In the movie Miracle, Coach Herb Brooks transforms a ragtag group of individuals from rival schools into the unlikely winners of an Olympic gold medal. During tryouts, many of the United States’ top hockey players made a show of their fancy skating. While some of the would-be Olympians hoped to be superstars, Coach Herb Brooks had something less glamorous in mind. He was building a team and picked the players he felt could come together and perform as such. He knew he would be going up against teams that had been playing together for years. He wouldn’t be able to compete in most aspects of the game. So he started with the basics: conditioning and building a team-oriented mindset.
We’ve seen the workplace evolve as employees disperse to their home offices and fancy devices and face-to-face interactions yield to app-based means of communication. While we can’t predict all of the ways the workplace will continue to change, we know it will. Like our young, scrappy team from the 1980’s that went back to the basics, there are a few tried and true fundamental workplace principles that remain no matter what the changes bring. A cohesive team will always have a team culture and effective communication.
Whenever we get a little sideways or start to feel the distance growing between team members, divisions, and workers with various statuses, we can always come back to the basics and work on the human side of our business and shore up our communication as well.
We’ve collected some resources for cohesively knitting teams with different structures.
Taking Care of People/Team-building
7 Ways to Make Employees Feel Respected
The Best Managers Are “Connectors”
Is Your Hybrid Team Losing Steam?
When Great Minds Don’t Think Alike
Communication
Three Elements of Great Communication, According to Aristotle
4 Distractions That Derail Meetings–And How to Handle Them
How to Design an Agenda For an Effective Meeting
Storytelling That Moves People
An Antidote to Microaggressions? Microvalidations.
Bottom Line
You can weather a lot of storms well if your foundation is solid. For a well-functioning business, that foundation is going to be built on taking care of your people and effective communication. What are your tried and true principles/tactics you always come back to?
