Teamworks Tip
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 […]
When you’re not seeing eye-to-eye, change the lens
Reframing — getting creative in how you see and solve problems — is one of our nine habits of a great team. But being able to change the lens is a useful skill for individuals too, especially if you find yourself in a tense moment with a colleague. When you’re in a heated conversation, reframing can remove some of […]
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.
Keep an inspiration log
In the day-to-day grind of the workday, it’s easy to lose your sense of excitement and purpose. And, when you feel drained and distracted by the demands of your to-do list, you struggle to remember that there’s a deeper meaning to the work you do. And yet inspiration can come from many places: from a productive brainstorming session […]
Create a story to build belief
Is your team having trouble getting support from key stakeholders? Are you trying to push a larger change within your organization and facing resistance? If so, it’s time to start thinking about your story.
Write a headline from the future
When you and your team are planning a bold move and trying to tap into your deepest aspiration, it helps to imagine the story as told in the pages of a magazine, newspaper, or popular blog. What would be the headline of the story? What accomplishments would the story celebrate? What would make people on […]
7 questions to guide decision-making
As a team, you never want to enter the decision-making process blind. Without enough due diligence, a clear sense of goals, and shared decision-making criteria to serve as a guidance system, the team could lose time and belief stumbling between options without direction. Use a question and answer method to establish guidelines for how your team makes decisions. […]
Make a map of your team’s superpowers
Last week, we talked about superpowers, the talents that are innate to each person. As a team, you want to know what each person’s superpower is, so you can take advantage of all the team’s inherent potential. You’ll be able to create powerful duos by pairing up people with complementary superpowers—and you’ll be able to […]
Borrow a superpower for a day
At Teamworks, we define Superpowers as the talent that is uniquely you. Your Superpower is so native to who you are and how you think that it’s part of your genetic code. Like a fish navigating water, you’re in your element when channeling this innate ability. A team usually works best when there’s a balance of superpowers; examples include: […]
A way to boost creative problem-solving
Sometimes we’re stuck with circumstances outside our control. A vendor doesn’t come through, so we’re stuck with materials that are less-than-ideal. A budget shortfall causes constraints. Your brand’s story or goals have changed, but the old ones remain in public consciousness. But necessity can spark creativity if you examine what’s frustrating or hard about the […]