Leading Better Teams

When a team is out of alignment, it has the potential to reduce engagement, retention, team productivity, and efficiency. Anytime something changes, a team needs to realign to stay high performing. In today's episode, we focus on the three critical areas around which strong leaders align their teams to ensure they are both happy and high performing. You’ll find out how confusion about goals, roles and responsibilities, or methods creates tension and hampers the team. Plus, you’ll walk-away with effective methods and processes to get your team aligned. Buckle up for Leigh Ann’s advice to prevent frustration, confusion and conflict that can occur when team members are not on the same page.

Show Notes

⚠️ All teams have at least one area where the team is not fully aligned. 01:02
⚡ What are the challenges when aligning a team? 02:27
🤔 What is team alignment? 06:22
🧐 What does a team need to be aligned around? 08:04
🚘 LBT Trivia Question: How often should you align your car tires? 10:28
🌞 Re-aligning your team is a very proactive approach. 11:19
2️⃣ Roles and responsibilities while aligning your team. 12:02
🔥 Using the RACI Method for role agreements. 14:42
📝 Let’s talk about job procedures, and team norms.18:01
✨ The Distinctive Leader exercise. 19:43
✌️ Alignment is critical for the health of your team. 22:12
🤓 The Better Teams Challenge 22:42


Links
Better Teams Assessment https://better-teams.com/assessment/
RACI Method  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix 
Better Teams blog post mentioning Mark Smith’s book - The Distinctive Leader  https://better-teams.com/best-team-culture/ 
The Distinctive Leader, by Mark Smith https://www.amazon.com/Distinctions-Lessons-Leadership-Mark-Smith-ebook/dp/B017FCVR1Q
Better Teams Model  https://better-teams.com/better-teams-model/

 >> Connect with Leigh Ann: www.better-teams.com
>> Get the Better-Teams model to identify your team’s strengths and greatest opportunities using a common language here: https://better-teams.com/better-teams-model/ 
>> Join FORWARD https://leigh-ann-rodgers.mykajabi.com/join-forward


What is Leading Better Teams?

Leading teams is tough. Leading hybrid or remote teams? Even tougher. New workplace dynamics can create employee tension and communication issues that can overwhelm the best leaders. The leadership challenge of engaging remote employees and leading virtual teams is a skill that all leaders must develop as the future of work is here. Companies are made up of people - like you and me - who are ideally working together toward a common goal. But we’re complicated human beings and when put together in a corporate/business environment, any number of things can go right or wrong.

I’m your host, Leigh Ann Rodgers - world-renowned human potential expert, speaker, author, and CEO of Better Teams. My mission is to help leaders of all kinds to build better teams around the globe so that employees are happy, engaged, and productive. Implementing the most effective and latest models served up humor, happiness, and a dash of southern charm results in positive transformations time after time.

Each month, you can expect to hear from me and other industry experts on how to effectively manage remote teams making them positive and happy. I’ll offer real world examples from my on-going work and be real about the challenges and celebrate victories that I see. I’ll also offer quick tips and tools that are my way of giving you actionable knowledge so that you, too, can help in the mission to build and lead better teams the world over.

This podcast has been created to reach more people, executives, teams to benefit individuals, and can make corporations more human-centered. This show is for leaders seeking new ways to engage remote and hybrid teams and employees and who need practical tips and tools to lead with confidence.

The recognition that humans are complicated and motivated in all different ways allows me to be empathic and listen more deeply to what’s being said, and what’s not being said so that I can understand the entire team's values, ways of working and, ultimately, drive. It’s my whole-human approach that separates my work from the rest and has allowed me to walk among people employed at the smallest of local firms, non-profit organizations, government agencies like the Center for Disease Control (CDC), multinational companies and the world’s biggest brands like MARS, Whirlpool, and Kelloggs. I’ve been privileged to be in company with thousands of humans around the world - team members, frontline workers, and the most powerful executives. But as many as I’ve impacted, I cannot do this work alone. That’s why I created Forward - a trusted community of global industry professionals and now this podcast - so that we call can network, learn from one another, share new ideas, ask for help, and experiment with new ideas so this work can reach far and wide.

In my work as team builder, facilitator, and focus group moderator, people are moved to action by my expertise, and my undying curiosity about people and the never-ending stream of new tools and technologies that are consistently being developed to help teams and people be more productive. My job is to sort through all the information and apply my hands-on knowledge about work - what it is today and what it’s evolving into tomorrow. The world of work and people have been forever changed. It’s up to people like me who can clearly see the impact on people and teams to interpret the trends, test and analyze frameworks and tools to uncover what works most effectively, and take these learnings and put them into practice for teams large and small around the globe.