Team Building

Build the foundation for productive teams focused on common goals.

The 5 Essentials for Effective Teams

5 min read

I have always been a fan of Patrick Lencioni’s business books. They have been a valuable resource in helping teams coalesce and connect at deep levels. A challenge with using these books arises when a business leader is unable to separate themselves from the problems in the business unit. They fail to facilitate a discussion without bias.

Looking at the antithesis of concepts in these resources provides some of the best solutions. Let’s look at how to move from the “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” to the “Five Essentials of a Team”, developed by Dr. Scott Gostchock and our colleagues at Partner2Learn. This paradigm shift leads to teams working from their strengths which puts them on course to reach their mission and vision. These concepts prove to be true both on the land and the sea.

The Recipe for Dysfunction

Lencioni’s recipe for team dysfunction has five steps. The symptoms and signs of dysfunction can be seen in many ways.

Absence of trust among team members. This step in the recipe arises from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust and lead to a manifestation of a lack of vulnerability where no one is ever wrong or needs help (other team members).
Failure to build trust is detrimental because it sets the stage for the second step or ingredient of dysfunction: fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust also lacks the ability to engage in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Rather than facing the conflict, they resort to talking behind each other’s back or put on a false sense of agreement and happiness. This is called artificial harmony – where everyone nods their head yes in a meeting and then talks bad about everyone else in the parking lot.
Lack of commitment. A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third step in the recipe of dysfunction: lack of commitment. When team members fail to share their opinions in the course of open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy-in and commit to decisions. While they may say they agree during meetings, a lack of sharing leads to ambiguity where no one owns any decision.
A lack of accountability. Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop a lack of accountability which is the fourth step in the recipe of dysfunction. By not committing to a clear action plan, team members hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the well-being of the team and manifests in low standards for the whole team – if one member of the team is late for meetings soon all members will be late for the meetings.
Inattention to results. This situation happens when team members put their own needs (such as ego, career development or recognition), or even the needs of their divisions, above the collective goals of the team. It all becomes what I did and not what we did.

The Five Essentials Explained

The 5 essentials for building effective teams come to life under the sail.

1. Building Trust

Building Trust is the first essential in strong teams that are on course to reaching their mission and vision. We define trust as: “confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, so you can be vulnerable with one another.”

Trust is built when team members make and receive prompt apologies. It is built even further when members can acknowledge and tap into their strengths while admitting weaknesses and mistakes. Deep trust happens when we take the time to truly get to know and appreciate each other. These foundations of trust can be seen in any office across the business world.

The lack of these foundations shows up even more quickly on a sailboat at sea. I have seen crew members foul lines, break parts of a boat, and cause injury to other crew members.

When prompt apologies and admission of the error is made, trust can be restored and grow. I have seen people destroy parts of a boat then act like it was someone else’s fault. This does nothing but destroy the spirit of the team. The key is to build vulnerability-based trust on the foundations of leadership integrity, carrying out multiple follow-throughs, and creating shared experiences.

2. Growth Through Positive Conflict

Growth through positive conflict is the second essential of teams on course to accomplish their mission. We define positive conflict in the formula of MV2 + I2. This formula is a simple way to remember positive conflict must be based on mission, vision, values and focused on issues and ideas. The five steps to positive conflict are:

demonstrating passion and openness in team discussion
voicing opinions even at the risk of causing disagreement
empowering to share opinions during meetings
holding compelling meetings;
and discussing important ideas.

Some of the best race crews in sailing regattas are those where the crew can openly debate tactics with the skipper and not face reprimand or replacement on the team. Boats that place near the bottom of regattas are often those where conflict destroys the well-being of the crew and skippers. When this happens, there is often a high degree of turnover which makes winning even more difficult. The cost of turnover in business often goes back to how conflict is managed.

3. Constructing Commitment

Constructing commitment is the third essential of a team on course to reach its mission. When a team develops commitment, they achieve clarity and buy-in as the primary outcome of the process. As debate ends on an issue, there are specific resolutions and calls for action. The benefits that follow commitment are easy to see especially as they lead to the next essentials of accountability. Commitment is vital when it comes to teams on land or on a sailboat. Team members need to feel like their fellow crew members have the same commitment and will have their back in case of an emergency or crisis. Trust increases as buy-in and commitment grow which further expands the foundation of the team.

