Latest / The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson / Innovative Approaches to Team Building with Melissa Severance
Transcript
- 1:39Jennifer Johnson: Today, we welcome into the studio Melissa Severance.
- 1:41Jennifer Johnson: She's a leadership and career coach and is also an HR consultant and training specialist, and she owns the company Inspire Big Dreams.
- 1:50Jennifer Johnson: Welcome, I'm so glad to be here again, jen, and I love the name of your company.
- 1:54Jennifer Johnson: Thank you, because it embodies a lot.
- 1:59Melissa Severance: Yeah, and I think we all have these dreams, but do we go after them?
- 2:03Melissa Severance: Do we dream big enough?
- 2:04Melissa Severance: We really have to put attentional time to them and do baby steps and big leaps to really get our dreams going and meet them goals.
- 2:14Melissa Severance: So that's what I'm here for.
- 2:16Melissa Severance: That's my mission.
- 2:16Melissa Severance: I want to help people get where they want in life.
- 2:20Jennifer Johnson: Awesome, and we can't do that typically without a team.
- 2:24Jennifer Johnson: Yes, and that's what we're talking about today is all about teams and great team building ideas, because I don't know, what is it?
- 2:34Jennifer Johnson: Who's the John Madden John Madden always talked about you can't have a great team if you don't have great players.
- 2:40Jennifer Johnson: You can't have a great and he continued on.
- 2:41Jennifer Johnson: It's very true, but you also have to be able to harness the energy and the congruency of that team, that group, and I want to talk about that Building.
- 2:54Jennifer Johnson: What are some really effective team building activities that you can do with your team?
- 2:59Jennifer Johnson: That's going to help foster them to work together.
- 3:03Melissa Severance: Yeah, I think you really have to know what each team player is bringing.
- 3:06Melissa Severance: So really evaluate each of your employees and figure out their strengths.
- 3:11Melissa Severance: What are they doing on the team that's really standing out helping a team get to the next level?
- 3:16Melissa Severance: But you also have to figure out what they're doing on the team that's maybe hindering or holding back, so you can address both of them, really strengthen the amazing what they're doing on the team that's maybe hindering or holding back, so you can address both of them Really strengthen the amazing things they're doing for the team, but also address the areas that there maybe needs some improvement.
- 3:32Melissa Severance: You need a coaching guide and be there for them so you can make their strengths be even stronger to the whole team and make you have more results.
- 3:40Melissa Severance: So, evaluating all your team members together and even asking your team who excels in this area.
- 3:47Melissa Severance: What should we celebrate?
- 3:49Melissa Severance: What do our team really do well and who does the best and who should be doing certain things more because of their talent and their expertise and what they do effortlessly for the team?
- 4:00Jennifer Johnson: So you're getting it from the actual team members themselves.
- 4:03Jennifer Johnson: Oh, I think this person is really great at this.
- 4:07Jennifer Johnson: But this person's really good at this.
- 4:09Melissa Severance: I think so.
- 4:09Melissa Severance: I think we should all evaluate.
- 4:11Melissa Severance: Everybody has different perspectives and we need to learn what people really excel at and where we should go and where we should leverage.
- 4:17Melissa Severance: We all try to improve our weaknesses, but sometimes we need to leverage and go to the right team player to really get the results more effectively, efficiently and in a better way.
- 4:28Jennifer Johnson: Right, I have this saying the right souls for the right roles.
- 4:31Jennifer Johnson: I love that, because a lot of times we maybe pigeonhole people and we go well, we know you're good at this, and then you let them do that, and then six months down the road, that's not something they love to do, yeah.
- 4:46Melissa Severance: And I think there's a lot of assessments that are out there to really see what people love at work and what they excel at and what they're passionate about.
- 4:53Melissa Severance: And I love doing assessments with teams and really figuring out who should be doing what.
- 4:57Melissa Severance: And because you know, because you're right, we sometimes pigeonhole people or put people in a place my old firm I worked at for 16 years I was known as the process person.
- 5:06Melissa Severance: I could implement.
- 5:08Melissa Severance: I can make sure we get everything 100%.
- 5:09Melissa Severance: I do all my assessments.
- 5:11Melissa Severance: They say do not work with process.
- 5:13Melissa Severance: And here you are, yeah, and I'm doing it most of my career.
- 5:16Melissa Severance: I love that.
- 5:18Melissa Severance: I have that strength now, but it wasn't what I should be doing and putting my it wasn't effortless to me.
- 5:24Melissa Severance: I made it effortless but it took a long time to do that because I was put in a position that I had to do it every day.
