Building Trust Develops Team Cohesiveness

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LDRSHIP is an acronym for the seven core values of the U.S. Army: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal courage. These principles were instilled in me during my eight years in the U.S. Army Infantry, and later in my career as a Drill Sergeant. These values were foundational to many of my business decisions. The growing reality in retrospect is that these same principles not only made me an effective leader, but they enabled me to develop something in the workplace that every organization strives for but often struggles to achieve: team cohesiveness.

Team cohesiveness doesn’t simply happen, it is created. It’s created through a process of due diligence and a deliberate effort to intentionally and consistently integrate the seven core values into the workplace. Simply put, one has to try. With consistency, trust will be developed.

Developing this trust starts with loyalty. Loyalty is subjective, but its basic definition is faithfulness to the commitments you’ve made and remaining true to the obligations at hand. That means you need to look out for your employees, defend them, advocate for them, and represent them — they are your team. Let your words and actions demonstrate that you’re committed to your team, and doing so consistently will mean that the depth of your commitment is never questioned but it’s understood to be deeply rooted and unbending. This established sense of loyalty builds team harmony because of the trust that it creates. You know what it feels like when somebody truly and legitimately supports you. Did it empower you? Do your employees feel the way you do when a team has your back?

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About the Author

Jason LevesqueCEO Jason Levesque, a US Army veteran and entrepreneur, founded Argo Marketing in 2003, and has become a widely respected Maine business owner. Jason has created numerous job opportunities and he remains committed to further developing and supporting his local community. Argo Marketing Group currently has three offices located in Portland, Lewiston, and Pittsfield, Maine; making Argo Marketing Group one of the largest privately held, third party contact center operations in North America.

The Four Vs of Employee Motivation: Velocity, Visibility, Value, and Valor

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A recent Gallup poll revealed that only 30 percent of employees are actively engaged at work, and 18 percent are actually actively disengaged. Disengaged and distracted employees cost businesses money as they ‘sleepwalk’ through their workday, bringing little energy or passion to the table. Making matters worse, actively disengaged employees are more than unhappy at work—they act out their unhappiness by undermining what their engaged colleagues accomplish on a daily basis. For businesses that want to continually innovate and grow, engaged employees who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company are required.

According to Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report, “engagement makes a difference to the bottom line,” which can have an impact on productivity, profitability, customer service, turnover, and absenteeism. Incentivizing can also make a big difference, according to a study by the International Society of Performance Improvement. The study showed a 27 percent performance increase when an incentive was offered for persistence toward a company goal.

Not all encouragement, engagement and incentive programs are created equal, however. It’s important to utilize whichever approach is best for driving your desired action. By 2001, the Incentive Federation’s biannual study found prepaid cards to be the most popular rewards for employees, consumers, and partners (dealers), but there’s more to an incentive program than just finding the right reward. Try sticking with the 4 Vs of employee engagement when you implement an employee recognition and motivation program.

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About the Author

David Jones currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of CardLab, a pioneer in the prepaid industry. The first to offer businesses the ability to customize a Visa Incentive Card with a company logo, the Dallas based company was founded in 2004. Visa Incentive Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used wherever Visa debit cards are accepted. The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC.

Engage your employees in the training process

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Companies invest in employee training and talent development programs for one reason: to get results. The problem is that too often they see training as an “event” rather than a process, and they earn a miserable return on investment.

See if this rings true. You hire an outside consultant to conduct a two-day training session. Your expert trainer delivers a ton of value. Trainees give the session high marks. But a few weeks later you realize your people aren’t deploying the skills they were taught. You’re frustrated. Where are the results? Where is your return on investment?

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About the Author

Steve MeyerStephen Meyer is CEO of the Rapid Learning Institute, which provides bite-size e-learning to companies, nonprofits, educational institutions and government. Prior to starting the Rapid Learning Institute and its parent company Business 21 Publishing in 2002, Meyer was the Director of Publishing at The Hay Group, a leading HR, benefits and compensation consulting firm. At RLI he developed the model for six- to 10-minute “Quick Take” rapid learning modules. Meyer received his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, part 6 of 6

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Leadership Role #5: Managing the Action Cycle

When making requests of team members, a leader must set clear expectations and conditions of satisfaction. This allows employees to request the resources they need to fulfill their project commitments. It is then the leader’s responsibility to ensure that these resources (e.g., budget, staffing, and time) are made available.

Poor communication of expectations is a frequent source of breakdown in leadership. When a leader fails to set explicit conditions of satisfaction for a request, his staff may be uncertain about what is required of them. In turn, they will likely fail to make clear requests for resources. If, as a result, the project fails, each side is likely to blame the other, producing a mood of distrust and resentment.

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About the Author

Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?, part 5 of 6

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Leadership Role #4: Building Followership

Leaders require followers who are committed to achieving the mission – ideally people who believe in both the vision and the leader and who want to be there. To create such a devoted followership, leaders must remember that they are also followers – not only in the sense of supporting others’ missions but also through subordinating their own interests for the sake of serving their teams and organizations.

We live in an era when downsizing, increased work hours, ceaseless pressure for higher profits, internal competitiveness, and similarly unpleasant factors have produced a toxic brew of resentment, resistance to change, and self-serving political maneuvering on the part of workers at all levels, and the cost is significant. Projects are abandoned or fail to achieve their objectives; employees are unwilling to embrace changes in business culture; self-interest takes precedence over the best interests of the organization as a whole; and so forth. This trend can only be reversed when leaders take their responsibility to serve those who support them seriously.

One area of particular importance is career. Organizations provide a framework of stability for their employees. Thus, great leaders create environments in which ambition naturally arises and flourishes. There are several ways to do this:

1. Declare vision that constitutes a game worth playing – one that inspires people to rally around it and makes them feel as though their contributions to the overall mission somehow make the world better.

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About the Author

Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.