I had a fantastic time last week speaking on building the highest performing teams at the Logistical Labs Customer Event in Chicago. We also played my game, Cards Against Mundanity, a team build game where participants share their life experiences through questions and answers in small groups from 4 to 12 people. It’s similar to Cards Against Humanity, but more fun, more vulnerable, and more about your life. It’s amazing to see how animated people get, their voices getting louder, everyone leaning in, smiles on their faces, and it’s hard to get them stopping talking!
They were a great inquisitive group of managers and leaders from across the United States that cared deeply about serving their clients and organization.
Logistical Labs, makers of LoadDex, are the SaaS platform for collecting, analyzing, and acting on supply chain data. With their suite of analytics products, users can make better informed pricing and quoting decisions through data-driven insights and social collaboration. Open API access allows users to easily integrate products into their existing business applications for improved process efficiency. Logistical Labs was named a Top 100 Logistics IT Provider by Inbound Logistics in 2018.
360-degree feedback programs have received a lot of negative (and justified) attention over the last few years. Even Dilbert has parodied the process.
Recently, a client said, “I can’t wait to do another 360 degree review that tells me what I already knew and provides me with very little meaningful insights.”
However, 360-degree feedback done right can be a very valuable process that significantly influences teams and organizations. It provides an outside perspective into an individual’s (often unconscious) habits and behaviors that sabotage their success.
These are areas such as an inability to compromise, conflict avoidance, micromanaging, poor communication or collaboration, etc.
Why Should You Do a 360-Degree Review?
According to Dr. Tasha Eurich, while most people believe they are self-aware, only 10% to 15% are. Self-awareness is very rare quality for a person to have. So most people walk around not understanding the true impact they are having in their organization.
There are three main reasons for this:
While it’s easy to see what’s wrong with everyone else around us, it’s hard to see similar things in ourselves. The way our brain is wired makes it extremely difficult to self-examine ourselves to see our unconscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
The human mind is not rational, but driven by emotions. We make up stories in the absence of hard data (i.e. 1+1=2). Our mind is also wired to reward us for making quick meaning of situations through chemical releases such as oxytocin.
The more experienced and senior a person’s role is in an organization, the more likely they are to overestimate their skills, abilities, and competencies. One study of 3600 senior leaders found that they overvalued their capabilities in 19 out of 20 areas.
Therefore, receiving external feedback is extremely important in helping people understand what they are doing, thinking and feeling and the effect it has on those around them. Armed with this information, individuals have a much higher chance of creating critical behavioral changes.
Unfortunately, the 360-degree process is broken today and needs to be changed.
“The workshop and game were excellent: the team was very appreciative of the event, and it kept coming up as one of the best experiences they’ve ever had. As a manager, that was great to hear. Throughout the following two days, we hosted some guests from other groups, and we asked them to answer random cards in front of the audience: some of their answers were surprisingly deep and instantly helped to establish trust between them and our teams.”
Testimonial for my Team Building Workshop at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Fort Worth.
“Our group of ambassadors enjoyed your team building presentation and excited to try the game with their team/organization.
After having a conversation with Jason, I immediately felt like a friend of his. Jason is passionate about helping others not only reach organizational goals, but personal goals as well. As a recent college graduate, I am always seeking ways to grow as a young professional and Jason gives great advice on how to do so. I am excited to get my hands on Jason’s best-selling novel, Social Wealth.”
Jazmin Gutierrez, Business Coordinator, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
“Do you want to get to the next level? Jason’s Team Building Workshop will help you open doors in your life, that you never knew they were there! Thank you again for coming out this Wednesday. We are so excited to have you come out again.”
Sandra Garcia, Membership Coordinator, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Here is a testimonial on my corporate team building workshop at Ernst & Young (EY) in Dallas. I presented to a group of 100 and had them do a team building activity as well.
“Jason did an outstanding job invigorating and motivating our members as the first speaker for EY Young Guns Toastmasters’ Distinguished Speaker Series. His presentation “How to like your coworkers” fell on eager ears as we all went on this journey through his speech to challenge ourselves to build better relationships with our coworkers so that we could build better performing teams in our workplace. He approached the matter with facts, statistics, and personal testimonies so that everyone could understand how to execute and implement his advice.
Jason has a rare gift of charismatic insight that allows him to command the attention of the audience and deliver an impactful message. His delivery was fantastic and engaging.
Jason on behalf of EY Young Guns and myself, I appreciate the valuable contribution you made in making our Distinguished Speaker Series a success. Our members are still singing your praise. Your knowledge, enthusiasm and the wisdom you have shared have had an impact on our organization and the bonds we create as we work together.”
Lonnada Green, Ernst & Young, Enterprise Support Service & Vice President of Public Relations, EY YoungGuns
“I played your team building game, Cards Against Mundanity, with my wife. We both really enjoyed it. We did a modified version — reading a few of the cards and having a discussion with some of them. Thank you. It was very beneficial in our relationship.”
“I have known Jason for over a decade. In addition to his skill as a major connector of people, he is spot on when it comes to corporate culture, leadership and helping C-level executives identify their blind spots.
I would highly recommend him if you are looking to take your company and culture to the next level.”
Great day yesterday doing a session on self-awareness and emotional intelligence to increase performance, collaboration and innovation with the Houston-Galveston Area Council. We discussed how to remove blind spots and patterns that sabotage success, along with two questions that allow you to much more effectively and efficiently manage others, and manage your relationships.
Fantastic group of motivated and engaged individuals.
Also met with one of the top oil/gas companies and narrowing down a date for a workshop with Houston PRSA for October.
According to all the recent data, including Gallup poll, employee disengagement is at an all-time high. Internal and employee surveys are not telling the whole story of what’s going on.
The organizations that spend time creating close connections through sharing activities are seeing significant productivity and performance returns. Creating psychological safety is the foundation on which all great teams are built. Without it, a team will be underperforming according to the research and my observations of more than 70+ teams.
For example, people who have their best friend at work perform 7x higher than the average employee in that organization. Also, people on teams who share more information about themselves perform higher.
Why? People who share more like the people around them more just by being able to open up.
How to do you master business, leadership, management, and your career? Why are you procrastinating and not motivated (hint –you’ve hit a plateau!) I show you the three pillars of mastery, along with how to apply it. You’ll see why 99% of people struggle and make zero progress. It’s pretty obvious once I draw it out why it is. And eventually why eventually every single person hits rock bottom and crashes/burns. You’ll get high-level tools to help you avoid this.
You can get my free team building game that more than 3,000 people have used including many leading companies like Google, Amazon, E&Y, Oracle, Microsoft, and others. http://www.cardsagainstmundanity.com
Check out my individual and group coaching options at https://jasontreu.com/services. You can try it out with a single coaching session as well.
