Team motto. Take time to get the team together and challenge yourselves to come up with a good team motto. By ‘good’ you mean something that everyone will be proud to admit to! Keep it short and informative of the team ethos. Look at famous slogans for inspiration, such as Avis’s “We try Harder”, General Electric’s “Imagination at Work”; Barclays Bank’s “Fluid in Finance”, or the British SAS’s “Who Dares Wins”.
People like to be part of a team with a proper identity, so get them involved in creating that identity.
A team is a group of people all trying to achieve one common objective, but the objective may change year on year. You need a bigger, aspirational ‘vision’ that encompasses but goes beyond the annual target.
• A vision is the glue that binds the team together as each individual strives to achieve his or her personal goals.
• A vision is what keeps you all focused on the ‘big picture’ when difficulties may otherwise seem insurmountable.
• A vision is the fuel that motivates your people to achieve something that is truly challenging.
Depending on the ethos of the organization and the function of the team, your vision might range from the mercenary (“We are going to kill the competition”), through supportive (“We will be customers’ supplier of choice”) to the uplifting (“We will eradicate starvation”)!
Here are some real examples of organizational visions:
• Google. “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
• Microsoft (in the 1980s). “A personal computer in every home running Microsoft software.”
• Volunteer Reading Help. “Confident children; literate for life.”
Note that visions are future aspirations, not current descriptions. To create a vision ask yourself:
• What do we really, really want to achieve?
• What would make us feel really, really successful?
• What do we want to remember about this team when we are old?
• What could we do that would make us feel proud?
• What would people remember us for?
• What would make people want to erect a statue in our honour?
As you can see, ‘people’ in the last two questions could mean the citizens of your country, your children and grandchildren, your shareholders or customers. It will depend on the type of job you and your team do; commercial, public sector and medical teams will doubtless have different approaches, leading to different team visions.
You can undertake this exercise in isolation or you can get your team involved. Personally I’d recommend the latter; this way the team members contribute to a vision that they can genuinely believe in and support; otherwise it is your vision and not necessarily theirs.
Once everyone shares the vision then the values of the team, acceptable behaviours, appropriate goals and an atmosphere of mutual support follow.
A shared vision means you are all facing the same way on the road to your goal.
Ground rules should be set early to make it clear what behaviour is acceptable among members of the team, including you as the team leader. Depending on the circumstances, ground rules can also relate to other internal departments, customers, competitors, shareholders and so on.
It is better for your team to create the ground rules themselves rather than you imposing the rules upon them. This may seem counterintuitive – you are, after all, supposed to be the leader – but you can lead the team to produce their own rules. Here’s how to do it.
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