Category Archives: Educators Teambuilding

If an Onboarding Plan is NOT Your Greatest Challenge with New Teammates, What Is?

As a team leader or member, one of the greatest challenges you have is welcoming a new teammate and “showing them the ropes.” But onboarding is NOT the most important part of bringing in someone new. As a teacher and coach, I used to tell my students and athletes that it was less important how […]

Have You Clarified Your Team Norms?

Team norms are the foundation of your team CULTURE. Your team CULTURE determines your team performance.   And while ALL leaders invest time and resources in strategy, that is never enough to build a GREAT team! Strategy is what you want done, but CULTURE determines how it is done. And CULTURE has become a buzz-word […]

TWO Powerful Questions to Use Instead of Asking “What’s Wrong?”

When somebody asks you “what’s wrong?” it automatically invites you to deliver a list of complaints or to explain why you are not okay in that moment… Great teammates and leaders know that the quality of our life, and our leadership, is determined by the quality of the questions we ask!    So what can […]

Better Email Communication With Your Team is Easy as 1-2-3!

Most every leader wants to have better communication with their team. The challenge is that meetings are difficult and you cannot always have a face-to-face with your entire team or even the individuals you may need to share information with.   So you send out an email… And then you wonder…   Did they open […]

How to Handle a Complainer… and Turn Them Into a Contributor

We’ve all heard them over the years. Heck- some of us have BEEN one of them. The complainer. The person who sees something that needs to be done… who notices a problem and says out loud (or internally) that “somebody should…” And the truth is that on your team, there are lots of those internal […]

Use a PreMortem Activity to Ensure Team Success

Everybody likes to set goals… But at the end of the season, do you always accomplish them? As a team building event facilitator, I have learned that most teams do not… because they start the journey without preparing for the difficulties and issues that will likely be experienced along the way.   As leaders, the […]

Are Team Building Events Effective?

You may have wondered, or even asked friends or co-workers “Hey, are teambuilding events effective?” But you would probably NOT ask those same people “Hey, is food good for you?” That is because clearly food is essential if you want to stay healthy and productive… It may be surprising, but the questions are surprisingly similar […]

How Can I Get Rid of Silos on My Team?

If you are wondering how to get rid of silos, I have a newsflash for you… Workplace silos are NOT barriers to be torn down. (True story!) Silos are VALUABLE connections! You don’t want to get rid of silos, because they demonstrate existing links between people based upon shared challenges, values, and contexts. You see […]

Four Collaboration Catalyst Questions to send up and down and across your organization

How often do your people talk? How often do they share information that isn’t just shallow conversation? How well do they know what other people are working on and how they might be able to assist? If you are having issues with collaboration in your organization, the key is to ASSC! (always stay sincerely curious) […]

What Does Your Team Celebrate?

As a coach I had a love/ hate relationship with ESPN. The ESPN network provides around the clock information and scores and (sometimes) interesting commentary about the teams I follow… so I am a fan of SportsCenter… But the same network has also has been the catalyst for an unfortunate contributor to the diminishing quality […]