This team building skills list will provide the foundation you a looking to establish for your team!
Recently, I had the opportunity to deal with an organization that really understands that their people is what makes them so successful.
The company is Make Your Mark in Vancouver, British Columbia. While their clients are primarily entrepreneurs, I believe that their approach to teamwork can be duplicated in any organization.
Team Building Skills List
Here’s what makes them so successful.
Team Building Skills List - #1: Effective hiring.
First of all, Make Your Mark only hires “A” players. Therefore, they find them through the use of personality profile assessments. Rather than looking at technical skills, they hire for a position based on the traits and characteristics of the individual and how they would best complement the role and the team. Thus, the company's system allows them to hire the best fit and reduce the possibility of high turnover.
Team Building Skills List - #2: Core values.
The company’s core values are on everyone’s desk and posted around the office. From my conversation with the executive assistant, Cheryl, they let someone go once because their core values didn’t match the company’s core values. A company’s core values is what drives the company. Everything Mark Your Mark does is in alignment with their core values.
Team Building Skills List - #3: Pods.
Rather than departments they use the term “pods”, each pod has a team leader. The team leader is empowered to provide their team members with the resources they need to be successful. Each new team member is given a welcome package that includes a framed version of the company’s core values, a plant for their desk and a training binder that provides them with everything they need to be successful. Furthermore, this welcome pack makes each new team member feel like part of the family from day one.
Team Building Skills List - #4: Training.
Team members are able to participat in training as needed because of the company's continuous improvement plan.
Team Building Skills List - #5: Recognition.
This isn’t your everyday recognition program that often feels like a mandatory thank you rather than sincere appreciation. Every week one member is voted as the most “awesome” and given an awesomeness card and celebrated for their contribution that week.
Team Building Skills List - #6: Celebration.
At the end of each week team members get together and celebrate their accomplishments. Also, each pod leader is given the opportunity to do something special for their pod members whenever they need to. It could be going out for ice cream, getting out of the office and into nature, or an afternoon off to revitalize.
Team Building Skills List - Takeaways
Maybe you’re thinking: “We can’t do that.” Then I would ask why not? Why not rethink how the business is run? How effective is your team now? How much more effective could your team be if you used at least one of these concepts?
Make Your Mark’s customer service is spot on. They accredit this to hiring by personality style and the unique gifts and talents that each employee brings to the table. The company's turnover rate is less than 1% since they started in 2009. Some people have left; however, the employees did leave not because of the organization. Instead, they learned the successful team building skills list to start their own business.
What if every company looked at how they do business and shifted from just numbers to people? Because when you take care of your people, you take care of your profits.
Dale Choquette is the woman behind audacious leadership and communications. Sixteen plus years as a Certified Professional Purchaser in the pharmaceutical industry didn’t prepare her for running marathons. It did prepare her for working with organizations who are successful and want to excel in communications, team building and leadership especially in the field of supply chain management.
Dale knows that running 9 marathons takes commitment, flexibility and determination much like anything you do in business. She also knows about hitting the wall and how to help her clients get past the wall. She provides the fuel businesses need so that they can be in the 1% of organizations that get audacious results.
Dale is a Distinguished Toastmaster, Master Trainer in Human Behaviour, a consultant in Emotional Intelligence and President of Vancouver & BC Chapter of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Association.
You can contact Dale through www.dalechoquette.com or via email at dale@dalechoquette.com
