They’re wrong.

Less Income means Working Smarter

With less income coming into the company, managers are required to do without resources they previously took for granted. Their teams need to produce a higher output with no extra inputs. They could work harder but most of us are working as hard as we can anyway.
If you can’t work harder you need to work smarter. Better communication and team skills  will increase the efficiency of a team, saving money normally lost on mistakes. Problem  solving skills allow people to remove obstacles that are preventing them from reaching their goals, saving time and resources.
There are two ways to give people these skills. The first is to let them develop naturally over the course of a few years, maturing as the person settles into their role.

Have you got that long?

The second is to provide your staff with some training.

Teams who have been ‘Downsized’ need Reforming

Nobody likes redundancies but they are an inevitable consequence of an economic  downturn. After a wave of job losses your team are likely to be shell-shocked and in  chaos. A change of working pattern and culture can take a long while to become accepted, probably longer than you have got.
Rather than being just a jolly day out, good team-building events can push your team through this chaos and help them reform and start performing again. Training in team
kills can help them understand each others position and bond together, helping the  company back onto its feet.
So smart managers realise that now is not the time to cut back on training but a good
time to invest in your staff and to help them start to really perform.

Photo by left-hand used under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Resources

A set of poker chips. 200 in four colours works fine, the less you have in more limited colours, the harder the task will be.

Instructions For Tutor

Give the group a box of poker chips. Tell them

“You have 20 minutes to create a means of transferring a message from one half of the group to the other using only the chips placed on the table.

No paper or pencils are permitted.

After 20 minutes I will split the group in two and half of you will be asked to leave the room. I will give the remaining participants a 20-30 letter message that may involve letters or numbers but no punctuation, which you must pass to the other group using only the poker chips”

Facilitate the creation of the code. This is where the bulk of the team dynamics and personal development takes place as the participants try to refine their aim, then develop the code and finally to ensure that everyoe understands the code.

Use whatever means you like to capture this discussion, we have successfully used video, notes, phrases used jotted on a blackboard and having observers taken from within the group.

When they have a code, split the group into two and send half out of the room. Give the other half a short (20-30 letter) message on a piece of paper and help them encode it.

The messages are best if they have several words, and aren’t too easy to guess once you have 2-3 of the words. We’ve used short Shakespeare quotes and the names of the building we are in.

Invite the other half back in to decode it and ensure that there is no  cheating.

Swap the two halves of the group over and try with a different message.

Using it elsewhere

We have used variants of this task in a number of places.

• On a beach with different coloured stones.
• In a forest using sticks.
• On a draughts (checkers) board using the pieces.
• In a park using “whatever you can find”.
• In a mountain campsite using “the contents of your rucksack”.

Doing it outside makes it a much more physical, tactile task and adds whole new areas of discussion such as role allocation “You go and collect black stones” or even “What shall we use?”.

We were blessed with sunshine and a good amount of wind which meant the racing amongst this very competitive fleet was close, intense and exciting. In this type of event there aren’t many tactics, the short courses and identical boats mean that most races are won by making your boat go faster through the water. A 1% drop in performance will cost you 60m over the race and probably about 5-6 places.

What struck me out on the water that a small yacht like the Sonata, normally crewed by 3 or 4 people, was a perfect medium for team building.

It is a high pressure environment

Yacht racing is a bit like close quarter jousting using 23 foot, wind-powered horses on a field that flows in one direction and bounces up and down. It has a complicated set of rules for defining who has right of way that require constant reference to the wind direction and an understanding of what every boat in the near vicinity is doing.

As you approach a buoy marking a change in direction on the course, you must go around it without hitting it, reset your sails or raise new ones, find the next marker and make a tactical decision about how you are going to get to it. Meanwhile ten or more boats, many within touching distance, are trying to do the same thing as you, only faster and no-one has any brakes.

At times the boats are less than a metre apart, there is frequently a lot of shouting as people claim their right to clear water and the damage if a collision occurs can run into tens of thousands of pounds. This high pressure environment demonstrates clearly that a cool head and the knowledge that your crewmates are doing their jobs are essential.

You have a clear goal

Everybody on the team understands the goal, to win this race. Everybody on the team understands how they are going to do this, by being faster than any other boat on the water that day. Since the boats are identical, everybody understands that the only way to achieve that goal is to do their specific jobs to the best of their abilities.

Everybody has a specific role to play

On a Sonata there are four roles,

The Helmsman, who is also normally the skipper, steers the boat, makes decisions about direction and sail choice and leads the team.

The Trimmer, who handles the main sail, making tiny adjustments, frequently as small as 2-3cm, to gain the maximum amount of power out of the sails to allow the helmsman to sail his chosen course as fast as possible.

The Winch Grinder, who is the muscle on the boat, pulling in the foresail every time the boat changes direction as quickly as possible to allow the helmsman to reset his course. He raises the sails and shifts his weight around to keep the boat as flat and as fast as possible.

The Foredeck who deals with anything that happens forward of the cockpit. Launching and recovering sails, making alterations to the rigging, they also move their weight to where it is most useful.

