Culture Corner: We Over Me … Building Team
When you walk out the door after work each day, how do you gauge success?
Is it projects completed, quotas met, connecting with a peer, checking the “I survived another day” box, or is it the feeling you’re a part of something bigger than yourself?
Take a few minutes and really think about your answer.
Everyone answers this question differently and of course, no answer is wrong, what’s important is you answer it honestly and you look beyond yourself.
What we mean by look beyond yourself is, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, think only of yourself, how something isn’t fair, it impacts ME versus looking at the big picture and realizing there are people around you who are also affected.
If you find yourself going down that solo path, we’re challenging you today to look beyond yourself and be more focused on WE versus ME.
Depending on how you answered the initial question, here are some thoughts around what your answer tells you about yourself, how you gauge success, plus some helpful ideas to be more focused on those around you.
If you answered:
Projects completed/Quotas met – You feel accomplished with completing tasks and reaching goals, that’s great and it’s important to your success as well as your team and company’s success. But don’t get caught up in focusing only on the tasks, challenge yourself to think through how you completed these things, alone or as part of your team. Chances are you had some help along the way – celebrate that and work on being the best team player or leader you can be.
Connecting with a peer – What’s most important to you is interaction with others, often called your work family. We spend a lot of hours on the job, it’s important to have fun. Research shows the more engaged a team is, the more productive they are.
Checking the “I survived another day” box – There are days we all check this box! But if you check it every day, you might not be challenging yourself, you might feel stuck in a position. There is no time like the present to re-evaluate where you want your position to take you. Think about what part of your current role is fun for you, makes you feel accomplished and who you can rely on each day to get the job done. You have to be intentional about finding a way to do more than survive the day. This might be the perfect conversation starter for you and your leader.
The feeling I’m a part of something bigger than myself – This is the whole package, you have great co-workers, leaders and you rely on each other to complete projects, hit quotes, have fun and to be a successful team. That said, it doesn’t mean every day is perfect, but there’s camaraderie and as they say, teamwork makes the dream work!
No doubt every one of us can be better about looking around us, seeing the impact others make on us and how they often contribute to our own success.
At Lead to INSPIRE, we’d love to hear if this article challenged you to think differently, tell us what you’re working on and how it has impacted your day to day. Reach out to us at hello@leadtoinspre.net
When you succeed, we succeed – at Lead to Inspire we are grateful for your continued partnership.
