Team Building & Team Spirit At Times Of Crisis

Overview

If you treat people like human beings first and workers second yours shall be the reaches

Team Building & team spirit are critical to the success of any business, especially as we emerge to a post-pandemic world, to what could be a renaissance of leadership.

 

It is the power of the many aligned together as opposed to the weakness of the many divided, pulling in different directions. A group of people working together is not a team. Team-building is a strategy

Team Building is the most important performance efficiency parameter there is, bar none! It needs unity at its core, which is an energy, a spark that passes between people.

A greater purpose is like a magnet to people, without which there’s no lasting glue.

When a group of people decides to be a team they take collective responsibility and are united by a greater purpose, which is far more powerful than their own personal gain and what they can do on their own.

It is an entirely different level of performance very rarely experienced. Most people don’t know what they are missing!

What we see today, in the absence of team building and team spirit is distrust, division, and toxicity, which prevents personal and collective excellence.

Personal Account of What Team Building Is about

TEAM is first and foremost a state of mind which says that I am added to by the presence of my team! That state of mind recognizes the value of other people, as people first and workers second.

My life experience as a team leader in the military and professional sports had taught me lasting life lessons about the importance of having a cohesive team around me as a leader and as a team member.

It highlighted ever so clearly the difference between “Alone” and “Together”, which i am sure you, the reader can attest to.

Feeling that special team spirit made a difference every time and directly contributed to very meaningful results.

Over the years I have conducted many strategic team-building training anI saw the hope it inspired in people to be able to BELONG to a situation that had “their back”.

It is far more than a job for me to pass this “team spirit” signal to others because without it we are all not going very far.

Team Building Principles

From my own life experience I can attest without a doubt to the following team-building principles that  enabled the cohesiveness of the team:

A. There was a greater purpose that united us…this repeats as the final principle.

B. We learned to trust each other by being brutally honest about our own weaknesses and not minding our vulnerabilities, which enabled us to deal human to human.

C. We each took personal ownership about being part of a living, thriving, dynamic team, which meant that we communicated honestly our views, not shying away from disagreements.

On the contrary, embracing ideological disagreements but not falling into the trap of turning them into personal conflicts or personal character attacks or attacks on people’s motives.

D. We were accountable and stood behind our words, promises, and intentions.

E. We were committed to the success of the team which meant that we put the team first and our own personal likes or dislikes second. This meant holding ourselves accountable, and from that, holding each other accountable to our responsibilities.

E. We never took our eyes off the greater purpose and the result we were after, which guaranteed our unity and the forever presence of the big picture.

It’s a strategy that yields many fruits the least of which is financial success. There are many others that cannot be  measured financially as it deals with aspects like joy and happiness of being together

It certainly wasn’t a touchy-feely thing as leaders who lack the skills of emotional intelligence, like to describe. what team building is. At best they relegate team building to the occasional office outing, which obviously is not the case.

Team building is far too unique and complex to be treated so dismissively.

Unfortunately, many leaders are dismissive of what real team building is about because they are afraid to dive into an unknown dynamic which they have not trained for.

They fear it because it takes firstly the willingness of the leader to be a vulnerable human, not minding showing and owning up to weaknesses. This naturally terrifies the egotistical leader, which doesn’t want to be seen as not to be in control. (This is the very thing that builds trust in a team).

Owning your weaknesses as a leader is a strength, a great strength, that shows you are confident enough in who you are & not minding exposing your imperfections.

Since when hiding weaknesses is a sign of strong leadership? Where did such stupidity arise from?

Team spirit needs the kind of leadership that leads by example, the kind of leadership that demonstrates team spirit in the way it leads.

Team building is a human business success strategy, first and foremost, and it needs its place at the forefront of leadership consideration, especially at these times of crisis when the world seems to have turned upside down and most leaders screwed up big time.

This Corona event is a testimony of the level of leadership today, which is obviously clueless about how to deal with the unknown and have no team spirit as a fallback.

Teams solve problems that egotistical individuals can’t!

Times of Crisis Is When Team Building is Most Needed

We, the human race are now paying the price for the dismissive attitude that exists everywhere about the significance of team building and the power of team spirit.

Let’s face it when you are facing a challenge or a crisis such as we all faced and are still facing with the Corona we need to come together rather than divide, which is the job of the leader to do.

As a leader, you need to know people, feel them, ask great questions, know how to encourage and align, and be an example to others.

I will put to you, in no uncertain terms, that if team building and team spirit were taken seriously by the leadership of companies, organizations, governments, schools, academic institutions, and FAMILIES, we would have been by now way ahead in our struggles to manage the Coronavirus.

Real team spirit does not allow Egos to control, or Politics to “divide & conquer”, as these are the very divisive antithesis aspects to team building, which is exactly what happened as a response to the appearance of the Coronavirus.

Where there are team building and team spirit there’s Trust, Empathy, Communication, Accountability, Unity & focus on the greater purpose that aligns… and all the things that are absent today.

