Mindset Monday - T.E.A.M Culture Part 1

This is episode 192 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Hello, incredible people. It is Mindset Monday and we are kicking it off with a fantastic topic that will be a mini series. We will do 4little mindset Monday topics on this one. Today it is team culture. So today's topic is team culture. And we've gone deep and developed a really powerful acronym for our empowered team. And it is the same, same concept, same step by step development that we use for working with the businesses that we develop. So when we work with business, we dive into team culture or the group or business culture and leadership. Those are the areas that we specialize in. And it's really powerful because we see this and I've worked with this for many, many years in high performance sport. And it's very telling when a team does not have a great culture or chemistry or connection. And it's very telling because that team will always be overcome by another team, the team that has more of the chemistry, that connection, the confidence, that culture that's really developed within it. And it's simply because that group dynamic, that larger group has an energy to it. And that energy is going to either elevate the entire group or elevate each individual or it's going to diminish. And so what we want to do is be very intentional around creating the culture of our work groups. So our work or business culture, our sports team culture, our family culture, being very intentional about it makes a huge difference in what happens day to day, the actions that are taken. So in our Empowered Team acronym, we start with the letter T and T for our acronym. And this is what our Mindset Monday will be about today. Our T stands for together. And we've elaborated on this a little bit further. And together is meaning to be inclusive, so not only keeping each other informed, but bringing also each other person into our ideas. Not staying so individual, not being in autonomy, but rather being in collaboration. So keeping each other informed, bringing others into our ideas, having each other's back. This is part of our together concept, having each other's back, really looking out for one another. I want you to visualize these as I go through them because you've surely experienced this at some point in your life, whether it's in a family dynamic, whether it's in a sports team, another one is co creating or collaborating. So really working with other People, you know, I think of projects in lower school or university or I think my daughter of my daughter in her final year of university. And there's always project collaborations, there's partnering, there's group collaborations. And sometimes it creates anxiety for individuals because they want to get the work done. They just want to plow through, do the work themselves, not have to depend on others who may not work as hard. But ultimately, when they do work with another partner or work with a small group, what happens is we learn and we grow more as individuals. We also discover other perspectives. We also have this ability to shift and understand a greater perspective because of the other person. So we're growing by working with other people. When we keep going back into doing it ourself or knowing that we can get it done more quickly or do it better by ourselves, it's a false representation of what's possible. We don't want to rely on only ourselves. It may be more uncomfortable to work with someone else or work with a group. However, it's to our benefit, it's to everyone's benefit. So really co creating and collaborating. And the last one for together is finishing together. Really making sure that everyone's crossing the finish line, not just one person crossing the finish line. That concept of the group as a whole finishing together. And I worked with this a lot in high performance sport, in really understanding the differences between individual sport and team sport. I would always see individuals working so hard because they had no one else to really blame or take accountability for anything that went wrong. It was all on the individual shoulders. But it was such a cool thing to see when individual sports got to compete in a team type setting. So for instance, if a sprinter got to work in a relay setting, so they got to be a relay team or a triathlete, their results for their province was dependent on how all of the triathletes from that province did. So if it was their team result, that really put them in their standings. So it was really neat to see individual sports really start to collaborate and work together as a team and support each other as a team, because team sports get to do that all the time. Well, we want to take that team kind of mentality into the workplace with an individual type of work ethic. So here's another example coming very recently from our empowered zenith. This is our flagship retreat event. This is a really incredible event where people get to dive deep for an entire week on all of the things to have them grow, grow in all of their vitalities, in mindset, in physical, in spirit. And really, really expand so that they can get the results that they're looking for in their life lives. And ultimately we tend to wonder why we're not getting the results that we want. And yet we haven't really developed certain areas of our lives, whether it's our mindset or our body or our spirit and connection. And so we dive really, really deep in the zenith. So what happens, though, when everybody comes together for the first time is we're bringing together a bunch of individuals, and individuals do what individuals typically do. They're coming in separately and they're acting like an individual when they come in. They're. They kind of. There's personal space, there's kind of a physical distance between each person when they. When they sit down in a group. There's also this element of. Of either wanting to stand out for some or wanting to hide back for others. Because this individual is now in a group. So whatever they're most comfortable with, whether they need acknowledgment of some sort or they don't want to have any attention on them, then they gravitate towards that. So some of them want to stand out a little bit when they're in a group, some of them want to hide in a group. So I'm noticing as we bring the group together when what everyone is tending to do. So because of this, and because we know we've experienced this so many times, that the group is far more powerful than the individual. And we're looking to create in that short week a group culture that's going to be so powerful that it influences the individual to go in a certain direction. So in the first day, the first time that we get together, we're doing a couple of exercises, ones that have each person get to introduce themselves and everyone gets to know a little bit about them. And other exercises where we put them together either in pairs or small groups where they have to do other sorts of. I won't tell all the exercises that we do, but other sorts of tasks that have them connect. And it's remarkable to see the difference of the group being together in a room, sitting about to be coached when they haven't gone through these exercises to just maybe 30 minutes later. And they have gone through these exercises, they come back into the room, they're sitting as a group, and it's night and day. The energy of the room is different. The proximity of each other, how close they sit, how they talk, the comfort level, Everything shifts. In those couple exercises, it can take 30 minutes. And then everybody feels like not only do they know each other a little more, maybe they're starting to even trust each other a little more. And there's certain people that they're thinking, oh, hey, I want to