Does your team really know how they make a difference?
Every week we have a sales meeting with the entire staff. This week Phill Powell from our office led the meeting with an exercise that focused on 3 questions? I thought I would share them with you. Phill and I recently reviewed a talk that Patrick Lencioni gave at a National Leadership Forum at Southeastern University. The talk gave Phill the idea to share a couple of the nuggets with our team. Phill and I are both huge fans of Lencioni’s work. I think we have both read almost everything that he has published. We both utilize Lencioni’s philosophies often in our office.
Anyway, back to the 3 questions:
1.) What is our Mission Statement? Write it down. Now this was an eye opener. Most of my staff has been with Express for 3 years or better. No one could write it out. It is posted all over the office. Everyone on the team helped come up with the mission several years ago. After we went around the table, many were close but no one got it write. It wasn’t an exercise to see if anyone knew it by heart, but to help us stay focused on what our true purpose is. He then asked a follow up question.
2.) What have you done today to fulfill that mission? Write it down. Now this helped out a bunch. Everyone had done something that day that fulfilled the mission – and they were proud of it. We had gotten away from what is important in our business and why we do what we do every day. He then asked a new question?
3.) What values make our office culture really unique? Now everyone started listing out our values that were put together when we put together our mission statement. He then clarified it. No – what is REALLY unique – the things that no else has that defines our team family. That was really cool and we truly have a few things that define our group. We have formed a culture that makes our Express office very unique and special.
It was a short exercise but it made our team think about a few things – why we do what we do every day and what holds us together. I will tell you a couple secrets. Our mission is to inspire hope in our associates, clients and community with professionalism and integrity. We get to inspire hope every day! We also have a team that is built around some things like heart, servant hood, professionalism and family. We watch each others back and we pick each other up. I am proud to lead such a team. Its part of my family now.
The question I started asking myself is this – how did this happen? What built this unique team that gels so well and works hard daily to fulfill our mission? Guess what – that will be the topic at our next sales meeting. I have a feeling I know, but I want our team to be a part of realizing how it came about.
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