How To Be A Good Team Player

How To Be a Good Team Player

March 31, 2021 / 59:41:00

Emmet Ore:

Well, hello everyone. I hope you’re all doing well. Welcome to the last episode of our March Wednesday Webinar Series. My name is Emmet. I’m a marketing specialist over here at Vensure, and I’ll be your host for the next hour. Today, our panelist Robin Paggi will be talking about how to be a good team player and why that’s important. There will be a Q&A session at the end, as always, and we’ll do our best to answer all the questions you have. But, if we don’t get to those, we will respond to you individually after we’re done here. And just a reminder, we are recording this today and we’ll share that recording with you along with the slide deck. This webinar is brought to you by VensureHR. Vensure is the leader of 20-plus partners with clients in all 50 states. And let’s take a look at our agenda today. The first topic will be why it’s so important to be a good team player. Being a team player doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and that’s okay. Characteristics of a good team player. How do you become a better team player? and stages of team development, and then we’ll have that Q&A at the end. So, if you hear a topic you need a little bit more clarity on, feel free to submit a follow- up in the Q&A box, and the instructions for that are right here. So, when you launch the go-to webinar platform, a control panel and a screen share window opened up. In the control panel, there’s a dropdown section titled, “Questions.” Just pop that open and type your questions into the dialog box and hit enter. If you’re a client, please put clients in your questions so we can track that later and you will not be able to see the questions and comments of others, so it’s all private. And lastly, we’ll try to answer all the questions within the allotted time that we have, but if you don’t get your question answered or if you have questions later, just email us at webinarhrhealth@vensure.com. We’re thrilled to have Robin Pajji joining us as our panelists today, as always. She’s a seasoned human resource practitioner specializing in training on topics such as harassment prevention, communication, team building, and supervisory skills. And I will hand it off to Robin.

Robin Paggi:

Thanks Emmet. I met with a group of executives yesterday who kept telling me they wanted to work together as a team, but they were having significant problems doing that. My observation was that some of the executives thought that they were really good team players and that it was everybody else who needed to do all the work. Regardless of who you are, there is room for improvement in your ability to be a good team player. And so, hopefully today you will see what areas you might need to develop. So, let’s go to our next slide and talk about why you should be a good team player anyway. Self- sufficiency is the ability to get things done and not have to rely on others to do what you need to do. And so, that’s a good thing. We all need to be able to do our jobs ourselves without relying upon our coworkers to help us be able to complete whatever it is we have to. However, just doing your own thing and letting others do their own thing in the workplace is not what I’m suggesting here. Regardless of how good you are at your job, self-sufficiency only goes so far because there is a day that you will need help in some way. And, if you don’t help others before you need their help, chances are they won’t help you. So, here’s my first story for you. I used to be a waitress and I think everybody should have to work in a restaurant at some point in their lives, especially during their formative years. I learned so much by working as a waitress and one of those is why it’s so important to be a good team player. So, if you haven’t ever worked in a restaurant, you might not understand that typically when an order is placed on the line from the kitchen, somebody needs to pick it up immediately and take it to a table. And so, chances are if you’ve been in a restaurant, and we get to go back to restaurants, so that’ll be fun. But when you’re in a restaurant, chances are the person you gave your order to is not the person who delivered your food. And the reason for that is that when you work in a restaurant, you learn that when you have a chance, you go up to the line, you see if there is food there and if there is food there, regardless of whether it’s to your table or not, you take that food out because restaurants don’t want food sitting up in the window for long periods of time. That leads to cold food and unhappy customers. So, the thing is that everybody’s supposed to work together as a team to get that food out, that’s the number one mission, when it’s hot so you can have happy customers. One of the things that I learned is that if you do not, when you have a chance, go up to that line and see if there is food that can be taken out and you take it out for your coworkers, chances are when your food comes up in the window, and a coworker goes up and looks to see if it’s their order or not and they see it’s your order, they will just let it sit there. And so, that’s what’s called payback and that’s what happens sometimes. If you are not a good team player, when it’s your time for needing help, chances are you won’t get it, because if you didn’t give it, you won’t get it. Now, the other reason to be a good team player is because it makes you an organizational asset. Team actually is an acronym for, “Together Everyone Achieves More,” and organizations need to achieve things, and people working together helps the organization achieve even more. If you’re a good team player, you’re an organizational asset because you’re helping the organization achieve more. So, you can be really great at your job and achieve a lot working independently. But when you’re working with other people, you achieve even more with those people. So, managers and employers look at that and they value people who are adding more to the organization. And that’s how being a good team player helps you stay employed. Now, one of the things that I was told many years ago when I was working very independently and trying to achieve as much as I could, I had a manager who told me once, “Robin, you can be the best at what you do and you can be the smartest among your peers. But if you do not get along with your coworkers and if you cannot work with them as a team, you will be unemployed.” And that’s exactly what I ended up telling this group of executives yesterday, a couple of them in particular. Again, people are saying we all need to work together as a team, but they’re clearly implying that some of you need to be good team players because I’m already a good team player. And the truth was that that’s not the case. Everybody needs to help develop their team playing skills because they do not always come naturally. And so, let’s go to the next slide and talk about that.

