Salespeople Are The Unsung Heroes of the Economy. They are the grease that keeps the wheels spinning. Human resources professionals are the heart and soul of an organization (i.e. the people!!).
I mean, who else could sell ice to the Eskimos? Get a bunch of people from different backgrounds and worlds to effectively come together and work as a team?
But with the pressures they face and the breakneck schedules they work with day-in-day-out, how do they take the time to slow down and find meaning in their endeavors?
Jason Treu tells his own story in this video.
Jason Treu’s biography:
Jason Treu (Troy) is a coach who works with executives, entrepreneurs and rising stars to maximize their leadership potential and performance. He also helps them build and execute their career blueprint. He’s the best-selling author of Social Wealth, a how-to-guide on building extraordinary business relationships, which has sold more than 60,000 copies. He hosts the podcast show, Executive Breakthroughs, bringing game-changing CEOs, entrepreneurs, and experts that share their breakthroughs and breakdowns. Jason talks about being self-aware and how important this is to be successful. He talks and provides examples of people who ruined it for themselves by not being able to adjust and work on themselves. Jason gives advice on how to overcome your flaws and be better at life. This is a great Podcast to get some life coaching in and get an insight into Jason and Stefan’s look on life.
Podcast Summary:
0:00 – Ex: “A really good quote” or A very interesting topic
1:25 – “how did you get started in what you do?”
2:25 – Jason created a company to help people socialize
4:00 – “how does a guy have a good social life these days?”
6:45 – self-awareness is the most underrated quality
9:00 – no one is being accountable these days for personal actions
10:00 – as a kid you learn to deal with things a certain way which become worse as you get older but subconsciously you do it
17:50 – Stefan talks about his date where she accused him of not being from the high school he said
19:45 – “imposter syndrome” Jason explains what this is
22:15 – Stefan talks about how people, as you get more successful cant, relate to each other
23:40 – “when do you think a person goes from illegitimate to legitimate
26:05 – people don’t like to sell cause they have to face rejection
Teamwork is the most important and least developed soft skill. Arguably everything we do is dependent on other people. Performance and outcomes are dependent on how well the team works together.
Just like a flower, unless we give it constant attention and care, it will wither and die. The same goes for teamwork and relationships with teammates.
Too many talk about how important culture and teamwork are without prioritizing it and taking action. Here is a “training-wheels” edition of super simple, quick actions any size team or organization can take.
These team building activities can be done once a month or twice a month. Typically, they will take 10 minutes or less on an average size team. Human resources professionals can work with managers to execute these team building activities with their teams.
There are many more team building activities, but these are the least time consuming with the most impact.
Activities 1-4, you can go through these multiple times. In a team meeting, go around the group and have everyone do one of these in a meeting. It should take 10 minutes or less.
With 5-6, there are specific instructions below.
These four team building activities are quick-hitting (30 seconds to one minute per person) and will make an immediate impact. Research studies show being grateful and thanking others can increase team performance by 30%+.
There are TONS of research studies on this. Here is one. “The HAAS School of Business at UC Berkeley found that people who feel recognized are 23% more effective and productive, but those who feel like the people around them genuinely care are a whopping 43% more effective. Not only that, 66% of employees (76% for millennials) say they would “likely leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated.”
1) What are three things you are grateful for? (Take 30 seconds to one minute for each person. The group leader and/or most senior person goes first).
2) Who on the team do you want to thank for helping you in the recent past? What did they do and how did it help you? (Take one minute for each person. The group leader and/or most senior person goes first).
3) Text or email someone in the organization (but not on the team) to thank them for helping you. Be specific on what they did and how it helped you. You have five minutes to email/text the person.
4) Choose one question from Cards Against Mundanity. Go around the team and have everyone answer it.
Two Additional team building activities:
5) Have everyone give each team member a Thanksgiving Day a week before Thanksgiving. Write out a personal message to thank them for something or to express your gratitude towards them. Keep it to one to two paragraphs maximum.
6) Hidden Strengths Exercise
We all have great strengths, but we may not recognize or realize them. The easiest way to calibrate how we see ourselves versus how others see us is to explicitly ask them. This exercise does that. It helps you uncover what people see as your greatest strengths.
Step 1: Have everyone write down three positive qualities they see in their team members. For each person, write it down on a sheet and give it to the person. You don’t need to write your name on it.
Step 2: Have each person read through the words.
Step 3: Pick out three words that stand out to you. Perhaps they are words that have been repeated the most.
Step 4: Each person shares their three words and answers the following questions. Other team members should provide their thoughts and feelings during the discussion.
A) Why did you choose them?
B) How surprised are you about the words that were chosen by the team? Share why you were surprised or not surprised.
C) How can you put them into action more with your teammates? What specific actions can you take?
Step 5: Write down the words and put them in a picture frame on your desk to remind you to put these words into actions every single day. You can also just tape the piece of paper to your monitor.
Learning and development is something I’ve always been passionate about. I’m a naturally curious, research oriented and understand the value of strategic training.
I work with clients (either HR and/or management team) to help them with their training and development needs. Here are a few areas:
Create and implement a strategic program for the entire organization.
Create and implement a culture development program, employee experience, and employee engagement program.
Work with HR on their onboarding process
Develop a learning and development program, manager training and/or leadership development program.
It’s exciting to take an idea and see it through execution to making a huge impact for an organization. It’s never easy, but always worth it!
Reach out to me if you are interested in these services and/or have any questions.
On the HR Works Podcast we discuss how leaders can successfully step into vulnerability, how to build high performing teams and how to skyrocket employee engagement quickly.
“With organizations losing unbelievable amounts of money to poor employee engagement, I always wonder what stops leaders from properly addressing this problem. In this episode of HR Works, we find a critical ingredient to successful leadership and employee engagement: vulnerability.”
We also discuss how to use my free team building game, CardsAgainstMundanity.com, that more than 20,000+ employees are using to skyrocket trust, engagement, teamwork and performance.
This episode’s guest is Jason Treu, an executive coach who helps executives, managers, and employees to maximize their leadership and management abilities and perform at the highest levels. He provides coaching, workshops, keynote speaking, and other training services.
Jason also has “in the trenches experience” helping build a billion-dollar company and working with many Fortune 100 companies. He spent 15+ years working in marketing leadership positions in Silicon Valley working with influential leaders such as Steve Jobs (Apple & Pixar), Reed Hastings (CEO at Netflix), Mark Cuban, Mark Hurd (CEO at HP), Paul Wahl (President of SAP), and many others.
