Last week we shared a great Forbes article called “6 Ways Successful Teams are Built to Last.” There’s some good stuff in here, and it’s worth reading in full (it’s also a quick read, which is nice), but I wanted to pull out a couple of things and talk about how Timyo fits so well into these leadership strategies.
1. Team Building Isn’t Just Trust Falls and Company Karaoke.
“Building companies requires the know-how to build long-lasting teams.”
Author Glen Llopis is absolutely right to put team-building front and center when it comes to a company’s success. The phrase “team-building” is often used as a short hand for morale-boosting (at least in theory) company activities…picnics and potato sack races and Secret Santas and happy hours and on and on. While this sort of “team building” certainly has its place, team building also can be taken more literally. As such, it is the job of the leadership to construct a team and to maintain the health of that team over time.
Timyo aims to serve an essential role in the maintenance of a team’s long-term health. By choosing Timyo for your team, you clearly communicate your own desire for a more productive, more efficient, more cohesive group, with a reduced stress load. This also makes for a healthier team, and as we wrote recently, a healthy team is a happy team.
2. You’re the leader. Lead.
“Be your own boss. Be flexible. Know who you are as a leader.”
We’ve talked before about how important it is for leaders to shape the company culture. A lot of this has to do with leading by example. The easiest way to inspire your team to work hard and to treat others with respect is to…work hard and treat others with respect.
Timyo helps you set the right tone. When you send emails with clear expectations, you are not only helping team members to be more productive and reducing their stress load, you are also sending a clear message that you respect their time, and expect them to respect yours. And speaking of respect…
3. Don’t just tell your team they’re great—treat them like they are.
“People love recognition, but are most appreciative of respect.”
Llopis makes a great point here—while accolades and gold stars and incentive programs are all very good, it is day-to-day respect that people crave, and that will inspire them to do their best work. Help each worker feel like an integral and necessary part of the team. It sets the table for that worker’s success, since she will have the added incentive to “do her part” to help the team succeed.
This culture of respect is crucial to the success of any team, and it’s not something that can just be superficially added to an already existing corporate culture—it needs to be baked in. Using Timyo for team communication is a good way to make sure that this culture of respect is intrinsically woven through your team and overall corporate structure.
Internal communications are the circulatory system of a company—and what you do to the bloodstream affects the entire body. By demonstrating respect in emails, you go a long way to ensuring that respect is viewed as an essential cultural component throughout the entire company.
