Team Building and Collaboration for Performance Improvement ...

A variety of recent emails and phone calls have gotten me re-energized. It seems like a whole new bunch of people have gotten interested in doing some of our Lost Dutchman games with their managers and staff to help them focus on overall organizational improvement and alignment. I say that because these are people who seem to be new at doing this, not the normal crowd that I talk to that have, ?been there and done that? and who are just looking for a better tool.

And, we are seeing more companies in Asia using The Search for The Lost Dutchman?s Gold Mine as a major part of their strategy implementation efforts. Based on the work of Robin Speculand in Singapore, we know that most strategy implementation efforts fail, and that is often because of low levels of organizational alignment, interdepartmental conflicts and a lack of overall collaboration to work through the risky stages. The exercise works really well for those kinds of change initiatives.

So, I?ve been able to put my Coaching Hat on my head and talk about the different kinds of things that they can do. Three of these contacts were going to be doing large events (250, 100-200-500, and 1100 (really!) and thus I shared my Best Practice of getting all of the Most Senior Managers into one room for a full day to deliver The Search for The Lost Dutchman?s Gold Mine, debrief the game based on the kinds of collaboration and teamwork shown by these leaders, and then to discuss how these senior managers would like their people to play together. (click here to see more on why I like to make the Senior Managers part of my game delivery support team)

More and more, the opportunities for improvement within a workgroup seem to be overshadowed by the benefits of generating more collaboration among the departments. I have always thought that the term Divisions within a large company was a pretty good descriptive term for how they really operate ? divided and in competition for what are perceived to be scarce resources. The reality is that more collaboration and sharing of best practices and other organizational resources can generate a lot better morale, innovation and profitability. Collaboration, not competition.

A local company here had not been performing well, not meeting budget costs nor timeliness goals for completing the refurbishing of complicated equipment. A tour of their facilities showed lots of ?My Team, My Team, My Team? kinds of things but not a lot of sharing of workers, tools, etc. When one group had done their part of the process, the other group got it, with little coordinated hand-off. When we got all the people together and played the game, I directed most of the comments toward the overall goal of Mining Gold. We talked about the need for balancing departmental goals with overall results and shared accomplishments (instead of defending the turf issues). Result: Next quarter showed that they could do projects on time and under budget ? for the first time in years!

I do not have to preach in here about the impacts of improved cooperation and collaboration between different workgroups these days. All of you are well-aware of the issues caused by competition, be it between shifts at a manufacturing plant or between ?competing departments? who should be sharing a common focus on getting things done.

Measurements and feedback systems are often to blame, since companies do not allow people to cross organizational lines when each department has very separate and tight labor cost management systems in place. Human Resources can be focused on tightly defined training and personnel outcomes and not on overall corporate profitability goals, for one example. Shipping and Accounting are often on opposite ends of the performance continuum, since shipping costs are costs but customer retention or human capital costs are not being measured.

What I suggest in most of my game deliveries is a balanced focus on what makes the best sense for the organization overall, that some level of collaboration and cooperation is a requirement for ongoing success, innovation of product and services, and even raw performance. Sometimes, we seem to allow the pendulum to swing way too much to one side for what makes sense for the overall business of business.

Some alignment and a shared focus would be profitable. Less chaos and more managed organizational behavior would make sense.

We can deliver an effective team building program focused on generating higher levels of collaboration and planning among participants and debrief that tightly toward the goals of organizational improvement. We can deliver a memorable and fun session that focuses on change and choices.

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.
Connect with Scott on Google+ ? you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

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Source: http://performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/2012/08/15/team-building-and-collaboration-for-performance-improvement/

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