I was in my bathroom this morning and thought of the school playground that sits near the back of my house. I wondered if the teachers realized the importance of the playground and how children learn a lot of their behaviors from dealing with others during those playground experiences.

It’s where they manifest their training on how to be kind; how to help others when they’re hurting; how to invite someone in their group if they look lonely; and it’s a place where innocent joy and laughter should break forth. I wondered if the teachers realized that environment was also where most children get bullied, feel rejected, get shamed, feel isolated, experience unhealthy competition; and where they release anger or pain onto some gentler type because they can’t bear to hold that pain or insecurity in themselves any longer, having received their own brutal bullying from someone else.

The playground. What a human learning environment! Now, how’s your adult work playground today?

Let’s Look at 4 Ways to Strengthen Your Team Building Skills:

1.    Play Well with Others.

There are many opportunities to showcase your leadership skills.

First, cultivate active listening skills by giving the team member that’s speaking your full attention. It’s easier than you think for someone to visually and non-verbally observe whether or not his colleague is paying attention to what feedback is being given in a meeting. The awkward pause, instead of giving brief affirmations such as “Yes”, “Right”, “Totally”, or “I get it”, can lead the speaker to wonder where your attention is being focused.

Honor your team member by listening to their words. If you are on a video-conference call, give eye contact and nod. If you are physically present, lean forward. You will be remembered by your active listening skills and it may determine your invite to the next team meeting.

Second, give effective feedback. It’s another way to show you have strong leadership skills and play well with others. How does your presence affect a meeting? When you paraphrase what the speaker has stated with replies that confirm, affirm or ask for more clarity, the speaker + joint members see your energetic leadership goal to build on the agenda. Use your speaking time to support team member’s ideas with other relevant examples. Effective feedback celebrates your team member’s presence by showing them you feel this discussion is meaningful.

Effective feedback doesn’t have to always be positive, but it needs to be constructive showing your feedback has good intentions. Always maintain your leadership goal for discussions to have a positive outcome, improve an average one, or work optimistically to solve sobering outcomes.

2.    Be Empathetic.

You have an opportunity to make a difference and be the change agent in work situations! Some of your team members may be struggling with rejection or bullying from a co-worker or boss. Maybe they were passive aggressively berated from a colleague that never seems to meet the congenial genuine mark of celebrating others’ task achievements or project successes.

In a 2019 Global Human Capital Trends research article, it stated “reinventing with a human focus’ is trending. Orgs like HBR/ SHRM were generating those conversations as well. Empathetic leadership is critical in our current work climate; nationally + globally.

Here is your opportunity for a do-over with your team as you work to cultivate hope for another vibrant workforce and gig economy. View the current work discussions and workplace situations in your team member’s shoes. Think about your gig colleagues that recently got a chunk of their future work postponed or cancelled because of the present world health situation. Consider the team member that has to produce the same amount of high-pressured work in a new work environment that now includes five other people in their work space. They don’t have the quiet space you do to process high performing solutions and meet yesterday’s deadlines.

I believe your empathetic skills can be upgraded with more effort given to increasing your emotional and social intelligence. Strong leaders take time to reskill in this critical leadership area. You will increase your awareness of team members’ work experiences and reinvent your team + company with a human focus. When you humbly start the learning process with yourself, others will notice the shift you are making to benefit the whole team.

3.    Eradicate Intellectual Bullying.

It’s great to support innovation and creativity at work. It’s honorable to honor brilliant minds that deliver prosperous strategies that result in material and financial success. But the pride of knowledge can be a slippery slope if it’s not properly monitored by its’ team leaders. Left on its own genius device in the work playroom, team members can permeate the physical environment and suffocate others creativity and purposeful work identity?

Your leadership can change the bullying activities on the team playground. Executive leaders may need to consider rearranging or even changing the people in the team circle.

How do leaders eradicate intellectual bullying at work? They establish healthy boundaries that will give team members back their breathing space to produce. They make room for peace to exist in harmonious + healthy ways. They expose team member actions that seek to exalt their intellect by humiliating a colleague in a meeting or through email with discretion but integral leadership guidance.

Strong leaders may have to offer up intellectual task lords in meetings and direct them to re-explain their discussion points. A leader can do this by graciously inviting the whole team to an open discussion on the bully’s statements. When you facilitate the discussion properly, the bully can have an opportunity to rethink their statements. They can be taught to synthesize the conversation with the team for healthy buy-in. High-performing teams can move into misdirected behavior if it’s not monitored by its’ leader.

Empathetic “human-focused” leaders bring thoughts or insinuations to the surface that others are “less smart” by giving other team members an opportunity to: (a) contribute, (b) create a plan + (c) receive the proper resources they need to lead.

The strong leader also remembers that the intellectual bully has area(s) of insecurity that need an empathetic response. Here is where servant leadership shines. A servant leader knows how to balance two opposing emotional dynamics to produce a win-win for the team + company while managing the social external atmosphere of the team’s playground. Bravo!

4.    Reassess Team + Company Core Values.

The strong leader will use discussion opportunities to have their team do a sort of “check-in” with their personal values and determine if they are aligned with the team + its company values. I admit this is a team management Rubik’s cube but an essential periodic check-in will expose gaps that are slowing down work output and productivity. This oversight can ultimately weaken team building.

Here are some points for the team leader to consider:

·       Observe the emotion sparked when an employee says its company’s name or the project they’re working on? Are they proud; frustrated; joyful; energized; cynical; skeptical? Which emotions are being modeled consistently throughout the company? Don’t include your c-suite team for this exercise. This activity will help you begin a team-building dialogue around the “affective” culture and values of the team.

Team work and under-or high performance behaviors are influenced by this culture. If one of your company’s objective’s is to deliver excellent customer service, your team’s affected level of satisfaction or burnout will determine how creative, engaged + brilliantly decisive they are to accomplish that deliverable. It will also show if there’s a gap in the company’s expressed value to care about communities and the environment.

Do not neglect the emotional culture in your role as a leader. Leaders shouldn’t shy away from recognizing the emotional values of the company + team.

·       Can you adequately describe your company + team’s cognitive culture? How many changes in work systems have occurred within your company over the last three years? C’mon… gone are the days when you can say, “We’ve been doing it this way for years and its working fine.” Were the system changes an overhaul or a minor removal of steps-to-task completion? How agile + responsive is your team + company with system changes? Who usually initiates the system changes? Different or same team members? Are team collaborative approaches and individual safety efforts to speak up transparently lived-out in your daily work situations? Tell me about your performance management system? Has it been overhauled or given minor tweaks to account for company transparency and culture/team/company value alignment?

You get my point. A transformational leader strengthens team building by rightly aligning culture values to team values, which should ultimately align with company values.

Your personal values can be fleshed out when you “tweak” the next opportunity to upgrade the company’s performance management system. By strengthening your team building activities, you will ensure your leadership mission to maintain an open, supportive work environment.

Take the steps to strengthen team building and Start living your Life today!

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