I’ve talked a lot about personality styles. I’m fascinated by them because I believe they influence so much of how we behave, and how our behavior works for some people, and it doesn’t work for other people. And so, I’m going to go back to the DISC personality profile that I have talked about before. And for those of you who have heard me talk about it before, I think you can always learn something new. But I do know that we have a number of new listeners. And so, just to catch you up a bit, the DISC Personality Profile, D-I-S-C, is the acronym, and that stands for four different personality styles that I’ll explain in just a moment. We don’t fit nicely into a category. We’re very complex people. However, people who have been studying personality styles for thousands of years have recognized that there tends to be four predominant styles that are easily recognizable and that have a huge impact on how people behave, including their ability to work in a team. Each of the personality styles add something to the team, and it also adds problems to the team. So, let’s take a look at each one of those. First in the DISC personality profile is the D personality style and picture an eagle when I am describing the D personality style because that’s a good animal representative. People with a high D personality style like to be in positions of authority because they want things to be done the way they want them to be done. So, if they’re in a position of authority, then they get to call the shots, and they like to have control and to call the shots. They tend to be risk-takersself-starters, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. And they’re self-starters. They don’t need to be told what to do. They can’t stand not doing the stuff, and so they just jump in and start getting things done. They’re extremely goal-oriented and very competitive and tend to make everything into a competition. They’re excellent problem solvers, they’re big picture thinkers, and they tend to respond well to logic, reason, but not emotion. And so, when people get really emotional, that just stresses the D out. They have high ego strength, which could be perceived positively as confidence or negatively as arrogance. And they do add value to the team, even though they like to work independently and they’re self-starters and they tend to boss people around even when they’re not the boss, they add value to the team by getting the party started and getting people going, getting things done on time, challenging the status quo, which some people don’t like that, but it can be a very good thing because if you just always do what you’ve always done, you won’t progress in a world that’s constantly changing. And they’re very good at being innovative, thinking up new ideas. So, that’s what they bring to the team. So, are they good team players? Yes, if that’s what they’re bringing to the team. Are they bad team players? Yes, we all are to a certain degree. They create problems for the team by overstepping authority. So, again, bossing people around when they’re not the boss, being argumentative, that competitiveness is good, but then they always want to win, even when they’re just having a debate or a discussion with coworkers about ideas. And so, they can be seen as unnecessarily argumentative. And trying to get stuff done, too much stuff done at one time when it ends up that you’re just slapping things together in order to get it out there, which really is a problem for some other of the personality styles. So, if you identify with this personality style, what can you do to be a better team player? Let you think about that. But I’ll provide you with some more information in just a moment. Now, next on our personality styles, the DISC is the I, and you can think of a parrot to represent the I. They’re naturally creative problem solvers who can think out of the box, and so they just come up with all sorts of really innovative ideas. They’re great at encouraging and motivating others to take action, and they like a positive environment. And so, they’re very enthusiastic and optimistic and they tend to be very cheerful and joke around and they’ll go out of their way to keep things light and avoid negative conflict in the workplace. Do they add value to the team? Of course, you can see some of it, encouraging, motivating others to achieve, positive sense of humor, or trying to alleviate conflict. But do they add problems to the team? Of course, they do. We all do. Sometimes they’re more concerned about how people feel about them than on getting things done. Sometimes they’re inattentive to detail because they’re so big picture. Sometimes they’re too expressive, too dramatic, too humorous, and sometimes they are not very good listeners because they are just listening enough until they get to talk again. And one of the things, because they love people and they love to talk, they frequently get themselves in trouble and cause trouble for the team because of talking about people. Now, people with the S personality style are represented with a dove, and a dove as a symbol of peace, and they are the peacemakers. They are steady and stable. They like routine predictability, safety, in their day-to-day life. And they like close personal relationships and positive environments. They really don’t like conflict. And so, they’re peacemakers, good listeners, loyal friends, and supporters. And so, that’s what team members are all about. Right? So, they make great team members because being positive, friendly, patient, sympathetic, dependable, loyal, compliant, all of those types of things. Could they add problems to the team? Absolutely. Resisting change because they like predictability, they like routine, it makes them feel safe, and so they tend to resist anything that rocks the boat. Taking too long to adjust to change, being sensitive to criticism, so they’re all about relationships and criticism might threaten a relationship, which is pretty scary for them. They tend to be passive-aggressive. So, not being direct when they are unhappy with you, but letting you know in indirect ways, such as talking about you to people instead of talking to you and holding a grudge. And so, we could all probably identify with some of that. But some of us do it a little bit more than others. And then finally on the DISC personality profile is the C. And people with strong C personality styles can be representative with an owl. And they’re described as perfectionist, and they play strong value on being accurate, correct, and seeing something through to the end. If you’re going to start it, you need to finish it. They take great pride in their work and tend to think in a very logical, analytical, systematic way. And they also tend to be excellent at problem- solving and creative thinking. They have very high standards for themselves and for others, and they sometimes are hypercritical as a result of that. So, well, how do they add value to the team? They’re very anchored in what’s happening now and seeing things realistically. They’re very conscientious about doing quality work and even-tempered. Problems to the team or that they don’t like to verbalize how they’re feeling. And you might think that’s a good thing, but no, if you’re unhappy but you’re not telling us, then how can we fix it? And they would rather give in than argue. And you might think again, hey, that’s a good thing. We’ll no, because once again, the conflict remains. It’s just not being spoken about and they’re unhappy, but they’ll just go along to get along. And that’s no good either. So, the moral of the story is that all personality styles add something to the team, but they also add problems to the team. And the important thing is to recognize what you might be, the problems you might be adding to the team that are unnecessarily causing negative impressions of you. And fortunately, you can do something to fix it. Now, culture also. We have different cultures and the definition of the culture is the norms, what is considered to be normal behavior, the values, and the traditions that a group of people share. And again, we don’t fit nicely into a culture and share everything with a certain group of people. But culture entails a lot of the things that we were taught that are considered to be normal behavior. And if people are doing it differently, then we tend to think that that’s abnormal. That’s incorrect. And so, a lot of times we can’t even describe our culture because it is so ingrained in us. But hopefully, you’ll be able to recognize it by these descriptions. First of all, people who study culture have identified that there tend to be a collectivist culture and an individualistic culture. Collectivist cultures emphasize the needs and the goals of the group as a whole, over the needs and desires of an individual. And so, you can probably already guess the American culture is not a collectivist culture. In collectivist cultures, relationships with other members of the group, and the interconnectedness of the people within the group, play a central role and the person’s identity. And they value the group over the individual and will do what they need to do for the group to succeed rather than the individual to succeed. A lot of times in these cultures, they don’t want to be individually recognized. That’s embarrassing. An individualistic culture is the United States and some other places—Canada, Europe. So, this rugged individualism and placing the emphasis on the individual over the entire group, prioritizing individualism over the entire group. And so, we’ve gotten to see a lot of that in the last year with differences in how people respond to the pandemic.