- 5:29Melissa Severance: There was change we had to implement, so we have to really figure out what really makes our team strive and each person strive, so they can stay longer with your team and do better things together, because I probably was getting burned out by doing things that wasn't effortless most of my day, but I didn't know that in time and they didn't know that at the time.
- 5:51Jennifer Johnson: So is it always better?
- 5:52Jennifer Johnson: I know this is kind of off topic, but it's not really because you're talking about assessments.
- 5:57Jennifer Johnson: Are those best to be done before you hire someone and then you do them, or is it something that should be done every year Because, hey, my typing speed I'm just picking on typing because I don't know my typing speed is way better now than it was a year ago.
- 6:15Jennifer Johnson: Is it something that you constantly do, or is it you just do it?
- 6:18Melissa Severance: on onboarding.
- 6:19Melissa Severance: You know I think onboarding is a great time so you really get to know what your new team player is really bringing to the firm, to the team and to the role.
- 6:29Melissa Severance: But I do think doing them throughout and doing different ones it just helps keep that self-awareness for that employee and also for the leader if they're reviewing them as well too, to know really what they bring to the table.
- 6:40Melissa Severance: And it does change over time.
- 6:42Melissa Severance: One of the popular ones is Strength Finder, and I remember doing it probably 20 years ago now, because I loved that.
- 6:50Melissa Severance: We implemented it throughout my whole firm.
- 6:52Melissa Severance: Everybody did it when they started.
- 6:53Melissa Severance: It was just something we all knew our strengths, so I didn't do it again until about when I was doing my team coaching certification so about six years ago and a lot of them changed.
- 7:04Melissa Severance: I was a little mad at first but they were good changes for what I'm doing in my role now and what I should have been probably doing before.
- 7:11Melissa Severance: So your strengths do change and go down or go up a little bit, because whatever you're doing and experiencing is showing up more, so you get to show those strengths in a different way.
- 7:23Jennifer Johnson: You know, in the age of now, doing a lot of things virtually, people are still working from home.
- 7:28Jennifer Johnson: They're still working virtually versus in person, those team building activities that you would do normally in the office.
- 7:36Jennifer Johnson: How does that translate over to working with remote workers?
- 7:40Jennifer Johnson: Because, I can't even imagine how that looks, because it's a different landscape.
- 7:45Melissa Severance: Yeah, it was so challenging.
- 7:46Melissa Severance: It still is, you know, because we have a lot of people working remotely.
- 7:49Melissa Severance: A lot of companies are trying to bring people back, at least for hybrid, because we do know it helps people do better at work, be more creative.
- 7:57Melissa Severance: We're losing a lot by not being together.
- 8:00Melissa Severance: What do you think we're losing?
- 8:01Melissa Severance: The connection, relationships, really knowing what's going on.
- 8:05Melissa Severance: I think culture is really diminishing.
- 8:10Melissa Severance: You can try to keep it and I know there's a lot of ways on Zoom that you can.
- 8:14Melissa Severance: I do most of my practice, my coaching in Zoom and I have these deep connections over Zoom, but sometimes you really lose people if you're not really paying attention to it.
- 8:23Melissa Severance: You know we get so busy, we get into the agenda items we don't really get deep into like really what our employees need or what's really going on, what's challenging them.
- 8:32Melissa Severance: You know in the HR world we call them stay interviews, really asking the critical questions to make sure that we're really paying attention to our employees and they're happy at work and what can we do to bring them to the next level and grow and make sure they're learning and challenged.
- 8:46Melissa Severance: If we're not doing all of those key conversations, and especially if they're remote, you're not going to see that they're maybe not performing the way they do until it's really bad, unfortunately, you know, sometimes I come in for team coaching, especially when there's a lot of remote team members, and try to see the dynamics of people, how they're communicating, sometimes email and you know doing stuff on Slack and different things like the tone.
- 9:13Melissa Severance: You don't know what the tone is.
- 9:15Melissa Severance: So, people look into things in a different way.
- 9:16Melissa Severance: Blackened, everything's like the tone.
- 9:17Melissa Severance: You don't know what the tone is.
- 9:18Melissa Severance: So people look into things in a different way.
- 9:19Melissa Severance: So sometimes you got to evaluate really how each player is.
- 9:20Melissa Severance: You know, interacting with everybody virtually and in person, because it really matters with the culture and the team.
