If everyone can feel the two-way emotional connection from team members around, the team at this time is the most unbreakable.
Beryl Companies is a call center located in Bedford, Texas. When newcomers join the ranks, they are greeted by the old staff. Old employees are arranged in two columns, raising their arms to form a "tunnel" for them to greet and applaud each newcomer. This simple battle immediately established the relationship between new and old employees and strengthened the bonds that all employees felt in each other.
Most colleagues are superficially related to each other: on the one hand, they see each other as comrades who share the workload, and on the other hand, they see each other as opponents of future competitions, promotions and promotion opportunities. Some people can make deeper connections and become friends, but for the team to unleash its most creative and full potential, everyone must establish a deeper level of interpersonal relationships.
Interactive theme: if you want employees to work hard, give it an imaginary enemy?
When team members connect with genuine emotions of mutual interest, they satisfy a primitive need. In fact, we all seek a sense of belonging, according to Professor Roy Baumeister, a renowned psychologist and Director of the social psychology program at Florida state University, Professor of psychology and neuroscience, and Director of social psychology at Duke Mark Leary. When we feel an emotional connection between people from our colleagues and value care, trust and emotional care, that sense of community integration will be stronger. What we want is not just a working relationship, because then we can only become a free Union with our colleagues. We strive to build deeper, more personal relationships with people, relationships that stimulate a variety of ideal emotions, from pleasure and joy to satisfaction and peace of mind.
Paul Zack, a neuroscientist at Claremont Research University in Claremont, California, says that when we communicate with others who are passionate about it, let's have compassion or empathy, our Brain releases a lot of oxytocin. Oxytocin is a small molecular peptide that is both a neurotransmitter that transmits signals to the brain and a hormone that carries information in the blood. When the brain releases large amounts of oxytocin, people become more cooperative, more focused, and more caring. When someone shows confidence in us, our brain also secretes oxytocin.
Bonds of trust lay the Foundation for other human emotions, including care, cooperation, respect, appreciation, and even love. It also stimulates creativity. Because creativity depends on risk, when we are fully convinced that other members of the same team will give us support and encouragement, enthusiasm for risk is even higher. Only in such a truly trusting environment will we feel safe and contribute our boldest, most innovative and most unexpected ideas.
How should leaders build trust in a team? In the beginning you have to be sure of them. On the contrary, if an organization enforces strict rules and regulations, it is tantamount to telling employees, "Because we don't trust you to do your job properly, I have developed this guide to tell everyone at any time, in any imagined situation. What to do next." This information will make everyone feel distrustful, disrespectful, resentful and outraged. It will encourage people to stop thinking about creativity, hide their flaws, avoid mistakes, and ultimately it will make them reluctant to be content. And these changes happen deep in our brains.
Strong stressful external threats
External threats also enhance team cohesion and encourage command create strong emotional bonds. A large study by a group of world war II veterans provided a compelling response to the power of cohesion against external threats. Forty years after the end of the war, along with the rain of Qiang Lin Bo, veterans who once lost their comrades can still feel a strong emotional connection with past comrades. On the contrary, although war veterans survived, veterans who did not survive the death of their comrades were much weaker after 40 years. Of course, the relationship between the two groups of veterans is still stronger than those who have never been at the forefront of the fight.
Herb Kelleher, a former southwest Airlines Executive, has mastered the art of using external threats to create a connection between employees, companies, and employees. During the introductory training, each employee will watch a video explaining the history of Southwest Airlines. In the film, the recruits saw Southwest Airlines rise up over fierce competition and conflict, overwhelm survival and rivals, and even confront Texas. In Kelleher's notes, speeches, and conversations with others, He constantly emphasized the fierce competition in the aviation industry and told the story of southwest Airlines ' struggles over the years. When the company struggled to continue its operations in the love Field neighborhood of Dallas, he inspired his employees to write to the city Council, petition, and attend city Council meetings. The company has created a great sense of collective honor for these actions.
Sharon was inspired by Kelleher. She runs a popular restaurant called Hearthstones, which specializes in simple and comfortable food. She runs the team, six people in the kitchen, eight people in the living room as waiters and a bartender. She continues to tell her team which new restaurants have entered the competition with them. "! Restaurant Mario to see if they buy two get one free pasta dinner, "Sharon waving flyers Mario restaurant said," Our pasta dishes make their pasta look like dog | like food. We shouldn't give our customers away to upstarts." This awareness of strengthening the enemy and the enemy made her people more United in a small circle.