So, cultural differences affect teamwork as a result of three key areas. One is communication. Obviously, we communicate differently. And I went over this a little bit in our communication module that we had last month. But again, in some cultures it’s considered rude to speak directly where in others it’s encouraged. And this can cause miscommunication, resentment, confusion. People feel that they’re being talked to in a way that’s disrespectful or other people are disrespected because people don’t speak up. And so, some team members might not speak up if they disagree with other team members, because that’s just not done. You just don’t do that, especially in a meeting in front of other people. And in other cases, like in the American culture, providing direct feedback or instructions might be seen as stepping on somebody’s toes or being very harsh or rude to other cultures. And then another difference that we share because of our cultures is hierarchy and power. Equality in the workplace is the norm and some cultures, and that’s one of the things that America has been grappling with for 50 years, is equality in the workplace and still fighting for equality in the workplace, whereas, as in other cultures, the structure is hierarchical and there are people over you and people below you, and that’s where they’re supposed to be. For employees that come from cultures that focus on status and authority, speaking up about problems might be difficult because you’re not supposed to speak back to authority. That’s disrespectful. You don’t do that. On the other hand, those that value equality may perceive others as lacking competence, being weak, being wimpy if they don’t share their thoughts and opinions. And then decision making and risk, and some cultures making a decision requires lots of data and information because you don’t want to make decisions that are risky because you don’t have enough data, and some employees might have a really low tolerance for this risk and not want to make any kind of decisions if they don’t have to. Others may be really confident in making decisions without too much data, and that can affect how the work flows, how quickly. And so that’s just a little bit of information on cultures. And so, you can see that some cultures groom people to be good team players. That’s part of their cultural makeup, while other cultures encourage people to be more individualistic. And as the saying goes, there’s no I in team.

