Whole Care Network → 08 Podcast: Creating A Cohesive Team

are you suffering from staff turnover too many lost business opportunities is your reputation at risk if so you know your workplace culture needs Improvement but determining how to do so and where to start is about as fun and effective as trying to assemble a puzzle with no picture to guide you culture change in a box is a show that takes you on a compelling Deep dive into an effective real-time culture change process so you can begin to feel hopeful and re-energized about your business and now here are your hosts for culture change in a box Chris mclen and Judy Ryan well greetings everyone it is Chris mclen the bow tie guy with my good friend Judy Ryan from Life work systems I get that right most of the time don’t I always do I’m always kind of away because because I want to you I want to do the Life Works plural I know and you’ll hear it because all these clips we have of clients that they keep calling this life work it’s life work it does make life work and you know you got a cool logo thanks so when people go to your we website Lifeworks systems.com you see this really cool logo it’s kind of like the silhouette a little star Little Star person staying and you know today’s topic we’re going to be about teamwork and we just experienced some Teamwork because we’ve been working with our files here and sharing sharing and you just took my you took my teamwork you took my teamwork away we just share I went up and got chocolate and I said I I can’t have chocolate by myself I have to share some with with Judy as we get ready to do the podcast and sure enough that’s that’s a that’s one of our examples of Team read each other’s mind well we you know as we as we’re starting to do on our shows now you’ve got some terrific examples from clients that you’re working out in the field with right now and we we’re going to start the show off a little bit differently uh today we’re going to we’re going to play a clip and we’re going to come back and talk about the concept of teamwork and why it’s so important okay okay the process improved the relationship with my colleagues in a very very big way in a very unexpected way a PE of mine and I did not get along well and it was kind of under the covers and it was kind of not out in the open but when we sat down and actually went through the process and got it out we’ve come out of it as very very strong team members and this person is probably the person I trust the most is a a huge team member and we just get each other in ways that we didn’t before it I mean it was beyond anything I could have imagined under the covers yes I know that sounds like a redirecting negative behavior thought wait a minute we teamwork here but but talk a little bit about that cuz it it really was a good example um what’s so great about that example is how misunderstood the whole situation was like the reason it resolved fairly quickly is because they both had made a lot of assumptions they both um felt so stuck where they were with each other and one of them the woman that you just heard said she would take a bullet for him now so it was a quick turnaround which I think hopefully gives our listeners hope because so many times we have a situation or a relationship and we think there’s no way this situation could be resolved and those are the ones I love to hear oh my gosh I didn’t think you could turn that around so really what is most important to me is that when we work with clients we’re pretty selective about who we work with because to do the kind of work we ask people to do it requires a high level of Courage it requires uh pretty much in a way I know this is a squishy word but it’s it requires enough love that you get uncomfortable well I love the way you say that to use the same use love because you know what was coming to my mind was exposing yourself but that’s more of a negative but when we when we do this out of concept of of love care and commitment yes then I I I think broadens the path it’s it’s very difficult for people to do that because there’s an assumption I think that people believe everyone else has got this figured out and in reality most people don’t have it figured out and they’re trying to kind of fake their way through and it’s really a relief to sit down with somebody that says look you guys let me help you through this and then you’ll know how to do it and that’s what’s really happening with the clients who are courageous and willing and humble enough to take a look at the systems they’ve been operating out of and and be willing to look get them differently this particular example was a great example of how to move into a more authentic teamw work with somebody right cuz typically what we do is we stay stuck in what’s called pseudo Community which is being kind of fake and you know it’s not necessarily a bad stage but if we get stuck stuck there it’s very uncreative it’s hard to get out of something like that it can be because we especially depending on our temperament we can become very uncomfortable with anything that rocks the boat anything that sh takes up the piece a little so what happens is people often finally go to the next stage toward teamwork which is chaos where all of a sudden they start bumping into I’m right you’re wrong oh there’s a lot of that going on there’s a lot of that going on today I know most people can’t imagine how do we get past this sometimes it gets so difficult but the whole idea of it is I’m right you’re wrong and that is really a dynamic that’s hard for people to get out of because they think they have to fix convert heal or change other people so that they’re more like me I mean how crazy is that when you think about it um but what happens is if they learn the tools we teach them they move into a phase with each other where they stop trying to fix and change and convert each other and it’s incredible what starts to occur just by removing that control or that chaos with each other then people begin to create really helpful supportive and caring Solutions together and they’re not even pushing an agenda when they do so so that’s uh that’s kind of what happened with that group and what it really takes to be that kind of person to create teamwork is that you have to be able to recognize what’s going on in you and know whether or not you’re going to be helpful with what you do to exercise management of yourself self- awareness yes self-awareness and then management of yourself in the face of that awareness sometimes we have the awareness but we don’t want to manage anything about it I don’t want to manage I don’t want to manage myself