their life, but here are some team icebreakers that will help reveal deeper aspects about who people are, what they value, and how they like to work.
Knowing when to raise a flag
Almost all of us have a gut sense when things feel off with the team — like when everyone is working later and later hours but the team still struggles to hit deadlines, or when conversations between team members have an edge to them. While it can be hard to summon the courage to say […]
Turning the team’s good intentions into action
Our colleague Adam Schorr, a Principal at SYPartners, returns this week as a guest blogger. As a manager, one of your most important roles is to set direction for your team — to paint a picture of the future, build belief, and get everyone inspired and ready to go. But what happens when you’ve done […]
A question to help identify stale habits
If you find that your team is stalling, spinning, or keeps bumping up against the same old obstacles, maybe it’s time to take a long hard look at the team’s day-to-day behaviors and assumptions. Kick off discussion with this provocative question at your next team meeting: What habits or behaviors have become such an ingrained part of our team culture […]
Getting time on your side
Time is a hot-button topic teams discuss when they’re using Teamworks to map the forces working for and against them. That’s probably because time can be a team’s secret weapon or its worst enemy. It all depends on how you approach it. Unfortunately, teams who feel most pressed for time rarely hit pause to think […]
How vulnerability can be a source of strength
Poke around any organization, and you’ll find managers who lead from a place of fear. The ones who assert their authority and shut down opposing points of view. Who rarely let down their guard or admit uncertainty. Maybe you’ve worked for this person in the past — maybe you’ve even been this person in the past.