And then finally age. And again, I’ve talked about age differences a little bit, but as far as how it impacts our ability to be a good team player, I have not addressed, so here we go. Different ages in the workplace right now include Baby Boomers, and these folks are born between the end of World War 2 and the mid-1960s, and so roughly 1946 to 1964. Now, Baby Boomers were lots of collective team effort, especially in Civil Rights movements, Women’s Rights movements. I’m in the Central Valley of California. We had Agricultural Workers’ Rights movement, and so a lot of social movements, and we’re seeing that again now, and that will impact our youngest generation’s involvement. And so, these social movements made systemic change…major change in America and in its workplaces. And so, Baby Boomers know how to work together. And even with sports, especially female sports, we’re starting to get a lot of money. And so, a lot of Boomers played on sports teams, where teamwork is emphasized. So, again they know how to work together as a team, but just because somebody is in a certain age group doesn’t mean they’re a good team player. And then the other thing about the Boomers is they’re very competitive. And one of the reasons for that, they’re called Baby Boomers because people came back from World War Two and our country experienced a baby boom. And so, the birth rate increased dramatically and stayed that way for 18 years. And so, the Boomers tend to be competitive because there were only a limited amount of resources and there were a lot of Boomers having to compete over those limited amount of resources. So, you might find that about them. Also, they tend to be workaholics and tend to value somebody as a team player based upon how many hours they’re working. And their identity is based a lot upon what they do, but also what title they have. So, that’s one of the things, and working with this group of executives yesterday. Speaking with the owner of the organization, he told me that one of the executives had been promoted by someone else and to this vice president position. And he loved the title of vice president and he really didn’t do a very good job of that and he really needed to be an operations manager, but the owner was not going to take that title away from him because that title was so important to him. And that’s one of the things about Boomers, not only what their title is, but how big their office is. And I experienced that myself when I was given a smaller office than someone who was younger than I, less experienced than I. And yes, I needed a foot more of space to demonstrate that I was the more experienced one. So guilty. So, Boomers are great team players, but then also they’re not. Then there’s Gen X, and they were born roughly between 1976 and 1985, somewhere around there, or excuse me, 1965 and 1980, somewhere around there. So, during that time, they experienced our country experienced a high divorce rate, lots of single-parent households. Gen X is known as the latchkey kids because they were a generation who came home from school, locked the door behind them, and then took care of themselves and all of their chores and sometimes their younger siblings before their parents got home. As a result of that, they tend to be really independent.

As a matter of fact, I had a friend who was one of four children and single-parent household, and her mother fell in love with a man and moved in with the man, and she left her four teenage children in her home and paid for everything, but the kids were pretty much on their own. Now, as a teenager, I thought that was awesome. You get to live in the house by yourself and your mom pays for everything. But my friend felt really abandoned, especially later on in life. And so, that’s one of the things that Gen X is known for, is being very independent because they were forced into that position. And so, sometimes not such great team players as a result of being used to working independently. However, the other thing about Gen X is that you’re able to figure things out by themselves. And so, that’s what they bring to the team, as well as being able to figure out and also organize others. And then we have Gen Y, who somewhere along the line, somebody called the Millennials, and then that’s what they changed to. And they were born about 1981 through about 2000, maybe 1996, somewhere right in there. And so, millennials in large part came from nontraditional families, but they did tend to have very involved parents, whoever those parents were, in those nontraditional families. And so, these parents earned the label of helicopter parents because of hovering over their kids and making sure that they were safe at all times. Millennials are also known to be the soccer trophy generation. So, everyone gets a prize, regardless of how you did, and we don’t really keep score anymore, rewarded for participation and collaboration rather than competition. As a result of all of that, that a lot of people heavily criticized. They’re much more team-oriented than the other generations are because they were rewarded for collaboration. That’s one of the things that I talked about last week. You want people to work together as a team, reward them for working together as a team. Well, they had a lifetime of that. And then Gen Z. Now I’m going to tell you all about Gen Z next week. But just beforehand, born after 1995 for the most part, so the oldest ones are about 24.