4. Accountability

Accountability is the next essential component of solid teams. An atmosphere of accountability allows team members to challenge one another about their plans and approaches in light of the mission. With greater accountability, there is a greater desire not to let fellow crew members down. Crew members can openly address one another’s deficiencies or unproductive behaviors.

I have seen unhealthy teams both on land and on racing crews where the lack of accountability led to lower levels of engagement and unhealthy conflict. When you know that someone is holding you accountable to execute a tack or jibe in a race, you want to perform for the good of the team. The crew member that fails to hold themselves accountable soon causes strife among the rest of the crew and becomes a dangerous asset on the boat. Holding people accountable allows us to engage in the highest form of praise.

5. Results

The final essential of a team is results. Whether the result is measured in sales won, reducing costs, or winning sailing regattas, results do matter. When teams focus on results, members are willing to make sacrifices for the good of the team. On the flip side, morale is significantly affected by the failure to achieve team goals. As a team produces results, they strive to maintain a reputation for high performance. They also achieve their objectives more consistently.

It is what John Maxwell calls “The Big Mo” which describes the momentum that builds and drives us to results. Sales teams seek momentum and results. Sailing teams that get a taste of victory want to compound their winnings. In the end results do matter.

Begin Your Journey towards Strong Team Building

Let’s work on building teams that work from their strengths to reach their mission. When we focus on the five essentials of a team, we enhance the shared language, trust and respect in your organization. Your team will truly be unstoppable in what they can achieve. The journey starts with a complimentary team review. Contact us for a free 30-minute consultation to learn how you can get started today.

February 26, 2020/by Tim Dittloff

Sail Your Way to Team Resilience

Team Building

3 min read

“Resilience is an essential skill in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous work environments. Resilient people manage transition, stay productive, and continue to learn and add value to organizations even in the face of challenges” ( TD magazine, Aug 2019). Building resilience in our workplaces will build loyalty and decrease turnover. Getting teams out sailing is one of the best ways to build team member’s resiliency.

The problem revealed

I sat among workers in the mental health profession discussing the personal and business benefits that sailing teaches.

One of the benefits to sailing as discussed, was the improved resilience that sailors experience. A mental health provider in the audience who does employment placement counseling and testing was a Doctor of Psychology (PsyD). He commented that the biggest issue he deals with in organizations is the lack of resiliency in workers.

Currently, a quarter of all employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Fernandez,2016). A global survey of Human Capital Tends conducted by Deloitte found that 57% of the respondents said their organizations were “weak” when it came to helping leaders and employees deal with changing information flow and stress (HBR,2016).

What the Business Media is Saying

In writing for the Harvard Business Review, Rich Fernandez, prescribed five tactics for improving resilience. These tactics include:

Exercising mindfulness
Compartmentalizing your cognitive load
Taking detachment breaks
Developing mental agility
Cultivating compassion

In August of this 2019, The Association of Talent Development (ATD) suggested focusing on these 5 key elements to beat burnout and boost resiliency:

Overall well-being including exercise, nutrition, and sleep
Building your self-awareness
Developing your personal brand
Cultivating a network of people you can trust
Become a personal innovator

Other publications have focused on the need to develop “grit” or mental toughness as the key.

A recent article in Forbes magazine offered leaders the encouragement that every struggle often comes with a tremendous opportunity. The article also reminded leaders that it is their responsibility to lead through good times as well as the bad times, and that a leader’s actions during a crisis serves as a model for followers. Reflective thinking is the key to growing through the tough times in our lives. All leaders have scars from their time in leadership. It is what we do with those scars that makes a difference in our lives and the lives of the people that we are called to lead.

In Bob Chapman’s book “Everybody Matters”, the author describes people that work in our organizations as “someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister, and someone’s mom or dad.” Chapman describes leaders as stewards of other people’s relationships. He says that what we do in our workplaces and how we treat the people that we steward, profoundly affects the relationships that our people have in their homes. Developing healthy resilient workers develops healthy resilient homes and families. Healthy homes and families result in a healthy society.

A Potential Solution

Over the years I have watched a host of new sailors develop resiliency as they met the physical and mental challenges that sailing can offer up.

Sailing offers resilience training when it is followed up with check-in times and review times. It has been useful in helping patients cope with the most difficult cases of PTSD. It has definitely helped corporate teams grow in their connections and care for each other.

Building resilience skills does not happen in a vacuum.

Sailing can be a series of problem-solving lessons as the new sailor has to navigate through changing wind directions, wave patterns, and equipment issues. As a boat crew works together at solving these problems and challenges — group resiliency grows. This group resiliency fosters trust and respect which further connects team members to each other.

