Mother Goose Knows Teamwork
During COVID, while I made a quilt, my friend and leadership consultant Barry Wishner and his wife Barbara wrote the book The Humpty Dumpty Solution! Off-the-wall Leadership and Life Lessons from Mother Goose. This book weaves insights from Barry’s interviews with Fortune 500 CEOs and the leadership wisdom in more than a dozen nursery rhymes ranging from Humpty Dumpty (get up and try again) to Little Miss Muffet (be fearless). Today I share Jack Sprat:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so, between the two of them,
They licked the platter clean!
The business lesson? Magic happens and the job gets done when team members, with different strengths and skillsets respect each other and work together. Check your team culture with the following teambuilding tips offered by the Wishners and Mother Goose:
1. Winning teams work together with a single purpose.
Everyone knows and supports the team vision – in our world that typically means to successfully deliver a fabulous project that will delight the end users. Just like the “clean-plate club” in the Spratt household, success means that we recognize the special talents and roles of our full team, delegate responsibility for every task and each do what we say we will do. A fully aligned team can do the impossible together.
The San Andreas Reservoir Road Replacement project team agreed in their kick-off partnering session to beat the odds and complete the roadway stabilization project in one season instead of two. With the commitment from the full team, they solved each of the inevitable construction problems quickly and finished the major work before the wet weather, a full 378 days before the contract completion date!
2. Winning teams have fun together.
Remember the house on the block where all the neighborhood kids wanted to hang out? Winning teams create a culture that rivals that environment. Members join voluntarily and share their toys. Team members integrate work and play in big and little ways throughout the project.
The San Quentin Rehabilitation Center team has a kudos wall just inside the jobsite trailer that includes selfies of workers in their off time (skiing anyone?) and the team recently ended a partnering session with a barbeque and a mystery/clue room.
3. Winning teams act together as one.
People work in unison to create and implement the plan. Winning teams live a “project first” culture that prioritizes decision-making based on what is best for the project, not what is best for a single organization or person.
The Chipps Island Tidal Habitat Restoration Project worked together to achieve the significant milestone of securing levee breaches during the seasonal work window needed for interior channel excavation work to continue during the winter, positioning the owner for the targeted federal and state mitigation credits. This accomplishment required collaboration, compromise, and creativity by all team members and stakeholders, including the permitting agencies.
4. Winning teams create a positive culture of respect and acceptance.
Winning teams are respectful to each other and value personal relationships. People get to know each other as people, understanding their passions and priorities in and out of the workplace. The safe environment encourages everyone to share opinions and engage in productive debate. The team expects to occasionally have hard discussions and tolerates no silent disagreements.
The Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Building 2 Chillers, Boilers and Cooling Tower Project team embraced this concept when they established a team goal of “Positive Outlook – We will look for the positive perspective in situations, be optimistic and enjoy our work.” They have laid a great, positive foundation for their team culture. In fact, this team avoided the typical goals of cost, schedule, budget, and quality because they said “of course we are all committed to those!” Their goals established culture and included patient safety, giving back to the community, proactive communication, personal accountability, long-term relationships, and teambuilding.
5. Winning teams trust each other.
The most highly successful teams have high trust. They know that honesty is essential, as is timely sharing of critical information. Trust typically includes knowing that someone else has your back. It always requires that you do what you say you will do, when you say you will do it. (Broken promises, especially those without full disclosure of the “why” erode trust.) High-trust teams discuss expectations to verify alignment of desired outcomes and processes.
The Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project team deliberately created a high-trust environment when they established a shared risk allowance for potential cost impacts. The team developed a detailed, delegated process to resolve 420 shared risk items – 40 percent without commercial implication and the remaining items within the allowance. This outcome relied on high trust and mutual, fair assessment and negotiation of the merit, cost, and schedule impacts of the construction challenges.
Your call to action:
- Talk about these five factors in your next progress meeting. Be open to a candid discussion.
- Identify areas where your team excels. Thank them for it!
- Discuss areas where your team could improve. Make agreements to improve.
- Be ready for small improvements to make a big impact!
~ Cinda
Cinda Bond, MIPI, has been an OrgMetrics partnering facilitator for more than 10 years. She has facilitated more than 500 sessions for teams throughout the country. She also collaborates with engineering and construction teams to develop large documents containing hundreds of pages for construction contracts and proposals.
For more information please contact Cinda Bond, CindaBond@Orgmet.com / (925)640-9007 (cell), or OrgMetrics RobReaugh@Orgmet.com / (925)449-8300