Digital natives, meaning that they grew up with a cell phone in their hand. And by the way, I know that these descriptions of generations might sound like stereotyping, but I will tell you this about Gen Z because of research that I have done that has demonstrated, regardless of your station in life as a Gen Zer or regardless of whether you were born into poverty or into affluence, regardless of your education, or whatever is going on in your life, 95% of Gen Z have a cell phone, and some of them are smartphones and some of them are not. But that’s one of the things when you grow up with a cell phone in your hand and seriously, you’ve probably seen children that were given smartphones to entertain themselves at the age of six months old while their parents are trying to have a conversation. So, digital natives and online gaming. And so, they learned how to play with others very well, just not face to face. And so, that’s one of the problems when it comes to teamwork, is having those face-to-face conversations that might be uncomfortable, Gen Z is more comfortable just ghosting people. I just won’t show up, and I won’t answer your text, and I won’t do any of that, and the relationship will be over. And you really can’t do that in the workplace. So, different age groups have different abilities to work together as a team, but they also bring their challenges as well. And so, again, all of this is to tell you that regardless of who you are, you bring challenges to the team because of who you are. But the good news is that there are specific things you can do to be a better team player, regardless of what you bring. So, let’s go on and look at those things.

First of all, what is a good team player? And that’s one of the things that people have a difficult time doing sometimes. I was trying to do this with this group of executives yesterday when they kept saying that we need to work together as a team. And I said, “What exactly does that mean?” And they were stumped by that and had a very difficult time defining it. And so, here’s a definition. A good team player is somebody who understands their role. And so, I’d like you to assess yourself as we go along. As a team member, do you understand your role within the team and work to achieve your duties to the best of your ability? You still offer help and solutions to other team members, but you respect the boundaries of your position, meaning you stay in your lane. So, it’s important to recognize offering help to someone as opposed to just going in and doing it. And that was one of the problems with the group that I met with yesterday, is people were veering out of their lane and getting into other people’s territory and taking charge, and that, of course, feels disrespectful to the  other people. And so, you understand your role. You know how to do your job. You do offer help, but you understand when something is not your role and you don’t take over. You welcome collaboration. And you also follow the rules on there. And so, following the rules is very important, one of those rules being that we’re all supposed to play by the same rules, and we don’t allow some people to not play by the rules and some people have to play by the rules. We all follow the rules.

We don’t take advantage of relationships or situations, and we do what we’re supposed to do. Welcoming collaboration, working with team means there will be various opinions and ideas, but that does not derail you. Even if you think your idea is the best, you still will be flexible and go with whatever the team thinks is best. You’ll listen to other people’s ideas before pushing your idea. If your idea is not adapted or adopted, you won’t pout and refuse to play anymore. So, you understand that all ideas are valid, all opinions are valid, and you don’t shut people down when they’re offering theirs. You hold yourself accountable, you take responsibility for your mistakes, and you look for solutions. You understand how your actions impact the entire group. It’s not just you and you learn from your mistakes. You are flexible. You accept things that come your way, you don’t say, “That’s not in my job description,” unless you’re getting into somebody else’s territory. You are able to go with the flow and realize that plans change and you can change with it. You have a positive attitude.

And positive attitude and positive energy are so important. Yesterday I had such a headache in working with this group because of so much negativity that was taking place in that room. And we were together for three hours, trying to figure out how this group of people can work together. And one person, in particular, was just exuding negativity and that just was derailing the whole thing. And so, recognize your attitude. Your energy has an impact on other people. And what you’re trying to do is put positivity out there because it affects people. It affects them physically, mentally, emotionally. And so, hopefully you are able to tell if your energy that you are putting out there in the world is positive or negative. And I’ll tell you one way to know whether it’s positive or negative, is how people are responding. If people are responding negatively to you, chances are it’s because of the negative energy you put out there. So, please be cognizant of that. And then finally, you commit to the team. You’re fully invested in the team. You don’t have one foot out the door the whole time. You show others you believe in the group, the process, the goals, you’re all in. So, is it difficult to be all of those things? Absolutely, and as I’m going through this list, I’m assessing myself going, oh, I need to work on that one and need to work on that one. And so, that’s what we need to do. We’re not going to be 100% good team players, we can’t be because of the various things that we have in us, our personal style, our culture, our age, our experiences, everything that we are. Some of those things are going to help us and some of those things are going to detract. That’s just the way it works. So, it’s important just to recognize, okay, these are some things that I need to work on and then work on them. Let’s go to the next slide and talk about how to become a better team player.

Alright, so I like things to be really specific, tell me exactly what you want me to do and I will try to do that. And so, here it is. First of all, offer help. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? In order to be a good team member, you need to offer help. If you see a coworker who seems overwhelmed or is struggling to keep up with tasks, ask if you can help. Now it’s important to ask, don’t just jump in and take over because they might not want your help, but at least you’re offering. And team members support each other during difficult times as well as good times, and they support each other even more during difficult times. So, here’s the thing to be sure to ask for help when you need help or to accept people’s help. So, that’s one of the things I have a dominant personality style. I’m used to working very independently. And when people would ask me if I needed help with something, my answer was no, no, I got it, I got it. I got it. And I realized after a while that that hurt some people’s feelings, that I did not allow them to help me because some people really like to help other people.

