How Well Do You Know Your Teammates?

I have been talking about this for years in my 2 day workshops and it still amazes me how little most of us know about those we work with daily. Take a minute and answer the following questions about those on your immediate team:

• 1 - Can you tell me the names of the spouses or partners of everyone on your team?
• 2 - Can you tell me the names of the children (if any) of every member on your team?
• 3 - Can you tell me the names of the pets of those on your team?

For the following - Think of just one person on your team -- What is his or her favorite...

• 4 - Soft drink?
• 5 - Non carbonated - non alcoholic beverage?
• 6 - Fast food restaurant?
• 7 - Casual dining restaurant?
• 8 - Chocolate?
• 9 - Candy that is not chocolate?

If you were able to correctly answer more than seven then you are truly in tune with your team. If you answered between five and seven you have slight clue as to what is going on with your team. If you could not answer at least four of these simple questions then you need to take a look at your team members and see what else you may not know about them.

The old adage of, 'people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care' has never been more true than today. We are spending more time with our workplace colleagues than we are waking hours with our own spouses and partners and families. And yes we have workplace relationships.

The more you know about your colleagues the more effective you can be with them and vice versa.

Go ahead and pass this out around your office and see how well your team knows each other. After the embarrassment, I would suggest that you create a "My Favorites" book where each person writes in their favorites to those I have listed above and any others you come up with. My only item that should not be on the list is alcohol.

The book should then be kept in a public place where anyone can access it. This way when Bob does something nice for Sally she can go to the My Favorites book and see what kind of gum, candy, soft drink he likes and then recognize the behavior. Remember that behavior rewarded equals behavior repeated. And recognition does not always have to come from management. In many cases the best recognition is peer to peer.

Contact Gregg today and see how his keynote speeches and breakout training sessions can help your company or organization.