Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.
If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.
So many people there are so concerned about being socially conscious and environmentally aware, but they don’t give a second thought to how they treat the guy washing their car or cutting their grass.
If people don’t weigh in, they can’t buy in.
Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don’t think it’s easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids.
Ego is the ultimate killer on a team.
A fractured team is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you have to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And the rebreak hurts a lot more than the initial break, because you have to do it on purpose P.37.
If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict.
Members of teams that tend to avoid conflict must occasionally assume the role of a “miner of conflict” – someone who extracts buried disagreements within the team and sheds the light of day on them. They must have the courage and confidence to call out sensitive issues and force team members to work through them. This requires a degree of objectivity during meetings and a commitment to staying with the conflict until it is resolved. Some.
The enemy of accountability is ambiguity.
What clients want more than anything is to know that we’re more interested in helping them than we are in maintaining our revenue source.
How many of you would rather go to a meeting than a movie?” No hands went up. “Why not?” After a pause, Jeff realized that her question was not a rhetorical one. “Because movies are more interesting. Even the bad ones.” His peers chuckled. Kathryn smiled. “Right. But if you really think about it, meetings should be at least as interesting as movies.
When a group of intelligent people come together to talk about issues that matter, it is both natural and productive for disagreement to occur. Resolving those issues is what makes a meeting productive, engaging, even fun.
Teams have to eliminate ambiguity and interpretation when it comes to success.
I don’t think anyone ever gets completely used to conflict. If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway.
No one on a cohesive team can say, Well, I did my job. Our failure isn’t my fault.
The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health.
To achieve results. This is the only true measure of a team P.42.