And then when I did go ahead and allow people to help, I found out it was way better. Oh, my gosh. It’s so great when people are helping you do your stuff. So, offer help, but also ask for help or at least accept when somebody wants to help. Actively listen, and we don’t listen, we’ve got way too many distractions, and not only the distractions on our outside world, we’ve got the distractions in our head, the voice that’s talking to us there. It’s very difficult to actively listen, and that just means that you are trying to tune everything else out and hear what the person is saying and the intent behind what they’re saying, because people don’t always say what they mean. Active listening means hearing and thoughtfully responding to what your team member says and asking questions about things you don’t understand. So an active listening exercise that I frequently use in my workshops is that I pair people up and I have them tell each other a one-minute story or so.

And so, one person tells their story and then the listener has to tell them back essentially what they said, trying to use the same words as possible if they can. And when I ask people, “Okay, where were you able to repeat back?” They frequently say, “Yeah, yeah, I could do that.” “Okay, did you listen during this exercise, like you always listen?” “Oh, no, no, I listened way more.” “Okay, and so can you do that all the time?” “Well, I can try.” And so, that’s what we need to do. So, frequently we’re listening and forming our response when we really need to be just listening to what they have to say. And here’s another thing. Some of us we’re trying to figure out how to solve this problem that the person is presenting to us. So when we’re listening to them, we’re trying to work out, okay, what do I need to do with this information so I can do something with it? And that might not be what the person needs at all. They don’t need you to fix their problem. They just need you to listen to what they have to say. Communicate, that there’s so much involved with communicating, but here’s just a few specific things. Keep your team updated on your progress and what you’re doing and how it affects them. So,

I really appreciated an email I got from somebody yesterday, which was I received your email, I’m looking into it and I will get back to you as soon as I have an answer. Now, there are some people who believe that the first time they’re going to respond is when they have the answer or the resolution or what have you. And then there are other people, like the email I got, with I’m going to keep you updated on what’s happening so you know that something’s happening. That really is the better way of doing it. And some people think, well, all I’m doing is sending nothing information to somebody. Not really. Keeping people updated is really important, and for some people especially, and knowing where things are. So, if you’re not in the habit of doing that, that might be something that you should do. Respect others. And that’s one of the things in working with this group yesterday and one of the team members said people just need to show respect, and I said, “What does that look like?” And she was really exasperated with me. I could tell even through her mask that I was trying to get her to explain what it meant to show respect. But here’s the deal, people interpret respect and disrespect differently. And so, we really need to spell out what does it mean to show respect? Well, this particular person, she felt disrespected when another team member would enter the room without acknowledging her. And in some cases, you’re probably thinking, well yeah, when you enter a room, you’re supposed to acknowledge the people who are already in the room.

Well, this particular person just didn’t do that, wasn’t thinking about that, had other things on his mind. And yet she felt so disrespected when it had nothing to do with her. So, that’s one of the things that we need to do when we feel disrespected is to let people know this behavior feels disrespectful to me, and this is what I would like instead. And that’s what I spent a great deal of time teaching them how to say to each other yesterday. Be a problem solver. When you recognize a problem, take action to solve it and of course, get the necessary authorization. But be sure that you’re not just putting up problems and saying this is a problem, but trying to figure out some ideas on how to resolve them. And celebrate team’s successes. If a member of your team succeeds in the workplace, so do you. And it means you’re one step closer to achieving whatever goals the organization has. And so, celebrate their professional success, but also celebrate their personal successes. They graduated from college, they got a certification, they got married, they had a child, their child graduated. Whatever, all of those types of things that some people really feel are unnecessary to some people are very necessary. And that’s why it’s important to do that and then finally seek feedback. If you’re unsure what you need to do, ask somebody. Ask somebody who has your best interest at heart and will tell you the truth, and then set some small goals to improve your skills over time. And that’s what I did with this group yesterday, created specific strategies for them. And then I’m going to go see them in two weeks and I’m going to ask them how they did on implementing those strategies and what the results were that they got from that. And then we create new strategies and we just keep going. Constant improvement, because we are always a work in progress. And the day we think that we don’t need to improve is probably the day we need to retire. So, let’s go on and finish up by talking about stages of team development.