- 9:27Melissa Severance: If one person, one person, can make a team toxic, unfortunately, it could be the leader, it could be anybody in there that's functioning on the team and we have to figure that out and try to enhance that or change that as quickly as possible so more people don't get on that toxic path or unengaged path.
- 9:46Melissa Severance: Unengaged, you're right, retention is a big thing.
- 9:50Melissa Severance: With team dynamics, you want to come to work and be happy and excited about who you're working with, but if the team dynamics is not there, they're not going to want to really show up the way that we need them to show up and I find it interesting.
- 10:04Jennifer Johnson: I honestly don't know how I would handle the day-to-day just doing Zoom meetings, because when you're a people person it's very hard.
- 10:13Melissa Severance: Yeah, it is, and there's some people that are intro.
- 10:16Melissa Severance: You know introverts that love this.
- 10:18Jennifer Johnson: And they want to go back.
- 10:19Melissa Severance: They want to stick, and that's why they're fighting it so much.
- 10:22Melissa Severance: And they're saying, hey, I performed.
- 10:23Melissa Severance: I'm sure they performed, but maybe not as well.
- 10:26Melissa Severance: As you know, I do a lot of networking and outside because I'm on Zoom all day, Like I do get some interaction, you know, with my clients, but I do think the in-person is just for me, is needed to make me whole.
- 10:38Jennifer Johnson: Right, absolutely.
- 10:39Jennifer Johnson: I mean, it makes complete sense.
- 10:41Melissa Severance: We're people first oh, absolutely so.
- 10:45Melissa Severance: That's why you're seeing the hybrid.
- 10:46Melissa Severance: You're seeing everybody bring them in, having that, team building activities, more training Again, everything's coming full circle because we know that it's important.
- 10:56Melissa Severance: But sometimes you can't get people in, so maybe the leader has to travel out, or you get everybody together once a quarter.
- 11:03Melissa Severance: You have to do something to make sure you have that, I should say.
- 11:06Melissa Severance: I don't want to say physical contact, but in-person contact, I should say, to make sure they're really feeling connected to the firm, to the team, to the leader.
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- 11:44Jennifer Johnson: All right, friends, we're back in studio with Melissa Severance and we are talking all about teams and team building and ideas, and I want to go back to the activities.
- 11:57Jennifer Johnson: What specific activities can we do?
- 11:59Jennifer Johnson: It doesn't matter the team size small, big, small, large, whatever.
- 12:03Jennifer Johnson: It is medium, sorry, big, small, large really.
- 12:06Melissa Severance: Jennifer, small, medium, large, how's that?
- 12:10Jennifer Johnson: But actual activities.
- 12:11Jennifer Johnson: What can we do to foster that team relationship?
- 12:15Melissa Severance: Yeah, it could be big activities, small activities, they all count, and I am a big person about fun, playfulness, so I always try to make sure we have some of those activities within the team building calendar or team activity calendar, whatever you call it.
- 12:33Melissa Severance: So it could be connections, doing activities out and aboutgolf or something team building related that we structure and have.
- 12:44Melissa Severance: It could just be going out and getting some drinks and some appetizers together and having it fun like that.
- 12:50Melissa Severance: You need to make avenues for people to really connect and get to know each other instead of just the work-related communication, and even in daily meetings or weekly meetings or catch-ups with the whole group, ask people what they did that weekend, something that is exciting, that's going on in their life.
- 13:07Melissa Severance: Get to know each of them and let them show something about their personal life to the rest of the team and that'll start building relationships, because somebody will say you know what I do that or I kayak on the weekend or I just did that hike, so they'll have something in common to talk about more than work and start getting that bond in a better place.
- 13:29Jennifer Johnson: And I like that because that's truly how those bonds are formed, because when you actually take an interest in someone hey, how was your weekend?
- 13:37Jennifer Johnson: And you ask that with intent, and then you actually listen Because so many, it's a superficial oh hi, how are you?
- 13:45Jennifer Johnson: Oh, I'm good.
- 13:46Jennifer Johnson: How was your weekend?
- 13:47Jennifer Johnson: Oh, it was great.
- 13:47Jennifer Johnson: Oh, good, Take it a step further.
- 13:50Jennifer Johnson: What?
- 13:50Melissa Severance: did you do?
- 13:50Melissa Severance: Yeah, I had one employee that that was the first thing she asked.
- 13:54Melissa Severance: She asked every single person.
- 13:56Melissa Severance: She knew so much about everyone and it just started a conversation.
- 14:00Melissa Severance: Even if you didn't have a conversation or didn't know what to say, you asked that one powerful question and if somebody really wants to share with you and what they say shows a lot too- and how much they share, even if they're telling you we didn't have a good weekend, we had this happen in our family or something along those lines.
