Topics:

• Finance: Empower Your People and Reap the Rewards
• We all know Accounting Departments that have very hard working members but never seem to get the job done - by James Phillipson
• Strategy: Improve Your Selling Skills to Create Your Competitive Advantage
• To be successful in life you have to be able to sell regardless who you are and what you do - by Maurice Dutrisac
• Marketing: Under-delivering – a surefire strategy for failure
• In this challenging economy, it's a surefire way to get butt kicked by your competition - by Neville Pokroy

Empower Your People and Reap the Rewards

By Helen Roditis, CA, CPCC, ACC

An increasing number of companies are starting to look beyond productivity when investing time and money to develop high performing teams. This new wave of professional development is addressing "positivity" in the workplace because both productivity and work satisfaction are so closely related. Indeed, consulting firms are integrating team coaching into their offerings to help companies turn strategic plans into reality. The environment in which a team works is critical to its ability to produce results. A powerfully negative or positive atmosphere has a tremendous impact on team members and their effectiveness.

In this article, I'll discuss the seven positivity and productivity strengths of high performing teams, and show you how to create one in your organization.

Seven Positivity Strengths

Positivity is defined as the state or character of being positive. Trust, respect, camaraderie, communication, constructive interaction, values diversity, and optimism are strengths present in a high positivity team. These strengths are necessary in order to relate and work well together as a team.

Seven Productivity Strengths

Productivity is defined as the state of producing, generating or creating. Accountability, alignment, decision-making, goals and strategies, proactivity, resources, and team leadership are strengths present in a high productivity team. These productivity strengths help create the means for a team to perform the functions required.

High Performing Teams

Successful teams have:

1. the means in place to take action, and
2. effective relationships to motivate and sustain action

In other words, successful teams experience both high positivity and high productivity.

How to Develop a High Performing Team

Your team (whether it's a project, matrix, or virtual team) may be calling for positive change. Taking stock of your team's positivity and productivity strengths is the first step towards realizing its full potential. The matrix above can also be used to get a sense of your team's profile. Four possibilities exist:

1. high productivity/high positivity, and the highest performing team (upper right corner)
2. low productivity/high positivity (upper left corner)
3. high productivity/low positivity (lower right corner)
4. low productivity/low positivity (lower left corner)

Having this as a point of reference is a great start, but the desire for change is also essential. Your team members can seek the sort of change that is meaningful to them, and have some input into how the change will occur. Knowing what you want to be as a team and committing to the development process are the necessary ingredients for your team's transformation and success. Hiring professional team coaches can also form part of your development process. Because the process can be uncomfortable, your team may resist taking the necessary risks to create the change it wants. Professional coaches are able to hold a team's agenda objectively, instill structure in the development process, and create safety for a team to stretch beyond its comfort zone.

Benefits of Developing a High Performing Team

Employees feel more respected and valued when their professional development is taken seriously. They also enjoy coming to work in a powerfully positive and productive environment. In this type of environment:

• Employee retention increases;
• Profitability improves;
• Receptivity to communication improves;
• Creativity is nurtured, leading to process improvements and product innovation;
• Stakeholder buy-in and goodwill increases; and
• Organization's viability increases.

Conclusion

Deep down I believe we've all been waiting for the time when the 'heart' of an organization is heard as much as its 'brain'. I like to call it "Whole Leadership"—that is, leadership that is balanced, and a reflection of an organization's essence and full potential. This is an ideal we can each choose to create in our own organizations. When we choose "Whole Leadership", we are committing to a lifetime of personal and professional development that will lead to success in our businesses and communities.

About the Author: Helen Roditis, CA, CPCC, ACC is the founder of essence coaching. She is an Authorized Facilitator of the Team Diagnostic™ Assessment and delivers team coaching.

Managing the Accounting Department... a tip by James Phillipson

We all know of Accounting Departments that have very hard working members but they never seem to get the job done. They always appear to be over-worked - perhaps they are not focused on the priorities of the business.

Highly successful team productivity requires management's focus on the attributes in the top right quadrant of the team matrix – see article above. If the manager of the team, focuses on each attribute for one month and provides for that attribute to become a part of your team's culture, significant productivity changes will become apparent.

The attribute that I most often find lacking in medium-sized businesses is "open communication." Often, the business has grown to a point where the staff can no longer know what is taking place or being done in other departments, and they feel left out. This affects an employees' esteem and motivation. If they're being left out of the loop regarding process, then the job they're doing is affected – errors could be made. Two easy steps that improve communication:

• Hold a monthly meeting with your team to recap what is changing in your department, in the organization and in the industry in general; and
• Ensure that you regularly review the work of your staff and discuss with them the reasons that the task or project is important and ask for their input.

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