Some would call me naive…perhaps…but I am a professional that knows that INNER SOUL of team building from years and years of training, all over the world, and I will tell you that most people have no idea what true team spirit can do.

Many leaders make decisions that are seriously flawed because they don’t have real team building fundamentals that they use as a strategy of strength and togetherness.

I have no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that had the current world leadership taken team building and team spirit seriously we would have been today at 70%-80% out of the woods where the pandemic consequences are concerned. Before a vaccine or any other remedy. Just by good common sense management.

Think about it. We were asked to keep 6 ft apart, put a mask on, and wash our hands frequently. That’s it!

Look what such a minute request did. People are going crazy because it threw them “off” their comfort zone. They were not asked to not eat or drink or sleep or stand on their head for an hour a day.

So here is the deal. If people felt they are part of a team, whether at work, in school, in government they would trust and commit. No question. Not all, but enough to tilt the direction towards a lasting resolution.

Instead, it was politicized, which means For and Against groups of people formed up. It was touted as infringing on liberties and basically here in the US it has been a royal mess that did not need to be…even to a point where we have now a new term called “being pro or anti-mask” – can you believe it? Perhaps you can, depends on your mindset.

To me, this is beyond bizarre!

This crisis could have been handled at a totally different level if team building had been taken seriously and not used for political purposes.

What Is Team Spirit?

Team spirit is a spark that can be evident in the team members and their willingness to own up to everything that they are doing.

It’s a motivating power that is easily detectable through their positive attitude and willingness to go the extra mile.

Team spirit is a childlike quality (not childish) that is irresistible and attractive to be around, and most importantly it affects the thinking by opening to the big picture and to solutions that hide when the attitude is negative.

I am saying that there is a direct correlation between positive emotions, spirited disposition, the ability to think out of the box and be part of a cohesive team

When team spirit is present its impact on organizational success is to elevate the level of trust and positivity to a point where there are minimal conflicts, backbiting, and negativity.

This is not talking about perfection but it is talking about unity as a much greater element and impact than negativity and division.

Team spirit is what makes an organization healthy, and that level of health is the bedrock of being a smart organization with financial success.

The main motivating power for employee productivity and personal effectiveness is the feeling of BELONGING, of being part of a team, which is imbued with team spirit, not money as is a common perception.

It is a spark that comes out of the knowledge that you are a part of a collective endeavor, that you have a safety net, your back is covered, and you are valued.

This sense of belonging is the spark of team spirit!

Togetherness has a magic about it that cannot be quantified.

 

The Impact of The Absence of Team Spirit

 

Unfortunately, the truth about team spirit & team building today is that it is mostly absent, which in turn gives rise to multiple organizational problems, division, and very low productivity.

In its absence, the workplace performs on a mediocre level where people do just what they are supposed to. You know the feeling, don’t you?

Furthermore, the workplace tends to be inundated with personal conflicts, feelings of insecurity, a disconnection between management and workers, leadership and workforce, and a disconnect between the people who just work together.

All contributing to a “cancel culture” of suspicion, ostracism, where lack of trust and belief prevails. You all know first hand what is being described here because this is everywhere, It’s The cancer of the 21st century.

 

Top Line Vs. Bottom Line In Team Building

The proverbial Bottom Line of survival today is money. It is what every organization and every individual seeks, ponders, worries about contemplates meditates on, lives for.

The bottom line is to do with the smarts of the organization which we know as marketing, spreadsheets, strategy, data, policies, and so on.

What is often not understood is that there is also a top line, and the Bottom Line is dependent on & connected to the Top Line.

The Top Line of the organization is the health of the organization, its values, well-being, team building, and team spirit in particular.

The top line of leadership is directly connected to the character of the leader, their people skills, their emotional intelligence, and their appreciation and empathy capacity to the people in their care.

The more moral characteristics a leader possesses the higher the top line goes and the more it will propel the bottom line higher.

It is the top line that will determine the scope and durability of the bottom line, not the other way around.

The bottom line of team building is that it works and achieves great results. However, it too has a top line, which is the following parameters:

1. Purpose as a unifier
2. Trust
3. Personal and collective ownership
4. Accountability
5. Commitment
6. Collective alignment to the greater purpose

More In-depth Explanation

Imagine in your mind two horizontal lines that are connected with a vertical line.

The Top Line of health and well being has the power to pull the bottom line of hard skills upwards when it goes upward, which means greater productivity and greater profits.

However, if there is no top line the bottom line is heavy and it pulls the whole organization down in terms of morale and productivity.

In most organizations, there’s very little attention given to the topline considerations, which can cause an ever-increasing disconnect from the bottom line.

At some point, the line snaps, and organizations go under because results without team building foundations are not sustainable long term.

That’s where team building and team spirit come in. They connect between the bottom and top line in the organization.

It is when employees stand shoulder-to-shoulder, workers and management alike,  sharing a common purpose, all facing the same direction, instead of facing each other with conflicting agendas.