Avoid the usual tie traps
Making connections can increase a team's combat effectiveness, but getting too close to each other can lead to its destruction. How do you find the perfect balance between the two extremes?
In a Frank discussion of important decisions in 1994, Brian Mullen, a Professor of psychology at Syracuse University, conducted a study that examined all the research on the relationship between team cohesion and effective decision-making. The researchers found strong evidence that teams that emphasize consensus and support each other above all else can make bad decisions. However, this problem mostly occurs when a team is full of an "exception" atmosphere, flaunting an elite team to improve the reputation of the participants rather than creating great products. However, the researchers found that as long as a team is seriously considering different ways to achieve goals or solve problems, it can avoid thinking deficiencies in small groups.
At Hearthstones, Sharon wants to create a children's Playground in the corner of the restaurant, which she believes will lead to even more family patronage. Many employees privately worry that this will undermine the relaxed atmosphere of the high-end restaurant. But since no one wants Sharon to think he's swearing or not a member of the collective team, they don't want to talk about what's bothering them. Fortunately, Sharon's best waitress, Jo, offered to set up a decision-making process for the group to propose and discuss any important corporate decisions. With this approach, employees feel they can safely Express opposing views. When Sharon heard the team's reservations about the Playground idea, she dropped the idea and said, " Thanks for your candid advice, guys.
what I think?»
Mutual challenges after Sharon accepted the process of reviewing Joe's ideas, she was able to focus on more ideas. How can she ensure that her employees continue to offer more ideas to improve their business? Given that the nature of the restaurant industry is dynamic and fluctuating, new restaurants and new creative dishes are pouring into the local market.Sharon needs great new ideas to keep the restaurant competitive and make the business a reality. grows. Like most leaders, she sees regular brainstorming for employees.
Charlan Nemeth, a Professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, notes that debate and criticism promote, not hinder, creativity. Different opinions can motivate people to find new ideas because different opinions encourage us to interact more fully with others and to reevaluate our own views. Nemeth also said that even the most ridiculous other viewpoints can help us unleash creativity.
Sharon knows that a close-knit team with strong emotional connections between members can not only withstand criticism and debate, but actually benefit from it. She told the staff: "criticise. If you don't dare to argue with yourself, where do you have the courage to fight the competition?"She was right. Don't underestimate the power of a good atmosphere. Friendly arguments can strengthen communication with each other and lead to smarter ideas for solving the toughest problems and make the team achieve their goals more smoothly.
Expand your horizons Sometimes you need to look at a problem in a broader context. BASF, a global industrial giant, has teamed up with a diverse team to develop an innovative product that will save lives. Together, the team developed a mosquito net that includes a specially designed insecticide that not only repels mosquitoes, but also kills the pests that transmit the disease. Employees from different departments, with different experiences and perspectives worked together to create this innovative product, which is now used all over the world. In Kenya alone, this product reduced infant and child mortality by 44% in high-risk areas.
The process of birth of this innovative product proves that people with different views can form synergies and succeed in putting forward ideas that people may never find. It's a bold attempt. Because the people working on these two key teams are from the textile and pesticide departments, they've hardly dealt with the other side in the past. In the past, people working in the pesticide Department thought only about how to create a new generation of chemicals to repel insects, and people in the textile sector devoted themselves to developing new materials with different practical effects. However, BASF has begun to implement diversified and inclusive practices that allow employees from unrelated groups to collaborate more often and share ideas and achieve greater results. The effectiveness of these two groups proves that sometimes one plus one is more than two. ,
Integrating friends and strangers If you want to stimulate creativity in a team, you need to bring together people of all kinds, allowing you to encounter differentiated thinking in your team. It is a process that requires both art and science. You have to be careful to find the right combination in team selection - bringing together people with similar mindset, familiar with each other and new members with completely different views. It is necessary to combine the two and not overly integrate. Diversification and familiarity can create a successful team.
So Sharon must establish a moderate degree of Association among her team of 15. Ideally, the team should include new arrivals, three or four new members who have just worked at Hearthstones for a year or less, and a few Older employees with more than one service life years may have to add an experienced veteran worker who has stood firm since the start of the business. This optimized combination creates a balance between generality and diversity.
Over time, most groups will create a cohesive and harmonious atmosphere in which people can work together and amicably. While some teams may gradually develop better and deeper emotional connections on their own, what is the need for the organization to take risks in this matter? Why aren't you ready to take action? From now on, we will develop our team spirit, which we have always dreamed of step by step.