You might have seen this before because this philosophy has been around for a while, and the reason that I wanted to talk about it is because teams definitely go through stages. And the storming stage, which is the second stage, really bothers people sometimes. And if they’re not aware that the storming stage is just a natural part of team development, they might opt out of the organization. And that’s something that I’ve talked about at some point before. But 55% of hourly employees quit their jobs within the first 6 months. That’s a lot of turnover. And then, 50% of executives quit their jobs if they are new to the organization within the first three years. So, again, that’s a lot. And why do they quit their jobs? Well, for a variety of reasons, but a lot of times it’s because they don’t think they fit in. One executive said to the other yesterday, we’ve all been here for 20-plus years and you’ve only been here for two years. You need to work your way into our group. And if somebody told me that, I would say, no, I’m going to work my way into a new job someplace else. So, that’s one of the things that happens sometimes when you have somebody new come into the group and they don’t feel like they’re part of the group, then they just might go on someplace else. So, let me walk you through these stages, forming. Forming stage is at the beginning of a project or introduction of a new team member into the group. So, you can have people who’ve been with an organization for 20 years, but you have a new team member comes in, then everybody goes back to the forming stage to a certain degree. Now, the formal stage is a lot like when you meet somebody, you’re interested in them, you’re attracted to them, and you start a relationship with them. When you’re going on your first date, perhaps you look a little bit better than you normally do. You spruce yourself up a bit. You’re on your best behavior. Maybe you’re not 100% yourself here. You’re trying to make a good first impression. That’s what the forming stage was for a group, everybody’s going on the first date with each other. And so, people usually are pretty well behaved during this time. They’re trying to be polite, trying to get to know each other, maybe not their real selves, because they’re trying to make a good first impression. So, that happens for a while. And what managers can do to help the team at this point is, to help them get to know each other and what they their strengths are and what their values are and making sure everybody knows what the mission of the organization is. And the things that we talked about last week on helping your team improve its performance. And so, putting those things in place. But it doesn’t take long for people to start feeling comfortable and the storming to begin.

Storming is when people are comfortable enough to start disagreeing with each other, start conflicting with each other, start to see how they clash with people. They’re less concerned about making a good impression and fitting in, and they’re more concerned about what they need to accomplish and what their job is. And so, a lot of clashing going on. And with the group yesterday, that’s exactly what was happening. The newest member had been there for two years, but one year is the pandemic. And so, that just caused the norming to be put off even more. And so, there’s a whole lot of storming going on and people were being kind of nasty with each other and blaming each other and all of that, even though they were insisting that they wanted to work together as a team. Well, they do, but it takes some work. And so, that work is what the norming stage is all about, and that’s where I was trying to take him yesterday. Creating workplace rituals, agreeing on rules, agreeing on goals, agreeing on how we’re going to do things, making compromises, making commitments, doing all of those things to gel behavior into place, so that we can all agree this is how we do it, this is how we’re going to get the work done, this is what I’ll do for you if you’ll do this for me, all of that that we’re trying to do. And managers usually need to be really good and taking people from the storming stage, conflict resolution skills, and being able to have the stomach to handle three-hour meetings where the tension is so high it makes you have a headache. Being able to handle those situations and take people into the norming stage on creating those strategies, creating those compromises, ensuring that people are committing to them, and holding people accountable for them. And when that happens, then the performing starts, because people know what they’re supposed to do, they know what you’re doing, we know how to do this together, and you really see the results of that collaboration. And so, what managers need to do at this point is just really reward people for that performing to keep them motivated and going forward. And a lot of times in workgroups, there’s an adjournment. You do a project together and now that project’s ending. And there’s sometimes a bit of melancholy involved, for some people. They enjoy working together and now they’re not going to be working together anymore. And so, do you just go our separate ways, bye. No, it’s important to have a little closing ceremony, so you can put closure on it. Look back on what happened, what you’ve learned, how you’re going to apply that to the future, and recognize that it’s an important step and the entire process and you don’t just say, bye. And so, those are the stages of the team development. And again, some of the things that managers can do. But I will emphasize with managers, you have got to know how to be a good team player, if you expect the people you supervise to be good team players. The people you supervise take their cue from you and by watching you. And so, if you want people to work together as a team and to be a good team player, you’ve got to walk the talk. That’s all I have for you. Do you have any questions for me?

Emmet Ore:

Thanks, Robin. It looks like we do have a couple of questions here. What should I do if my team members don’t like me?

Robin Paggi:

Well, one of the things to look at is why they don’t like you. So, I did an investigation once where a gentleman was accused by probably seven team members of doing some inappropriate things. And when I questioned him, he said, “I didn’t do that.” And I said, “Well, why would seven of your team members accuse you?” They don’t like me. Why don’t they like you? I don’t know. Well, that’s something you need to figure out. If you have seven people collaborating against you, trying to get you into trouble, you are doing something that is preventing them from liking you. So, try to figure out what it is.