Bigger boats may have more people on board but the roles are as clearly defined and everybody knows, at each point in the race, what they should be doing.

You have a clearly defined leader

Upon seeing a person on another boat wearing a jumper that had ‘skipper’ on the back, one of the crew quipped “If you need to wear a badge to tell the crew you are the skipper, you are doing it wrong”. Clear, defined leadership is essential at sea, where not only are races won or lost but potentially lives too. The skipper has complete control over the boat and all on-board. They oversee everything going on and make the decisions, which the crew then enact.

Responsibility is automatically devolved

The skipper doesn’t have time to think about how to get the most power out of the sails or whether a fastening is attached correctly so responsibility is automatically devolved to one of the defined crew roles. He relies on his crew to do the right thing at the right time. If the crew take up that responsibility then the boat performs well, if not, they are likely to lose.

It is obvious if you are performing as a team

Since yachts are very difficult to sail single handed, if the boat is moving, you are performing as a team. If the boat is moving fast, you are performing well as a team.

You have to work together

Once out at sea, if you don’t work as a team, you won’t get home. There is nothing like rough seas or the call of dry land and the bar to persuade people to put aside personal differences and to work together. In high pressure environments it is easy to snap at someone or to take affront at an off-hand comment but for the sake of getting home, you must learn to let it all wash over you.

You can’t get away

Confronted by a high pressure environment and uneasy team dynamic, the temptation is to walk away and not go through the difficult learning process that is team building. On a 6.9m boat, you can’t go far!

Sadly, our results in the Sonata Nationals suggests our teamwork could be better but it certainly gave me food for thought.

Photo from Roberto Venturini‘s flickr stream. Used under CC-deriv license.

Despite their suspicion, curiosity overcomes one of the villager and he casually asks the traveller what he is doing. “Cooking stone soup” comes the reply. “I’ve never heard of stone soup” says the villager. “It’s the tastiest soup you’ll ever eat” says the traveller stirring the pot, “would you like some?”. Food has been short so the villager eagerly reaches out for the ladle. Just as he is about to take it the traveller pulls it away. “Actually, stone soup tastes even better with a little bit of turnip” he says, “You wouldn’t have a turnip we could add have you?”. Reluctantly the villager admits he may have and returns a few minutes later with the turnip and his neighbour, who would also like to try the soup.

“It’s pretty good” says the traveller after adding the turnip, “but it would be even better with some potatoes”. The neighbour sheepishly admits that he has some and heads off to get them. In the mean time, word has been spreading around the village about the stone soup and the local priest comes by. He asks to try the soup and is told that it is almost ready but, as the traveller explains, it “would be rounded off nicely by some meat”. The priest, who is an honest man, admits to having some dried beef put aside and agrees that if it will perfect the soup then he can spare some of it.

The traveller adds the potatoes and beef to soup and with a flourish serves up several bowls. Just as he is ladling it out, the baker comes over to see what is going on. The traveller, quick as a flash says “We were just sitting down with our stone soup, but we have no bread to eat with it”. The baker has never tried stone soup but the neighbour explains that it is the finest soup known and the baker agrees to provide a loaf of bread to eat with it in return for a bowl.

Shortly afterwards the traveller, villager, his neighbour, the priest and the baker are all sitting down around the fire with empty bowls in front of them. “Stone soup is the finest soup I have ever tasted” said the villager. “Thank-you” says the traveller, reaching into the empty pot and taking the stone out. Wiping the stone, he puts it back into his pocket and begins to pack his belongings.

Picture from NeilsPhotography under Creative Commons.

Green people are fully engaged in the discussion that’s is going on. They form the ‘yolk of the egg’ They will be sat at the centre of the group, often with a piece of paper in their hand, contributing ideas, extracting ideas from other green people and attempting to solve the problem or formulate a plan.

Orange people are following the discussion but they do not feel full engaged. They might have ideas but they won’t contribute them or, if they do, will not fight to make them accepted. People for whom the consequences of the discussion will have little effect often sit in this ‘white of the egg’. Also people who aren’t confident or who are overwhelmed by the green people will be here. They often have useful input to the conversation that will be missed unless they can be drawn into the ‘yolk’ and become green people.

Red people are totally disengaged from the discussion. They are sat at the outskirts of the group, barely even following what is going on. They normally feel totally disconnected from the topic being discussed, either because they feel they can’t change the course of the discussion or because they have resigned themselves to going with whatever the group decide. They make no attempt to contribute and often feel bitter about being sidelined.

People don’t stay within one section of the egg but drift between them as the discussion goes on. The important thing as a chairman, facilitator or team manager is trying to stop people drifting outwards into the white or out of the egg entirely.

As a participant you can be aware that the tendancy is to look inwards towards the yolk and you can occasionally glance behind you and see if there are any orange or red people who can be brought back into the discussion.

So next time you are involved in a group discussion, have a think about where in the egg you sit and where the other participants are. You might be able to help bring people back to the yolk.