- 14:18Melissa Severance: They're trusting you Exactly.
- 14:19Melissa Severance: But I think all of these activities is trying to build trust within teams.
- 14:23Melissa Severance: Trust happens over time, of course, but you're trying to speed it up on a team so you guys work more collaboratively together, you are more efficient, you can leverage each other.
- 14:33Melissa Severance: You want to work with everybody in a more powerful way, and when we do these activities no matter what they are big and small, and I see some people get so creative and I love it Games, anything, competitions, all this stuff brings the team together and we need to make sure we're incorporating them in all different ways and being creative.
- 14:55Melissa Severance: And during Zoom, we had to be so creative and to figure out how to do that on a screen, and I think a lot of leaders got up to that challenge and we got to continue doing it.
- 15:05Melissa Severance: So it's not, you know, when you're in person, sometimes we didn't have to be so creative.
- 15:10Melissa Severance: We sometimes lost that, you know, extra playfulness or that extra fun that we used to have, and now, even just bringing people back in the office, we're trying to make it enjoyable even more than it was before Absolutely, which I actually love because I love people enjoying work, people being happy going to work, and that's all about employee engagement Right.
- 15:31Melissa Severance: So if we're doing this right as a leader, as an organization, and really putting our culture out there, what we want, and fostering it, you're going to see people happy at work and you're going to see your team unity just go skyrocketing.
- 15:44Melissa Severance: And your retention will be there, absolutely.
- 15:47Jennifer Johnson: That's the residual At my store.
- 15:49Jennifer Johnson: I know that it's really important to get together outside of the workplace and that's sometimes hard to do for everybody, but we do at Christmas time and we do at Thanksgiving potlucks and it's so interesting to see because everybody brings something and then we vote on the best dessert or the best, whatever it is, and it does something for the team.
- 16:15Melissa Severance: Yeah, and people ask for that recipe, like it'll just go further, and then like, oh, we make this.
- 16:21Melissa Severance: Do you want?
- 16:21Melissa Severance: You know it just starts collaboration out, even outside of work, and that's what you want.
- 16:25Melissa Severance: You want people to form these connections where they want to be with each other, inside of work and outside of work, and all of these activities do that together and when there's tough times you'll get through it together.
- 16:36Melissa Severance: There won't be as much friction happening in the workplace.
- 16:40Jennifer Johnson: And I really like that because that again, cohesiveness it's I'm in it, you're in it, we're in this together kind of thing, and I can see how online it's definitely harder to do, but it's definitely doable.
- 16:53Jennifer Johnson: How do you and I know you can do this on any budget, right?
- 16:56Jennifer Johnson: It doesn't matter.
- 16:57Jennifer Johnson: Like you said, you can play games Absolutely.
- 16:59Melissa Severance: Nothing that's free.
- 17:00Melissa Severance: Yeah, I have one client that I'm going to be working with and there's no budget at all.
- 17:04Melissa Severance: And figuring out, does that?
- 17:06Jennifer Johnson: mean like infinite budget, or that means like I have no money to do that.
- 17:09Jennifer Johnson: Figuring out.
- 17:10Jennifer Johnson: Does that mean like infinite budget or that means like I have no money to do that?
- 17:17Melissa Severance: No money to do anything.
- 17:18Melissa Severance: That would be great too, but I was just saying that we're thinking of ways and Potlucks came up and she told she was saying we did this once and it was amazing.
- 17:22Melissa Severance: And I'm like, yeah, you don't need to always put a lot of money out.
- 17:25Melissa Severance: Sometimes it's great when you can.
- 17:26Melissa Severance: If you want to do lunch and learns, have somebody on the team teach something.
- 17:30Melissa Severance: Don't bring an outside person in or don't, you know, leverage your people internally.
- 17:36Melissa Severance: It'll make them feel great that they're empowered to train their team.
- 17:39Melissa Severance: That's an excellent point.
- 17:40Melissa Severance: That's an awesome point to make.
- 17:42Melissa Severance: Yeah, and that's like something that you're doing to empower that person as a leader.
- 17:46Melissa Severance: Also to give the team more education and just to have everybody come together and they can bring their own lunch in.
- 17:53Melissa Severance: If you can't even pay for lunch, there's ways of doing that.
- 17:56Melissa Severance: You know, of course they love.
- 17:57Melissa Severance: You know it's funny.
- 17:59Jennifer Johnson: Now there's like saying pizza parties aren't enough you know, because people just need to bring pizza in.
