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Hey Team - What's your Jam?

Every individual on your team has strengths, specific roles they play on the team, either officially or unofficially. You have your team members who have specific job description roles and who also play other unofficial (but important) roles. For example, team tech person (can fix anything and is the resident go-to for all things tech), the team baker (shows up on Friday with cupcakes), team event planner (plans great team building or social events), team listener (doesn't judge, just listens, nods and smiles). You get the picture, every team has these non assigned or self assumed roles that just happen organically. 

As long as these roles are healthy, it's great and there is no need to control/change them in my humble opinion. They add to the overall greatness of your team. 

If I were to go around the department or the company and ask other people to describe your team to me, what would they say? How do your team members hold themselves out and how are they viewed across the organization? What would your team members themselves say about the team? 

Have you ever talked about this as a group? Every person has specific tasks or roles they are expected to perform, but as a leader, how do you want to hold out your team and are you building the team brand at all? 

You may be surprised when you stop and think about this. Whether you do this strategically or not, your team has a DNA, a Brand and a personality of its own. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, you already think about this when you are hiring or when you are talking to others about your team as a whole. When you hire you are looking for the right "fit" or the right cultural match. Why? What does that mean? 

Let's talk about your "Jam" for a moment. If I were on the outside looking in, would I say your team Jam is: 

They are Great Collaborators

They Care about each other

There is high Trust in this team

They are a Fun team

They are the team to watch, they get Results. 

Or

Would I say their Jam is:

They don't meet deadlines

They are the gossipers

They are the whiners

They can't keep good team members 

When I look into teams and see disconnection, silos, lack of trust, back talk, etc...these "jams" happen because there has been lack of planning and leadership around the culture you are building, or perhaps better said - not building. If you do not work to build the culture you desire for your team, they will absolutely do it for you and you may not like the results. I have seen this over and over again. Suddenly you have a crisis on your hands and you can't figure out why. People do not stay, communication is broken etc etc. There are 101 telltale signs. 

We all get into the weeds at times, and take our eye off the ball. However, I can't stress enough how critical this piece is! Now more than ever! The economy is doing pretty well. The job market is flush, employees can pick and choose where they want to work. 

We know that employees will stay if the culture is great, they respect and want to follow their leader, even if the pay is not the best. 

How can you pull your team together to start to build that brand so that others will hear the name of your team and say - I love that team! Their Jam is results results results.  Start with a team meeting to talk about this. You may be surprised by what you hear, understand that there is no wrong answer in listening to them. Do they trust their leaders enough to be open and transparent in a team meeting? Do they trust one another? If not, you have a high hill to climb. I will do a further blog on building team trust. Right now let's concetrate on finding out where you are at! A little team diagnostics if you will...

Start to think about what you want your team jam to be. It is a fun and worthwhile use of some team time to work on this together. What is your highest dream for this team? What is their highest dream for the team? When you spend the time on the visioning and dreaming, the steps to get there will slowly start to reveal themselves. 

What's your Jam? What's your team Jam. I hope you take the time to talk about this with your teams and have some fun working on what you want your Jam to be and setting out to dream it into reality! 

My jam is YOU! If you ask anyone whaat I do I hope they say, she is a great coach, she invests in people. 

Let me know if you need some help! 

Catherine

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