What is taught on the seas, must be taken back to the workplace and reinforced. I have seen sailors who came back to sail after handling 10-15-foot waves and seasickness who failed to make the resilience connection in the office until they went through follow up coaching.

Organizations must find classroom learning which combines experiential learning for maximum application of the concepts. Each summer I teach sailing to veterans who receive counseling from the Veteran’s Administration. I do this with other Captains from Milwaukee as a part of the veteran’s overall program to beat the effects of PTSD and other emotional issues. The impact that sailing makes for these veterans is phenomenal.

Learn how a resilient team can grow your organization

If you are looking for a way to help your team members through a business transition, or through volatility in the market, we can help. Full Sail Leadership Academy will take your team through a land and sailing based workshop. As the weather turns cold in Wisconsin, we can facilitate a session in the warm weather climates, or we can help you plan for next summer in the Midwest.

Let’s schedule a time to get your team on the water.

October 15, 2019/by Tim Dittloff

What would you do with 21% more profit?

Employee Engagement, Team Building

3 min read

According to the Gallup organization, companies with greater employee engagement are 21% more profitable that those with lower employee engagement. Unfortunately, across the nation, 70-75% of all workers are disengaged from their work. Today, only 15% of all workers when surveyed score as completely engaged in their work. This article will address the costs of disengagement and will offer solutions to improve engagement.

Growing profits begins with identifying the costs

We can all wring our hands and complain about disengaged employees. We may even have a sense that their disengagement may be costing us in lack of productivity. It’s another story when we begin to measure the cost. Two studies (1) were recently discussed at a Franklin Covey facilitators workshop which revealed that for every $10,000 of employee salary, $3,400 was lost to disengaged workers. Put another way, 34% of all wages are lost through disengagement.

Following this logic, if a company’s average salary was $60,000 per year, each disengaged workers’ disengagement costs the company $20,400. If this is a better than average company and only 60% of the workforce is disengaged (versus Gallup’s 70-75%), a company with 100 employees, the bottom-line impact on the company is a loss of $1,224,000!

Values, Vision and Voice is only a starting point

Many organizations talk about their vision, and some even post their values on posters throughout the office. “I have an open-door policy”, has been uttered by mid- level managers and C- Suite executives alike, but when it is time for their staff to take advantage of the policy, it takes three weeks to get on the executive’s calendar. When the meeting happens, the exec is checking their text messages and emails. “Your opinion matters around here”, quickly becomes a trite saying without much belief among the staff.

Employee beliefs, trust and feelings become jaded when they see values compromised and vision clouded.

When the open-door policy seems like the “closed-door” policy, employees begin to feel isolated and engagement plummets. As engagement plummets, turnover increases and costs of recruitment and training the new staff begin to add up. This can be avoided by going beyond communicating about values, vision and voice and working on building a culture of connection and conviction.

Tom Peters had it right

Early in my business career, Tom Peters was the management guru to listen to. This was at the same time that hair bands ruled the radio and Top Gun, Back to the Future and The Breakfast Club ruled the big screen. I remember watching my VHS videotape during a training session as Peters screamed the virtues of MBWA. MBWA is an acronym for Managing By Wandering Around. Peters would go on to say that this managing by wandering around was just the start, much like values, vision and voice are the start. “Management is about arranging and telling, while leadership is about nurturing and enhancing” he was often quoted to say.

It is in the nurturing and enhancing that engagement grows and deepens.

Nurturing and enhancing is the way to build a connection between the employee and the organization. In turn, it is how seemingly sterile or aspirational values and vision become transformational, enduring convictions. The effort of nurturing and enhancing creates an affinity between the executive and employee and models how the relationships between staff should flow.

Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” ~ Mary Kay Ash

Validation… The Missing “V”

As true leaders nurture and enhance, they are also doing something very important, if not vital in the workplace. True leaders offer a form of validation to the people that they lead and serve alongside with. Employees want to feel like they are an important part of the team. They want to feel like their work matters to the organization and that their opinions matter to the people in leadership as well as their fellow teammates. Employees also want to feel a connection to people that they serve with on the team. It’s no accident that employees that respond in the affirmative that “I have a best friend in my place of work” have longer tenure and that they stay engaged in the important matters of the company.