- 18:03Melissa Severance: But they still love pizza.
- 18:05Melissa Severance: No, like, I think pizza parties have to be part of it.
- 18:07Melissa Severance: That's just not the only thing.
- 18:08Melissa Severance: That's not going to be.
- 18:09Melissa Severance: You know what's really going to be the game changer, but it is the connections during the pizza party.
- 18:15Melissa Severance: It's not just bringing pizza and leaving in there, it's like doing stuff during the pizza party that's really going to matter the conversations, the connections, the relationship building that happens during it.
- 18:24Jennifer Johnson: You know, what I find interesting is something that I've always done.
- 18:28Jennifer Johnson: We always celebrate birthdays and anniversaries Always.
- 18:35Jennifer Johnson: I bake something.
- 18:35Jennifer Johnson: Bring it in, like now my team has gotten so large that I have to just do it once a month I'd be baking all the time and I'd be eating it all.
- 18:38Jennifer Johnson: So it's once a month, but I tried to find the best day that all of those people that are celebrating those milestones are there.
- 18:45Jennifer Johnson: But then I never used to do this, but I started it this year and it has had such a profound effect.
- 18:53Jennifer Johnson: I would write handwrite cards to my employees who are celebrating a birthday or anniversary and I mail it to them.
- 19:01Jennifer Johnson: I love it and I can't tell you how many thank yous for the card that I have gotten.
- 19:07Jennifer Johnson: It's a simple gesture, it's one card, it's one stamp, but it makes a, it leaves a mark.
- 19:13Jennifer Johnson: Yeah Well, you're going extra.
- 19:15Melissa Severance: You're doing this extra effort.
- 19:17Melissa Severance: You know it's so easy to take, you do a text and you know email these days, but you're you're actually picking a card out or writing your words down and really show you know, show you're not using maybe AI actually.
- 19:27Jennifer Johnson: Exactly, you're putting it from the heart.
- 19:30Melissa Severance: And it just shows like you care.
- 19:33Melissa Severance: Even for holidays.
- 19:35Melissa Severance: I'd rather get a card that somebody picks out write something in it.
- 19:38Melissa Severance: More than a present, it just means more to me.
- 19:41Jennifer Johnson: They put in their thought.
- 19:43Melissa Severance: Exactly.
- 19:48Jennifer Johnson: So now, once we determine that, okay, we're going to do some team building activities, how can we actually measure the success of doing that activity?
- 19:53Melissa Severance: Yeah, I think you afterwards ask the team how it went, what they got out of it, and then you'll probably have to see their interactions afterwards.
- 20:01Melissa Severance: Some of the stuff or some of the results or KPIs whatever you want to call it is probably not easy to translate into numbers, but you will see that people will be talking to people that they didn't talk to before, maybe in a different way, or going to ask for help or even being more vulnerable, saying, hey, I don't know what I'm doing here, can you help me with that?
- 20:20Melissa Severance: Or you're really good at this, can you help?
- 20:23Melissa Severance: You'll see interactions and wording change that you use or that they use and maybe even you use.
- 20:31Melissa Severance: From the interaction, the team building that you do, you'll definitely see performance go up.
- 20:37Melissa Severance: If the team is working really coherent together and having each other's back and helping each other and leveraging, you'll see your performance go up.
- 20:46Melissa Severance: You'll see people happier at work.
- 20:48Melissa Severance: You'll see more of their behavior change.
- 20:51Melissa Severance: So these are some of the KPIs that you need to really look at.
- 20:56Melissa Severance: They'll be more inspired, they'll be putting their hand up more to do things for the team or for others, and that's what I think really shows.
- 21:03Melissa Severance: Employee engagement and retention is going to be coming right after that, and then you'll get the big numbers that you're looking for.
- 21:10Jennifer Johnson: That's awesome.
- 21:10Jennifer Johnson: I have loved our conversation.
- 21:12Jennifer Johnson: I think it's just what I needed today, and I'm sure many of our listeners needed as well.
- 21:16Jennifer Johnson: If our listeners would like to get in touch with you, either for your trainings or just to chat with you, how can they do that?
- 21:24Melissa Severance: Yeah, I have my website, inspirebigdreamscom.
- 21:32Melissa Severance: My email is melissa at inspirebigdreamscom, and I'm on all the social channels, as you know, so look me up on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
- 21:36Melissa Severance: Fabulous, thank you so much for being here today, thank you.
- 21:39Melissa Severance: It's so great to be here too.