By Debbie Depp
One blustery, wintry day, two people pulling a sled by a long rope heard cries for help from a nearby skating pond. A man had fallen through the ice and was struggling to pull himself out.
"Untie the rope and throw it to him!" one person said to the other.
"No! it is too light. The wind will carry it away. Find a long stick and hold it out to him instead."
His friend objected, "We'll never find a stick long enough in time! Throw him the rope!"
The two argued back and forth, each insisting his method was best.
Eventually, a third person came along, listened to the argument for a moment, then suggested the pair weight the rope with a short stick and throw it upwind of the man who had fallen through the ice.
The pair considered the solution, found it made sense, and heaved the weighted rope onto the ice. The drowning man grabbed it just as he was about to go under for the third time. The trio pulled together and reeled him onto shore.
The man collapsed on the snow beside them, gathered his breath, looked up at the original pair and announced, "The ice is great! Want to borrow my skates?"
The lesson of the story is: Without cooperation, there will be casualties.
When applied to the corporate world, that means a company can fill its ranks with the most skilled and clever employees, but if the workers disagree over how to meet their company's goals, the organization will go under.
One of the most effective ways to foster cooperation is through team building. Team building is the process of collaboration. The goal in any organization is for good people to work together as great teams. Teamwork is the magic that lets ordinary people attain extraordinary results.
Why do team building?
- According to a study by Towers Perrin, the average sales force turns over about 43% and is downsized by 20% over a two year period.
- According to the American Institute of Stress, job stress and burnout cost employers an estimated $200 billion a year in turnover costs, absenteeism, lower productivity, and rising worker's compensation and health care claims. And replacing an employee is difficult.
- When you're stressed, you're not productive
- 78% describe their jobs as stressful and getting worse
- 33% of all Americans believe their job is more stressful than a year ago.
With this kind of climate just maintaining productivity is a challenge, let alone increasing it. So, we have to figure out ways to optimize our performance. We have to learn how to run faster in the product race to meet customers' demands.
When a company fosters an atmosphere of communication and teamwork, results include:
Speed. The ability to respond quickly to customer or market demands and to incorporate new ideas and technologies quickly into products and services.
Consistency. The ability to produce products and services that unfailingly satisfy customers' expectations.
Perceptiveness. The ability to see the competitive environment clearly and thus to anticipate and respond to customers' evolving needs and wants.
Nimbleness. The ability to adapt simultaneously to many different business environments.
Innovation. The ability to generate new ideas and to combine existing elements to create new sources of value.
By building collaboration among workers, you eliminate internal competition and other destructive forces that can undermine an organization, binding employees together instead to defeat the enemy on the outside: your company's competitors.
Take the story of Saturn. Its 165 work teams decide how to run their own areas, including the right to interview and approve new hires for their teams. One team in Saturn's final-assembly area voted to reject some proposed car-assembly equipment in favor of another supplier whose product the team believed was safer.
The team-spirit strategy apparently works. In 1997 Saturn expects to complete its fourth year as the only manufacturer, building exclusively small cars, which will be profitable. According to J.D. Powers, the Saturn nameplate earns the #1 position in the Premium Compact segment for initial quality. Saturn continues to retain the industry leading customer loyalty rating and leads the industry in retail sales per facility.
With so much talk about "empowerment" today, team building is a concrete way to help employees effect change within an organization. By putting in place a process which not only hears their voice but actually listens, a company truly empowers its workers. The result: improved productivity and a healthier bottom line. In short, team building not only keeps a company off thin ice, but allows it to glide easily past the competition.
|