There’s great power in togetherness, far more than commonly understood, which most employees, unfortunately never experienced.

The Top Line Strategy

The Top Line strategy introduces a system that is based on value and trust, whereby workers are treated as capable and responsible humans, and not as a commodity as is the unfortunate case on many occasions.

The main ingredient in top-line strategy is of course team building and team spirit as they are the most important aspects of a healthy organization.

The top line introduces a new corporate culture where:

• Leadership character training and soft skill training is part of ongoing practice
• Team-building training is a regular practice of the organization
• A higher level of strategic communication is high on the organizational agenda
• A 2 to 1 feedback strategy is mastered
• New Performance information tools are sought after
• A soft skill training program that ensures organizational health have a prime importance
• A think tank decision-making methods are trained for
• Emotional intelligence is of prime importance to the organization

The top line ensures the elements of unity, alignment, and a sense of togetherness that make people feel they truly have a second family and a second home.

Workers that feel appreciated will naturally reciprocate, which will make them tap into the power of positive thinking, which is a great strategy for personal and collective effectiveness.

The way it is achieved is by working in unison with top management, mid-management, and the employee base to build a new system, which is the only system that will endure these times of instability.

Team Building for Millennials and Generation Z

Can It Be Different? Yes, Of Course, It Can!

It requires, however, a paradigm shift in thinking and a different attitude about team spirit and team building.

The truth is, that without togetherness and team leadership skills, the organization will eventually whither and, in many cases disappear…And that’s a fact, not a perception.

Especially with millennials and generation Z who are extremely intelligent in technology but often lacking in qualitative leadership.

These generations thrive on teamwork and collaboration much more than previous generations. They can also buy into it much easier if the leadership is authentic. And that’s a big IF.

The new generations need base-support of emotional intelligence that makes them feel together.

This is the paradigm shift that happened and is still happening with the younger generations. They have the Smarts, they need the home feeling and the belonging feeling and the appreciation feeling.

It’s all about togetherness. They need the top line characteristics more than previous generations and the kind of leadership that leads by example…character example!

Investing In Team Building

This is where a smart organization spends on its health which will be the best ROI .

Spending thousands and making millions.

I mean it! It takes time to measure because it is not an instant result. But once it catches you see how it transforms organizations. I have many examples to show for.

It is ongoing training that should never stop especially at times of crisis. I would say to leaders in these challenging times to cut on expenses everywhere they can but invest as much as possible in team-building training.

Things happen which we don’t expect, like the Coronavirus that seemingly came from nowhere. They are called Black Swans.

Black Swans can be managed and handled when cool heads and cool emotions prevail, which is one of the symptoms of teamwork. The ability to think strategically at times of crisis is key and it can be best done within the confinements of a cohesive team.

Unless an organization has team thinking and team spirit every crisis will throw it off course with far greater devastating results than ought to have been.

During this COVID19 crisis, I clearly see the difference between healthy and unhealthy organizations and the difference is how much they invested in team building and the kind of team spirit they foster.

Everyone is scrambling to adapt, and very often, the common chosen strategy to deal with change and a Black Swan situation is to revert back to old ways of thinking and make cuts on women’s and men’s power.

This very often affects the health of the organization adversely on a long term basis.

When team building is high on the organizational agenda the Long Term considerations of any decision are the most important.

As you are now aware this is a Top Line consideration.

Companies that are concerned more with the bottom line are more short-term oriented (unbeknownst to them).

They tend to invest more and more in hard skills while ignoring the obvious need for Soft Skills for the workplace, in which team building ranks very high.

Corporations and organizations focus only on short-term solutions, instead of long-term, when in fact, it’s the long-term considerations that achieve long-lasting results, and can truly be called Result Oriented.

Short term thinking IS NOT result oriented. The long term should always lead!

The concept of being “result-oriented” has to be understood in-depth as it is the most important parameter, and it depends on the health of the organization before anything else!

Team-building training, as mentioned, has the best ROI for your organization as it propels the top line upwards pulling up the bottom line of profits & earnings.

Perceptions must change to reflect that reality. Often the perception is what decides in the decision-making process, regardless of the facts, and if you are a leader or human resource consultant you need to overcome the wrong perceptions and go with what the facts tell you.

The facts are that lack of soft skills in the workplace account for 90% of firing while 10% account for lack of hard skills. Yet companies invest 90% in hard skills training and 10% on soft skills training.

This fact hides in the open, clouded by old perceptions that obstruct the truth.

The Thinking Coach Training

The Employee Training Development and Leadership Training courses, conducted by The Thinking Coach, The Life Coach For The Pros, focus on a sound team-building strategy of building a cohesive team, which demonstrates what a team spirit can do.

It brings companies to a level of organizational health that establishes a sound topline which connects to the bottom line and the company’s smarts in a way that establishes a paradigm shift in thinking and attitude of a new and vibrant organizational culture.

And…It Makes More Money!

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™