Is Your Team Ready for the Playoffs?

T.E.A.M. - Together Everyone Achieves More
October is a magical month for sports fans. The Football and hockey seasons are heating up and the baseball season is culminating in the playoffs. This can be a noisy month, too, if you have as many sports fans in your household as I do. But isn't it fun to see your favorite teams rising to the challenge and performing at their very best?

I think it's also fun to see successful business teams performing at the highest levels. But, there's more at stake to successful teamwork than just fun. Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, the $32 billion dollar transportation and logistics company, says "Leading a team is the single most important issue in running an organization today."

Why is teamwork such a critical issue? Perhaps it's because we see the results of poor teamwork every day: ineffective communication, misunderstood goals, mistakes, misunderstandings, personality conflicts, finger pointing and so on. What team in your organization hasn't suffered from similar problems, at one time or another? Even the greatest sports teams stumble occasionally on their way to a championship.

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"Individual commitment to a group effort . . . that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." -- Vince Lombardi

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What Makes a Team Successful?
Sports teams and business teams have much in common. In order to win, all members of a team have to understand the vision and recognize their role in accomplishing the team's goals. Teammates have to learn the playbook (strategies) and work together to execute the game plan (procedures) when it counts most.

The process of building a winning team starts in "training camp," but the foundations of success run much deeper. In any successful organization winning is built into the culture. Do you think it's an accident that certain teams win championships time and time again? Whether we're talking about the Green Bay Packers, New York Yankees, Montreal Canadiens or any other long-term winning franchise, successful teamwork always starts at the top and runs throughout the organization.

After Super Bowl XL last year many commentators talked about the stability, focus and energy of the entire Steeler organization. With five championships in six Super Bowl appearances, the Steelers exemplified the type of vibrant entrepreneurial organization that produces winners, in business as well as in sports. Of course, no team wins all of the time. But with the right teamwork you can at least count on drive and perseverance!

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"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision; the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." -- Andrew Carnegie

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Send Your Team to Training Camp
Teambuilding is one of the most powerful ways to instill a winning culture in any organization. But trust me, learning teamwork takes a lot more than just reading a few books or sitting through a 57-slide PowerPoint presentation (snore). Imagine a football team that spends all of it's time in training camp watching films and studying plays, but that never goes out on the football field to practice or scrimmage? How successful would you expect that team to become? No . . . teamwork is best learned through action and interaction.

That's why our team is so excited about KEYGroup Quest, an interactive learning experience that helps you dramatically improve your team's communication, ingenuity, and problem-solving skills. The best thing about this process is that it's lively, totally interactive and really, really fun. KEYGroup Quest really raises the concept of "learning by doing" to a new level.

For more information on KEYGroup Quest visit www.keygroupconsulting.com/veo_bootcamp.php or call Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed at 1-800-456-5790. It's really the best way to get your team into the playoffs and on their way to a championship!