Remember Successories? Every mall in America had a kiosk with key chains, paperweights, notepads, employee gifts and their famed, framed motivational posters. More likely than not your office or had one or more hanging on the wall: Excellence, Attitude, Be the Bridge and so on.
My friend, and colleague, who we will call Christopher, is not a huge fan of the products, but that is another topic. I love the stuff, and still have my ‘Make It Happen’ hanging in my home office (where he can’t see it on Zoom calls) but we mutually agree that for most organizations they are just words on the wall and weak attempt at some self-help that never takes hold.
One poster is Teamwork. You know well - a golden hued picture of a crew team rowing at sunrise across a perfect, glassy top body of water, above the quote: Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
Sorry, but this one falls way short for me. I am a team guy. A coach, teacher, born and bred on “we before me” and a “team first” mentality, but this one is off course.
As a leader of an organization, department, or team, you can throw your employees in a boat and direct them down river and it won’t take them long to figure out that if they pull together, they will move the boat and eventually get to the finish line. But teamwork is not the fuel for achievement.
Teamwork is the engine. The fuel is a concoction of encouragement, support, empowerment, clarity, communication and understanding that powers the team. High performance engines require high octane fuel and fine tuning. The same goes for high performance teams.
Teamwork alone might get things done, but teams that are purposely built, coached, and trained are the ones that achieve uncommon results.
We are all a part of teams that are rowing. But when you are not in synch and pulling perfectly together, it is exhausting and frustrating. You can tell you are moving, but you are getting nowhere fast, and your competition finishes ten lengths ahead of you, every time.
When you focus on optimizing your team and fueling them properly, you elevate to an entirely new level. Your organization finds its rhythm and work becomes fun, exciting, and fulfilling for everyone.
That said, if you have any of those old Successories posters sitting in storage or hanging in the spare office, do not throw them out. Especially “Teamwork.” Send them to me and be sure to catch my next post and I will share how to energize your team. If you want to have some fun my friend Christopher, visit www.successories.com (yes, they are still around) to pick up some oldies but goodies and be sure to send me some pics of your favorites.