can’t you do it exactly that’s why we want to fix control and convert everybody else because we want to manage them we don’t want to manage us right it’s much easier to take care of somebody else than yourself yeah so um hopefully these next next couple of examples will give us you know our listeners a little bit to think about that let’s jump right into one right now okay so this has really helped improve because I really had to learn what am I feeling and what do I want at the moment um if it’s in a relationship or if it’s even a project that I’m working on um it’s really helped me learned that and that’s helped me explain what am I feeling and what I want really to my um superiors to my peers and really talk things out so and really before it was hard because I didn’t know where I was I never really took that time um and once I really started feeling that we’ve been able to communicate better I believe this process has improved our relationship with my colleagues because we’re all more open with each other now we’re not afraid to talk to our manager and share our opinions on what work situations everything’s just a lot more open and friendly and trustworthy lot there’s a lot there I think what I love is uh that young man who said you know I again he’s very humble I think in order to learn and grow we have to be willing to be humble to say oh my gosh I didn’t even know my part in this and that’s really what it takes is courage it takes willingness to take a look and then that is that self-awareness and self-management one of the other things that we do to help people to get get along with each other in team is early on WE introduced them to a tool called the intrinsics color temperaments well I I I know the listeners are going to love this part of the show it’s really fun because it is a social intelligence tool where you become more conscious of how different we all really are it’s very similar to a Myers Briggs or a disc or an anagram one of those personality or temperament profiles what I love about the colors is they’re very easy to remember and I think in terms of the colors a lot in fact like there’s the they use four colors and I when I even learned about my own which is being a green it helped me understand why I think in terms of systems and how unusual that can be right so it gave me a sense of wow my gift has value to other people because it’s not super common really none of them are super common it’s especially in the combination of colors that we have but I’ll just give you a quick story I had a custom customer who said I can’t believe that you’re telling us we have to help each other feel lovable like that even almost insults me like she was just real put off by that and I said well I can understand why because you’re a green gold with a low low blue and a blue is the part of us that wants to focus on relationships and Harmony and all of that so to her she’s more intellectual she’s more systems and detail oriented and this whole idea of something as squishy as making someone feel lovable just repelled her well that’s really understandable when your value system is focused on something other than that so what I was able to do because I understood her colors is I was able to present a logical case for why it made sense I said imagine you send somebody into a room of people who inadvertently don’t welcome you warmly don’t smile at you forget to ask you your opinion and just kind of look over at you dumbfounded when you speak and you might interpret that as they don’t like me they don’t want to hear what I have to say they think I’m terrible when in reality they might be the same group who would otherwise say oh my gosh I’m so glad you’re here I’m so glad that you’re you’re letting us know what you think so our perception can be that I’m not lovable and they don’t want me here and I’m going to shut down so her understanding from a logical perspective why it makes sense to help people feel more relaxed and lovable and will enliven them to be creative and to offer Solutions and so once she understood it through her colors she could receive it like Oh yeah duh that oh goodness cuz colors are so visual yes they’re very Visual and relatable and when you and when you combine them with a a clear Theory like this it just it it it just so makes so much sense yes I mean I even think of you in colors Chris cuz you are are in my view you are a blue orange I’m not certain if we did the study on it but a blue orange is somebody that cares about relationships cares about Harmony cares about peace in the world all that good stuff but you’re also fun and free and you like being in the lie light you know like those are all very orange blue you do have a little bit of an ego I guess well you’re very expressive emotionally and I can come across it way cuz I have a lot of blue in me but anyway the point of it is that it gives you this quick instant ability to remember what matters to the other people around you so we’ve got a few people that have some conversations about the colors and what that has meant to them let’s play that one I had and have a very good relationship with my supervisor but uh the three people that I work with are all very different personalities and so um most of them being a very high blue and and emotions um it took work for me to get out of my gold and get into their blue but I can tell you um that I no longer make people cry because if they’re a blue I think about that before I speak to them instead of just going at them full gold um so it has made a difference and like I said I think that’s one of the things that impacted me the most was the colors and thinking about the person’s personality and those colors before speaking with them thinking that through practicing what it is I want to say and using structuring tools I believe that um I beat around the bush as a we we have the colors that we assign people and I can’t necessarily spend the time to Define them but I’m a blue I’m a people person so I would operate on trying to keep unity and everything nice and Kumbaya not that am afraid of being bold or confronting something but I think I felt like I was being straightforward in full disclosure when I really was taking the long way around as soon as I shortcut that actually it was easier and I still can be the nice person so that’s where it brought a lot of value and I think that transends not just work but every relationship you have whether it’s you know outside of here or just a one time you’re dealing with a Salesman any of those things being straightforward before disclosure became very important to me I was there very honest about things