Many of you have taken a look at my new website.  As a result of this re-design, we are in the process of changing our e-mail address.  Please ensure your records reflect our new e-mail address as cal@execenrichment.com.  I look forward to hearing from you!

You call them a “team of strangers.”

The collective intelligence, academic degrees and product knowledge is staggering.  Each participant on this work team has a resume that would choke a horse.  But, there is “something missing.”

The missing characteristic of most dysfunctional work teams is…personal synergy.

You know, the team members walk into the room, exchange pleasantries and then the first, personal salvos are lobbed.  Eye contact is lost.  Index fingers begin jabbing the air.  Bodies turn to face windows and…not much is accomplished.

If you are working on a “team of strangers,” here are five strategies to bring cohesiveness to your work team.

First, drag your team to look in a mirror.  

The members of the “team of strangers” know they have a problem but it needs to be quantified.  Therefore, design a simple evaluation instrument for both the team members and the staff who are the recipients of the team’s work.  

The two evaluations should have similarities in construction.  Such as, “Our team communicates ‘one voice’ when making decisions” and the staff would address the same issue with this statement, “The senior team communicates their decisions with a unified voice.”  

Contrast the responses from these instruments in a written report and let the “team of strangers” decide how effective they are as a high performance team.

Second, provide a social component to the team’s contact with each other.  Instead of just accomplishing an agenda, specifically design some of the team’s time together to be over a meal, on a retreat or at a holiday gathering.  You know, it is the old “all work and no play…makes our team of strangers a very dull group.”

Third, when conflict regularly stains the fabric of a team, stop the “normal work” and verbally address this emotional stuck point.  You are going to say, “Well, conflict is normal when you get a highly competent group of people together.”  Yes, but if conflict becomes the predominant characteristic of the team, nothing gets done.

Fourth, read a book together.  Specifically, I am recommending Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  It is my experience when a team reads together the same book, they also start sharing the same agenda.  This is a great intervention to transform a team of strangers.

Finally, celebrate “small victories.”  From time to time, remind the team how they are succeeding in becoming a synergistic collection of individuals.  Interrupt the agenda during a team meeting and say, “Did you notice we debated and made a decision with ease today?  Hey, we are making some progress here.”  

Smart people with a separate, competing agenda are not a team.  Smart people with a separate, competing agenda who decide everyone wins when collectively they speak with ‘one voice’ are, finally, a team.

I have stumbled into a wonderful book, How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer (ISBN:  978-0-547-24799-1).  

Lehrer’s premise is circumstances, not always brain chemistry, are responsible for our decision to pick a particular parking place, a vacation destination or a life-partner.  Interesting stuff!

Chapter titles include “Fooled by a Feeling,”  “The Moral Mind,” and “Choking on Thought.”  Lehrer is a new author with a refreshing simplicity to his thinking and syntax.  I found the book to be thought-provoking as I considered what restaurant to enter for a quick meal at O’Hare Airport.  I made the wrong choice.

New Article for Free Download

As a result of my work during the past 18 months, I have penned a new article entitled, “Five Trends that Could Put You Out of Business.”  

The “new normal” flickering onto the American business screen has both a good and bad ending.  I am especially concerned about the “bad” one.  I have watched organizations miss the opportunities of a realigned, more focused economy by rejecting trends that offer promise.  So, I have listed five significant trends I have been plotting which need to be understood and then leveraged.

To give you a feel for the content of this article (free for you to download and enjoy or print in your organization’s newsletter) here is a quote from the opening paragraphs.

“Yes, there has always been change.  Since our forbearers tried to start a fire to fry up some succulent saber-toothed tiger steaks, change has been dancing across the stage of humanity… But, in our 21^st century world, change has morphed into chaos.  And, chaos, if you have not noticed, now rules.”

To access the article, go to www.execenrichment.com and choose the Free Resources options.  You can download the article from there.

You probably will not find an examination of this bodily function in an etiquette column, but “shy” is not a descriptive adjective of me.