get to know that person a little more. They're starting to like a few people there, and they're also understanding that they're all in this together. So it's very, very powerful to see this group come together and then start to act more like a unit as a group instead of as each individual as they first came in. Now, as we go through the week and this happens, I've seen this hundreds of times, whether it's with new teams that have just been selected, whether it's been a new person coming into a workforce that has a culture that's already established. So there's all sorts of situations where you see this shift into a group culture. Now, some of the other things that we did for the week had continuation to develop this group culture. We had a schedule to meet because we had a lot that we were doing in each day. There was adventure. There were meal times, there was coaching times, There was physical workouts. There was so many things that we're doing in a day that bringing the group onto a schedule was pretty important. So everyone would be given the schedule. And. And I noticed, and this was intentional to notice and point out to the group that I noticed that we were really doing well with being close to on time. So we were actually getting started between two and four minutes after the indicated time. Now, this was surprising to me because most groups need a longer span of time and a little more training to get everybody in on time. And. And what happened, though, is they were naturally coming in. And I ended up pointing out at one point, I said, you know, acknowledge them, acknowledge the group behavior, not acknowledging the individuals, but the group behavior because they were accountable to each other. This is having each other's back. This is co collaborating as well on time and start time. So I acknowledged everyone and said, this is an amazing group. This. Normally it takes several days to get to the point where we're starting either on time or within five minutes of time. And I said, so far, we've been starting between two and four minutes of our start time thus far. And I really want to acknowledge this group. I said, and I think that we can be starting on the hour because that's what kind of group this is. We're fantastic and our standards are high. And the group was all, you know, they kind of received it. They looked around, they're like, oh, yeah, you know, we're doing great. And of course, yeah, we can be right on time. This will be fantastic. And as a couple days went by, there were days that everybody was there. We were on time, and then there were. There was a little bit of a shift because by midweek, everyone is pushing themselves. They're pushing themselves physically. They're being asked to be uncomfortable. They're getting coached, so they're expanding emotionally, mentally, physically. They're eating maybe different foods than they ordinarily eat. Their energy output is very, very high. So by midweek, it's getting a little harder to stay as on integrity because they've got a little more going on for themselves. And so I noticed by midweek, I said, oh, you know what? I have to point this out because we're going in the other direction. We're now 8 minutes past start time and called people on it. And in that moment, not from a space at all of making anyone wrong, but from a space of what we're committed to as a group, what lights us up in staying in our own integrity as a group. Everyone really received it again in an amazing way because they realize what they're capable of, that it's not any harder to be there three minutes earlier or three minutes later. It's just as easy to be there three minutes early as it is to be there three minutes late. Even though everyone's in different parts of our space, our retreat space or different rooms, everyone can be accountable. And what makes it even easier is when we're with a group like that, it's fantastic because. Because you've got people who've got each other's back, this is part of being the t of together having each other's back. And so people started to act a little bit differently by midweek. Instead of just trying to individually show up, people started to remind somebody in the room that was maybe nearby or pay attention to say, oh, so and so, we're all here. But so and so is not here except for this one person. And. And they were just in the bathroom. They'll be right here. So they had an awareness of what was going on with the other person. And this is what starts to develop when there's a true togetherness of an entity of a number of people that are acting as a group. So to go over the other elements of together again, just to refresh this in light of the story I just shared, it's being inclusive, keeping each other informed, and bringing others into your ideas, and this might be into your world or what you're what's occurring for you to have each other's back. So the example here was someone's not quite there yet, but you've notified the others for them. They didn't ask you to do that, but you did. That's having someone else's back. Co creating or collaborating. This is the working together in pairs, in groups so that there's a greater benefit than just you working alone and finishing together, knowing that the finish line, or in the example that I gave the start line was everybody starting together, not starting when people were missing. That's the same thing as finishing together. Using the group as an indication of when it's finished or when it started, not when the first person shows up or, or not when the first person crosses the finish line, but the group as a whole. And this becomes very, very powerful because the individual, when they're in a low state or struggling with something, they want to step up to the level of the group or when someone is doing really well, they're contributing that energy to the group. So this is a scenario where if you're looking to keep each other informed, if you're in a workplace, it doesn't look like, oh, we'll check the Slack channel. It looks more like, oh, did you know that this meeting got shifted? I know it was posted in the Slack channel and the information is posted in there and the appropriate links, but I thought I'd let you know since I saw you and I knew you'd be on that meeting. That's keeping another informed, having the group awareness in mind. And it doesn't mean you have to do this and be checking up on everyone. It means the awareness is there and that they're part of your group and that might be a useful bit that would help them. So this is the T from team and this is part of what we use to develop culture in workplaces, in groups, in creating cultures and chemistries that really elevate everyone that go in the direction of the vision of whatever that group is after. So next week we will head into the next part of our team acronym and you can just guess what the next one is. I won't tell you yet, but you can guess. So start implementing this team concept with the together aspect of the team concept for whatever group that you're working with. This is the culture that we develop for our empowered team and this is the culture that we work with to develop other business cultures as well. So have a beautiful rest of your Monday kick off into your week to look at where you can use this together concept with whatever group you're working with, your family, your sports team, your business, wherever you're working in a group, use it. It makes such a huge difference. Have a fantastic day everyone. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To to learn more about our Empowered Leadership coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course, the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.thempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca empowered learn-more.