A happy team is a productive team

A happy team is more of a journey than a destination, and when you have happy people who are engaged, the result is productivity.  Creating a happy team though is an intention first, and it comes from intentionally creating an excellent environment.  It’s a bit like preparing the soil before you plant your vegetables, you wouldn’t plant the vegetables in toxic soil, or into the sand.  Just like your garden, you want your people to grow healthy relationships, have all they need to become their best selves and what they want to be.  So, what makes a great environment, is it something that we have control over, and how do we do it?

“Understanding your employee’s perspective can go a long way towards increasing productivity and happiness” ~ Kathryn Minshrew

What makes a great working environment?

A great working environment is one where the foundation is thoughtfully planned, with the team in mind. Remembering, that your intention is to have a team that is fully engaged, productive, relationships formed, and a synergistic culture formed.  Planning to have a place of work, where the team has all the tools they need before they need them.  This is very important for workflow and enables the team to become autonomous, and “adult up”.  This also comes to the timing of decisions from a strategic and tactical decision point of view.  Imagine that your team is waiting for a decision to be made, but instead of it being made in a week, it takes a month.  The impact of a slow decision is that the problem has now escalated from $100 to $1000 or more, and the flow-on effect has widened to other areas.

What we have found in our teams is that when we have all the tools available, they are able to take on more responsibility. Instead of taking a tool for one job, they will take five tools, for 5 jobs -and if everyone is doing this, then there is more that is done within the same time. They get more done in the day and they can go home earlier to see their families, they win – the business wins.  We are all Winning.  We always ensure that supplies are stocked up in advance, or if they need something urgently, we have the means to get it.  Other, things like breakdowns of machinery are communicated fast, and we have it fixed as soon as possible.

Relationships within the team

It’s not usual that the team picks who they want to work with, this is usually done by the employer.  This means that the team needs to have a way to reset and get to know the new team member and create a working relationship with them.  Unfortunately, there is no way you can write a policy, procedure, or task list that will create an amazing culture.  It doesn’t matter how much you as an employer would like to have that amazing culture, if the business doesn’t initially create the foundational environment first, then the people will literally wilt away,  and find somewhere else to be.  How do you create this amazing environment then? 

It begins with the behavior and intention of the employer and business

People are behavioral, expectant, and relational, we are human beings – not human doings after all.  Monkey see monkey do…and…

“The Speed of the Leader determines the rate of the pack” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

First, as employers, we check our own behavior and the way we are with people. This sets the foundation and expectation, and tone of the environment.

• The words we use and the way we use them – intonation
• Timing of decisions
• Tools available
• Responsive, not reactive
• Communicating informally, formally, and often
• Being present with the team, emotionally and engaged
• Engaged in who they are as people
• Your team works with you, not for you – this is a technicality
• Very clear expectations communicated well in advance
• Give feedback often
• Social etiquette engaged
• Manners
• Gratitude for your people

These are all things that we can control for our people and teams, and once we realise that we control this it becomes easy to create a great foundation.  We realise that all these things we use for our teams are actually things that we want for ourselves as well.  This is not often the case though, in business, we sometimes forget that when paying our wages, that instead of thinking of the money paid in wages as an expense, that it is an asset.  We cannot do everything ourselves, even if we wanted to – we still need to work with others.

Working with a great team is a blessing and a joy, and when the value of creating a team that works together is seen through productivity it is encouraging.  I know this from our own teams of people, they are amazing and we love seeing them grow and progress.  This is a joy in itself, and something we’d love to see in all businesses.