Yesterday in with this executive group, this one team member, in particular, was just putting out this negative vibe, all the time criticizing all of her other team members. And I said to her, “Perhaps you are not getting the respect that you desire so much because of how you’re talking to people.” And so, remember, what you put out there in the world is often what comes back to you. If you don’t like the reactions that people have of you, think about how you’re interacting with them. And so, what should I do with my team members don’t like me? Try to figure out what you’re doing to inspire that dislike and then change it.

Emmet Ore:

Excellent. Do you have any recommendations for some resources or perhaps a chart for that outline the differences in the DISC personalities?

Robin Paggi:

Oh, absolutely. All you have to do is Google, “DISC,” and it will bring up all sorts of resources. And some that are available for free, but some that are a little costly, and but there are a variety of things, so, yes, it’s, it’s all over there. So, just Google it, you’ll find plenty of stuff.

Emmet Ore:

Thank you. What should I do with employees who refuse to be good team players?

Robin Paggi:

Well, you try to inspire them first to be a good team player, by letting them know the benefits of being a good team player. If they refuse, still, you try to encourage them with discipline. And if they refuse still, then you might need to invite them to seek employment elsewhere. And that is the advice that I gave the owner of the company where I was training yesterday. This one particular team member who is so insistent that other people need to be good team members, I don’t think she has the capability of doing it. And so, I said, here are some things that you can do to try to help with that. Give her some good, honest feedback about her behavior, see if that helps. Help her create strategies much like I’ve given you today, see if that helps. Discipline her, let’s see if that helps. And last chance agreement with a performance improvement plan that specifically outlines outlines exactly what she needs to do in order to demonstrate that she is being a good team player.

And if that doesn’t work, then invite her to seek employment elsewhere.

Emmet Ore:

Got it. okay, how do I, as a new manager, change a negative environment cultivated by prior management?

Robin Paggi:

That one’s particularly tough because culture is so ingrained in people and environments. And so, it is a difficult task, I will tell you that. But the important thing to do is to take baby steps. Don’t try to do an entire overhaul at once because it’s it’s tough to change. Just one of the reasons that it’s difficult to quit a bad habit is because it is a habit. Negativity also becomes a habit. And even though that manager is gone, that manager probably had behaviors that other people emulated that now are ingrained and so the first step, I think, is to try to reward people for doing good things. So again, I said, “If you want people to be good team players, reward them for being good team players.” So, set up perhaps a recognition program and it doesn’t have to be a big thing. But just identify these are some things that are going to be rewarded and recognized when people do. One of the things that we did at Worklogic for some time, we have 10 core values. When I went to work there, I didn’t know what the core values were. I’d been there for probably a year before we implemented the Core Values Cup, and that’s when everybody learned about the core values. And those who are doing things like provide a WOW experience, and be innovative, and creative. And what would happen is that when once a week and an employee would receive the Core Values Cup for doing, demonstrating a core value, an email went out to all employees that would say something like, “Robin’s receiving the Core Value Cup this week for providing WOW customer service in her Wednesday webinars.” And then I would have the cup for a week and then I would recognize the next employee and send out the email. Emmet is being recognized for demonstrating the core value of great internal customer service. And then Emmet would get the cup for a week and then the next week he’d give it back to me or however it went. And so, after a while, everybody knew what the core values were and everybody wanted that Core Values Cup and they wanted that recognition. And that lit a fire under us on making sure that we were demonstrating those core values. So, something as simple as that might be something that helps get people’s attention. People tend to like rewards, and you want to make sure the rewards are tied to the behavior that you want people to demonstrate.

Emmet Ore:

I think we have time for one more. How do you let coworkers, people you work with, employees, et cetera, know that you’re a dominant personality and not just a negative person?

Robin Paggi:

Well, you can try to convince people all you want, but they are convinced by your actions, not by your words. And so, if you want them to think that you are not a negative person, don’t demonstrate behaviors that make them think that.

Emmet Ore:

Excellent. Okay, well, we’re at the top of the hour here. Thank you all for being here again with us. And yeah, I guess we’re going to be moving on to April. It’s hard to believe March is over, but join us next month and we’ll be talking about how to manage younger generations, and Gen Z, and how that’s a little bit different than some of the older generations. So, keep your eyes open on your inbox and we’ll be sending out an invite Friday and then one next week as well. So, I hope you’ll join us and I hope you guys all have a great day.