Sailing to greater profits

There’s no better place to learn the importance of employee engagement and how to build greater team connections than on the deck of a sailboat. The lessons gained from sailing can help unify your team as well as open up the dialog about what is slowing down the progress to the vision, mission, shared language, trust and respect that are vital to success.

Let’s schedule a time for your team to get out on the water to grow together, relax together and create a breakthrough together. Who knows, it might just lead to greater productivity and profitability.

On the Rail or in the Conference Room, it’s all About Feeling Valued

Team Building

4 min read

We all need to be reminded that we need to show people that they are valued in our organization. Sometimes we need a wake-up call to see how important it is to have people around us who really care about their craft at work. This lesson came on a sailing trip from St. Maarten to Grenada, but the principles remain the same in the boardroom or on the boat.

Alone after watch

I had finished my watch two hours ago. My first watch series on our trip from St Maarten to Grenada was the 9:00 pm to midnight, then back on at 6:00 am to 9:00 am. Our vessel was a 50- foot cruising catamaran (multi-hull sailboat) that was being moved to get it out of the hurricane zone for insurance purposes.

Having just had breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and ham, I kicked back on the windward side of the boat to relax on my off time. Had we been sailing a monohaul sailboat, I would be sitting on the “high side” with other crew members as the boat dug into the water, with one side of the boat almost in the water. A cruising catamaran is meant for stability, and we did not need to gather the crew on the windward side to balance out the boat. The rest of the crew that was not at the helm could relax and rest. For now, it was just me, the wind and the sea spray. All alone to reflect and realize the blessings of developing a crew.

Many people get their start in sailing by serving as “rail meat” which is a terse way to describe racers whose function is to serve solely as movable ballast. These team members move from one side of the boat to the other as the boat tacks through the wind and around the course markers. The only requirements for this position are the ability to listen well, learn well and move quickly and adroitly across the boat as she changes course. Since not everyone is ready to make a boat purchase, or has the goal of owning a boat, serving as “rail meat” allows new sailors to pay their dues in exchange or “pay” in the enjoyment of racing and learning. How the skipper engages the crew serving as movable ballast determines how long they stick with the sport or how far they advance in sailing.

The tale of two teams, or… the new boat vs. the old boat

When we do employee engagement excursions on the sailboats, we often tell the story of two race boats during our time together. It’s a simple but powerful story. You see, there once were two race boats that competed against each other. One boat was a modern racing boat that was sleek, light and had all the latest technology tools. The other boat was an older cruising boat that was broad and heavy. She had some technology, but her mass in the water was still what made her slower than the modern racing boat. But there was some equalization and the older slower boat was often the winning boat.

In sail racing, there is a handicap system that puts boats on a more even playing system. It’s like the system that is used in golf. After the handicap was applied, the old boat and the modern racing boat were closer competitors. On board the modern racing boat, crew members were belittled for lack of knowledge or ability. If something went wrong the captain and first mate accused and looked for fault instead of encouraging and sharing in the responsibility of team improvement. On board the old sailboat, there was a spirit of support, encouragement, growth and learning. The modern boat had a high turnover rate among their crew, the older boat retained and developed people. And the old boat won more races than the modern race boat. The lesson remains the same on the boat or in the boardroom. People want to feel supported, heard from, and encouraged to grow.

“Treat your crew with respect, show them the way, and watch them grow”

~ Captain Don Doggett

Thank you, Captain Don

Over the past few years of my sailing career, I have had the pleasure of partnering with our friends at True North Maritime Academy. They have transformed me from just being a competent sailor into being a Captain, who understands the boat’s systems and bigger picture of the boat upon the sea. It is through Captain Don Doggett’s leadership at True North that I have learned that beyond leading, the Captain’s job is to be respectful of his crew and encourage them to grow. It’s the same in the conference room too. A business owner or unit leader must foster a culture of support, encouragement, growth and learning. These are the hallmarks of highly engaging team.

It doesn’t matter if you are working with the entry level person in the company (similar to rail meat in racing) or a highly skilled knowledge worker, each person wants to feel valued and have the opportunity to grow. Take time to check in with them to see where they want to learn, grow and how they need feedback (feedback will be a topic we’ll get to next time). Make sure you share your vision and keep the spirit alive in the pursuit of the corporate vision as you communicate with your team. While being alone on the windward side of the boat or in a quiet office offers time for reflection and planning, being surrounded by an engaged team is where the excitement and action is.

Want to learn more about creating a fully engaged team and having fun sailing at the same time?

Join my workshop to uncover the hidden threats of employee engagement.