When we have eaten too much at a business lunch, unexpectedly swallowed some extra air or our stomach is actively in the digesting process, there may be a burp.  There I said it.

So, when you are in a business environment and your worst fear audibly becomes a reality, excuse yourself.

That’s it, just excuse yourself with “Pardon me.”  

What you do not want to do is rub your stomach and say loudly, “Well, lunch has never tasted so good… the second time around.”  This scene is not funny and your decision to recast this physical faux pas as a source of humor will reflect on your professionalism.

If you have a serious addiction to procrastination, try this suggestion.

The only way we start a project is to create enough “pressure.”  Some of the pressure techniques we have used to get us off our posterior and do what we have been eternally delaying are Post-It-Notes plastered on our workplace walls, slamming a door shut with a homemade “Do Not Disturb” sign, turning off our cell phones and getting up at 4 a.m.

Be kind to yourself and write a contract.

Write a written contract, with someone you trust, to get a certain project done by a specific date.  Both you and this trusted colleague/friend will then sign and date the document.  With this contract you have given this person the right to ask, “How is that project going?” without you getting hostile in return.

I am convinced we all need people in our professional lives who we have given the right to hold us accountable for the promises we make.  The contract will keep you “honest” about making and keeping these promises.

There is a cardinal rule of travel:  never…ever… change your routine when setting up your “stuff” in a hotel room.

For instance, if you carry a small alarm clock and usually put it on the small table next to your hotel bed and decide to move it to the desk (so you will have to get up to turn it off), you probably will donate this device to the hotel.

My travel history includes leaving things all over the world because I moved something out of “its normal place.”

Especially pay attention to episodically putting things in desk drawers, remote areas of a closet or under hand towels in the bathroom.

If you have a “check list” in your mind and sequentially repack your suitcase according to your routine, you will find what you need when you get home or to your next destination.

My latest podcast is entitled, “Self-Defense Skills for Dealing with Hostage-Takers in Your Workplace.”  You are saying right now, “We have never had an instance of hostage-taking in our workplace.”  You have got the wrong definition of this person.

Hostage-takers are people who are gifted with knowledge/expertise and…a really disgusting, negative attitude.  And, if you talk with him/her about the attitude you may hear in return, “So, you don’t like my attitude.  Well, it may be a while before I show up the next time you need an expert to bail you out.”

If you have this person in your workplace, you may want to download this podcast by going to www.execenrichment.com and choosing the Free Resources option.  

This moral decision will end any sales career: lying.

The sales relationship is built on trust. When I am looking for a product or service to improve my life or business, I have to trust the person who “sells” me that I need this and it will not implode once I walk out the door.

If, at any time in this conversation, I sense you have knowingly misrepresented the truth, I will become your worst public relations.  As a matter of fact, I will tell at least eleven other people about your lie.  

The problem with lying is it is convenient and, if we get away with it, repeated.  You know, “A sucker is born every minute.”  If I sense you have victimized me as the consumer, I now have a new mission in life.

Will telling the truth cost you a sale?  Undoubtedly.  But, consumers will always keep coming back and leaving their money with salespeople who are ethical.

There are some words and euphemisms, I am convinced, that should be eliminated from business writing.  Do any of these look familiar?

“Whatever”  This word can be a derisive term meaning “who cares.”  If “whatever” is used to communicate this non-committal emotion, the reader will experience dissonance.

“I am pretty sure...”  This is an illegitimate use of “pretty” and does connote indecisiveness.

“Well, we will see…”  This is something a parent would say to a whining child.  Replace this with, “We will try a beta test and then determine our success rate.”

“Your guess is as good as mine”  These words strip the writer of any accountability.  Passivity is laced through this colloquial expression.  Substitute “I have no opinion on that subject.”

“I will get back to you on that”  Here is a convenient linguistic formula which both parties know is devoid of commitment.  A far better choice would be, “My decision right now is ‘no’.”