February 12, 2015- ISSN# 1545-2646
Building Team Chemistry
High performing teams have the make up of various resources. They have a variety of skills, competencies, behaviors, success driver, attitudes and on and on. When these elements are brought together on a common mission, lots of great things can happen. But it requires more than just items which are measured by assessments, skill tests and other forms of evaluating performance and progress.
Just like if you mix two chemicals together which by themselves perform certain specific functions you get either something that is better or potentially a resulting mixture which is poisonous. This is like mixing bleach and ammonia, independently they serve certain purposes as cleaning agents. When mixed together it is a deadly gas which will kill living organisms which ingest the vapors.
On teams, we see people coming together, which by themselves are top performers. You look at their skills and think wow this is a real power team. Then once they are on the same side, a reaction happens and what was originally a great plan has turned into dealing with a toxic mixture. Even more challenging, no one wants to admit, there is a problem or deal with it quickly enough. It tends to fester hoping it will work itself out in time. More often than not, the lack of dealing with it only heats up the chemical imbalance of the players and eventually something erupts causing lengthy setbacks on the progress of the project or goal being worked on.
This week take a look at the groups of people in your business which work closely together. They may not be a formal team with a name and functional designation but they are dependent on each other for some level of performance or success. Are these teams creating better results or is there some toxic gas being slowly produced?
When you think about team chemistry, it is a very delicate process to mix the right people together. When you look at sports teams, you can have a large financial budget and buy lots of top talent for the team. Unfortunately they still don’t win the big game because there is not chemistry amongst the players.
On other teams with less perceived talent, they win games not because they work well together but it goes well beyond that to a high degree of individual chemistry working collectively for the better result or applied power.
When forming teams for specific projects, look not only at the skills, attitudes, behaviors and other factors but look at how those items can gel together into a potent chemical reaction call success.
Curious about the chemistry of your business teams? Give JKL Associates a call at (313) 527-7945 to ask how we can bring our special mixture to your business.
Questions or comments – email us at partners@jklassociates.com or call our Office at (313) 527-7945
Copyright – JKL Associates 2015
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