but I didn’t realize I was you know just kind of sliding into it rather than going straight to the point which actually is much more efficient life work systems helped me realize that there are different personality types and that there’s areas of improvement in effectively communicating with team members and that effective Communications has helped I believe Crea a more cohesive team within my team as well as with my supervisors and CIO so Judy I’m sitting here thinking and listening to the three examples that were just provided and I’m thinking about sometimes how difficult it is to bring a team together MH but if I had this color chart of what somebody’s personality yes might be yes or actually really is MHM how it it’s got to be easier to build a team it is when you have this knowledge it’s easier to bridge to other people for an example I’m a very low gold a gold person is invaluable they’re as good as gold they’re actually somebody who wants to make sure that there’s always security stability reliability but they tend to be super conventional and kind of rigid you know and I don’t blend well with that but I when I recognize them for the gift that they bring and I can help them to see that I appreciate them they return the favor so part of it is just my initial reaction if I’m with a high gold is to feel a little bit of a jarring as opposed to an easy flow with them right right but recognizing oh my gosh they must be really different from me because I don’t feel that instant connection that I feel with somebody that’s closer to my color combination so I don’t get as overwhelmed by that does that make sense it makes perfect sense I it it was just fascinating listening to the three examples and and then CU we I think we all learned when we try to put ourselves in the place of people that we’re we’re um dealing with is the word that’s coming to my mind but it’s not a very it’s not a very polite word but it when we can meet people halfway and have an understanding yeah I mean it just it just helps Foster the team I love how that woman said a little earlier she stopped making people cry yeah because she thought why are they crying for gosh sakes you know so I do think that one thing that uh is really important remember is that no matter what your colors no matter what your knowledge or lack of um part of this work just requires that you be willing every day to be a little uncomfortable like to put yourself in a stretch and in in Reverse of that it helps uh it it it helps alleviate some of the discomfort it it absolutely does but you have to kind of go through it you got to go through it you just can’t peek around the corner yeah yeah so we try to get people in the habit of moving toward the disc comfort you know in a in a fairly comfortable way but here’s a good example of that very thing let’s uh let’s let’s get to your next uh client here with my colleagues it’s been pretty good but it could have been better and Life Works has given us that we communicate now better than we ever had before there’s no tension in the past you would find tension among our group uh and others because we weren’t saying what was on our mind now we do if there’s an issue and I I hesitate to just say issue if there’s a negative thing or a positive thing we’re more apt to talk about it now to give each other compliments as well as to talk about something that might not be going right and because of that our relation relationships are are greatly improved so the most challenging um part of life works for me was letting go of my passive Behavior so I am the type of person who just absolutely hates conflict so I do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings I don’t want to rock the boat um but during the course of Life works I’ve learned that that really causes more damage than it does good and and it’s more so damaging me as well as a relationship so um I have learned to be more open honest and upfront with people um and really uh just Express what I want how I feel and it uh it allows people to trust you more because you’re more authentic um so I love how she says I didn’t want to rack the bat but that it actually caused more trouble that she was taking such care that I I always teach our clients sometimes you can be so nice you’re mean and they really they really are starting to get the truth of that that playing it safe is not always truly nice it’s self-protective is what it is and so you don’t have to be mean to be authentic and that’s what they’re learning through the discomfort you know there’s a a phrase that I often like to use and I I think it applies here but you’re the expert so you’ll tell me um we don’t have secrets secrets of us H and when I think about what what a couple of your clients were saying it’s kind of like you know if I’ve got to feel comfortable in order to approach somebody and the the more I keep it to myself the bigger the issue yes so the secret has you because you’re thinking you have to be comfortable first right one of my favorite lines in a movie is um I didn’t love you enough to risk losing you see when we really care about people we’re willing to be authentic and risk the fact that they may turn away from us and and what what we’re most afraid of is that they’re not going to like who we are and in reality if we do it authentically we are going to be fine but we’re so afraid of that why do you think people are just unaware of their own behavior I think we’ve been conditioned to be desensitized to it I think that we’ve been taught um stop crying don’t feel that way don’t take time for this play it safe we even have beliefs like I have to be safe in order to be myself and in reality um we’re only safe if we’re safe with oursel if we know who we are and we’re confident in who we are and we have our core intact then just about what anybody else does really doesn’t have that much sure we’ve got a couple of more examples we want to we want to play today okay so a coworker of mine called me over to her desk to show me something and before she can get through her entire statement of what she wanted to tell me and show me I interrupted her and went into my own observation of course the conversation did not end on a good note we both were a little frustrated at the end of it so then later on I used the tool of healthy venting and I kind of talk through the situation with someone and when I did that I was able to realize that I wasn’t being really receptive and respectful of her and what she was trying to show me and using that tool because healthy venting is not about what anybody did wrong is about understanding the situation so that I can