Building a team is an experience that implies recognizing and valuing the contribution that others make in the successes that we achieve in our professional lives. When we join a company we meet the people who will be our travel companions in the great adventure of labor management. Little by little we are generating synergies, spaces for conversation and strengthening ties of collaboration and cooperation that allows us to consider these new places as friendly and safe.
The links that we are creating with these people, unknown until recently, allow us to believe that we have been hosted in a site that offers us the possibility of contributing positively to the results of the organization. We begin to show ourselves to others, leaving aside the shynesses and natural precautions that assail us when we are in new and unknown environments. Slowly we are getting to know and getting to know the people who have been in this business culture for some time, who welcomes us as one of their team.
When entering new organizational environments we begin an adaptation stage that allows us to discover colleagues who accept and receive us in their already formed groups.
Simultaneously we begin to perceive, also, that some others may feel some fear, insecurity or even envy with our connection, perhaps because we entered to "replace" someone who was appreciated by the group or simply because there was not enough empathy from the beginning.
The development of the work entrusted to us must be carried out, surely, with the collaboration and support of others who may not belong to our own area, it is the moment when we begin to establish links and relationships that could lead us to conflict or at least to uncomfortable situations, especially if we require the other person or area to become our provider of information or services in order to advance in the management entrusted to us.
The life of organizations is alive and dynamic, it passes between the processes formulated and the managerial decisions that may not necessarily be in line with the purposes established by the organizational strategy.
The daily business, always full of activity (and activism) will be the one that shows the collaborators if the tasks that are carried out lead to the expected results, that is, that management is not a guarantee of results, doing a lot does not mean doing the right thing. It is the paradox of those who find themselves, at the end of the day, tired from having worked a lot, but at the same time with the internal feeling of not having made progress in achieving the expected results.
When we are responsible for the task, we cannot forget the results, perhaps the routine will lead us to focus many hours and efforts on operational and repetitive tasks that make us forget about the results that the company management expects. Taking a STOP, stopping to visualize the goal, reviewing if the route taken is the correct one and evaluating the progress made with the team, are the best way not to err in management. There are many cases that we know of managers who were fired for not ensuring the expected result, perhaps they were good at planning, but their execution did not lead to compliance with the success indicators proposed by the company's management.
The new members of our work teams must know, from the beginning, what are the expectations that the company has regarding their work, what is required of their management as a contribution to the joint work they carry out and the resources they have to achieve it.
Pilar Jericó, in his reflections on organizational commitment (and in which this text is inspired), invites us to delve into the aspects that lead us to business results, it is about understanding that we must all listen carefully to the music that plays and that we must dance harmoniously for it to be a good dance. Dancing together means that we are listening to the same thing and we make ourselves comfortable so as not to collide, not to contradict and not ruin the dance to which we have been invited after a selection process that perhaps represented a great investment of resources for the company.
Dancing together means that we are aligned with the strategy and with the objectives proposed to make it a reality; Nothing worse than listening to conversations where the officials of the same company give different explanations to the same customer, or when the sales agents of the same company visit the same customer to offer the same product portfolio, or when there is no unit of judgment. against the sale prices or delivery times of the products or services purchased, or the solution of a claim, etc…
Creating synergy is integrating the experience of others in our way of doing things, understanding that strategic alignment is related to change as a shared experience.
The path traveled by the members of the work team is usually diverse and is enriched by the experience brought by newcomers who come to the organization, however it is common to find that those who have been in the company for the longest time cling to the paradigms of Success or failure that they have experienced and often close the doors for new ideas and initiatives that involve risking the status quo and the comfort zone in which we feel the security of one more week with work (even if the client leaves).
To align the company, is to understand that although there may be many work groups, there will always be a single team that goes out to the market every day to play the most important game of its life: to stay competitive against the new players that They arrive every day with new ways of doing things, with teams that have visions that go beyond partial victories and seek the highest peaks.
Dancing together also means that we can discover the power that talent has in our companies, the challenge of generating communication spaces that value individuality and at the same time discover, as Mcclelland would say, the importance of converting the company and the team of I work in a motivational benchmark aimed at producing outstanding performance.
I hope that these brief reflections can connect with the importance of welcoming the new members of our teams, of welcoming them and contextualizing them in the expected results of their management, of recognizing the music they should dance and identifying with those who can and should lean so they don't end up leaving the dance before finishing the song.
