Who Wins?
How well do your teams work together? Are your people focused on the same goals or, like most groups, does a bit of personal or hidden agenda creep into their team dynamics and create dysfunction?
We just had the culmination of the American Football season with the Superbowl where – on the basis of the final score – the Pittsburgh Steelers had better individual play and teamwork than the Arizona Cardinals.
One might argue that individual players on one team are better than their counterparts on the other team – I’m not going to get into that debate. But regardless of how good the individual players may be, when the clock ran out one team won.
Football, Bees, and… Appliances?
Is your team working together like a championship team?
Here’s a different question: Is your team working like a swarm of bees?
Bees? “What’s that all about, Scott?” you might be asking.
Have you ever thought about why all the bees aren’t out at the same time (don’t they have sleep cycles too…)? Or why they don’t all go to the same place? Seems like they have a pretty good idea of what needs to get done, which bees are responsible for which tasks, when to do them, and making it happen. Bees!
How about this: Appliance Units.
I know, now you’re thinking I’ve really lost it. Check out this article from Technology Review, “Managing Energy with Swarm Logic.” Seems someone has come up with a way to better manage energy consumption to limit spike/peak energy demand.
“A startup based in Toronto says that it has come up with a way to reduce energy use by mimicking the self-organizing behavior of bees. REGEN Energy has developed a wireless controller that connects to the control box on a piece of building equipment and functions as a smart power switch. Once several controllers have been activated, they detect each other using a networking standard called ZigBee and begin negotiating the best times to turn equipment on and off. The devices learn the power cycles of each appliance and reconfigure them to maximize collective efficiency.”
Supporting Data
External competition is different than [tag]internal competition[/tag]. When your team members are competing against each other for [tag]recognition[/tag], pay, customers, accounts your business can suffer. When your team members compete with each other for customers or accounts, and receive recognition and pay for those efforts, they get lined up more effectively.
- Creating individual goals is necessary; ensuring those goals don’t conflict is critical.
- Creating individual rewards is necessary; ensuring those rewards acknowledge individual and team effort is critical.
To use the tired example of the used car sales – how many times have you approached a car lot, only to have two or three sales people start approaching you. Personally, I hate that.
Do you realize that the odds of the first salesperson to approach me being a good fit – and therefore building a good [tag]customer relationship[/tag] with me – are pretty low. But the salesperson who approaches me may be a great fit for you.
Why not focus your people on who will build the best relationship. I know, you can’t tell that when I’m driving up; but you can start to get a good idea after the first few minutes of conversation. Then, learning how, and making, a solid transition will do more to keep me as a potential customer than a poor-fitting relationship where the sales person is focused on their need (to sell a car) versus on my need. Or better yet, on your need – to gain a customer! I will go somewhere else; I have gone somewhere else.
(By the way, this may mean you learn you need different people overall. Read this post to learn more about that.)
Business Impact
Keep your team focused on the overall goal – making your business profitable – and reward them for doing their part individually, and collectively.
Internal competition will drain your resources
- think “require extra power for appliances, which costs more”;
- think “too many bees in one place and not enough nectar”;
- think “a Superbowl team which has proven themselves, but just can’t get all the pieces together.”
External competition with internal goals and rewards will balance your efforts and resources
- think “balanced coverage of energy and satisfied customers”;
- think “complete coverage of the market and optimal intake (income)”;
- think “a Superbowl team which puts all the pieces together enough so everyone wins regardless of which position they play, how many minutes they play, or how many points they score.”
Conclusion
Oh, by the way, while the bees all probably do get the same reward, the appliances don’t all use the same amount of energy. And, I’m certain the players on the Superbowl team aren’t all compensated the same, nor receive the same ‘reward’ after winning the game.
You can still differentiate based on contribution.
Workforce Expertise:
To win in the marketplace is similar to winning in team sports – and every business with more than one person is in a team sport.
- Be clear on the organization goals – more than just be profitable. Be specific about market, market share, types of clients/customers, etc. Make sure everyone knows and understands these goals.
- Be clear on roles and responsibilities (I know, sounds like old news, but think of it as focusing on the basics of blocking and tackling)
- Be clear that people will be rewarded for meeting their individual responsibilities, but the primary drivers are the organization goals, and people will be rewarded for those being met.
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