move forward and and have a good relationship with my coworker so then I was able to work through that process and then talk to her and get on better terms so what I really love about that last clip was how humble she was to say oh my gosh I went and got help and I recognized that I wasn’t being receptive and respectful and that’s a great example of what we were just talking about how easy it is to become unaware that we just turn another person into an object for our purposes right it’s very easy to forget that they have their own aspirations their own ideas their own opinions that they’re sharing outbound and we’re not receiving those um just because we’re simply asleep to the fact that they’re sending and we’re to be receiving in that moment does it happen sometimes when you know people are so uh intent on getting their own opinion or ception yes I’m I’m you’re presenting me with with a with a work rated issue and then I’m interjecting immediately before before you even have a chance to finish yes we call that a lack of social interest that means that we don’t even recognize what is this person sending to us and what are we sending back to them and what is that causing for them so um it really requires that people be open and vulnerable to see when they do that without a lot of judgment I can see how important that would be yeah so we’ve got a couple more Clips okay okay what was most challenging for me is opening up be able to share in order to kind of verbalize it in front of your co-workers I think it’s a challenge so just I don’t know if I ever overcome it completely but I just think that seeing other people taking the plunge and being open is kind of let you know letting you let your guard down so this process has has improved um my relationship with my colleagues and my supervisor by dissolving this dividing line that we have um prior to Life Works where everybody was just in a different department now we are one cohesive team that works alongside each other um Life Works gave us all a common ground because we all come from different areas and we work on different projects but life works really allowed us to come together and work on one thing and and and it’s really self-improvement so we’re we’re all working to better ourselves and to better how we communicate with each other it is definitely made me feel like um my relationship with my supervisor we’ve just become closer um we know that we’re being authentic with each other we’re being very honest very true to each other um we definitely have a a much more I would say less of a hierarchy and more of a we’re we’re equal I think before life works you know there’s times when you have to have difficult conversations with your co-workers and I think before life work systems it was maybe from my perspective it was more difficult to have those conversations because I would stress about it and I didn’t know how to approach or bring things up and since I’ve had the tools and techniques that we’ve learned really enabled me to have not only a platform but an effective way to communicate issues and knowing that the other party that might be involved whether it’s my peers or employees or my supervisors that they’re speaking the same language and we’re on the same page and they understand whenever I’m coming to them and sharing a concern or going through a disclosure of something it’s just been super helpful to have a platform and tools to rely on it’s improved both work and at home because I’m in a more trusting and open environment then my work life is almost easier even if there is a situation where one of our Co a coworker in my and I walk away from a conversation and we’re frustrated I can easily work it out I can easily think through and get back to where we’re on a good page we have a good relationship and because everything at work is so much better it translates into home I’m not going home and talking about negative situations or not being happy and having a recap everything that’s happened throughout the day I can just go home and enjoy life with my family and my husband doesn’t have to hear bunch of stories oh my goodness you know what I was thinking of right when as that last lady was talking about the the when the real board meetings happen in the parking lot yes yes and and how much more fun it is to go home and be very present for your family CU you had a good day at work what I really wanted with those particular Clips is to just share how important it is to have mechanisms to break down barriers it is old school to think I can’t be a parent and be a friend I can’t be a boss and be a friend we had a one of the employees get promoted up through the ranks and she came to me and she said I guess I can’t be friends with my best friend on the team because I’m now her manager and I said I have good news for you you’re in a shared power personal responsibility model you can be friends no matter what roles you’re in you still have your responsibilities as an author figure but you would have those anyway to be trustworthy and to um guide her as best you can as long as you don’t violate anything that you’ve learned in this model you get to be friends in this model that’s one of the many benefits yes yes you can hear when they talk about the barriers breaking down that it feels like family and in some of the clips people are actually saying that this is more than a workplace this is a family and that’s what we want so as we get ready to to close this episode of culture change in a box and we’re focusing on teamwork and teams and we make pretty good te I like being on a team with you likewise and and it I’m trying to think of maybe one or two words maybe even three we can even stretch it why creating a c cohesive team is important makes life work like life work systems yeah it’s systems that make life work now I just want to know our listeners that wasn’t planned that just that just came very happy because we are creating a great team yes and we’re creating a world where people love their lives and they can love their lives when they’re in good relationships so let our listeners know where they can find all this great information about life work systems yes you can go to our website Lifeworks systems.com there’s also some great training on get mytraining specials.com or you can call us at 31423 n472 7 thank you have a great day I’m Chris mclen the B TI guy I’m creating a life to Love by being with awesome people like Judy Ryan culture Chang in a box is a part of the wholecare network check us out online at wholecare network.com we’ll see you real soon for another episode of culture change in a box bye-bye