Team Spirit Built from the Top
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1. General Electric's famous "workout" process involved large "town hall meetings" to identify non-value-added work and to take that work out of the organization's systems and processes. Many variations of this approach can be used to streamline support systems that get in the way. Bureaucracy, errors, rework and inefficiency kill commitment while slowing things down and adding lots of cost. Formally and informally ask people what makes them feel they are doing useful work and what makes them feel they are doing useless work. Involve them in developing action plans to build on the useful work and eliminate or reduce the useless work.
2. Build a highly customer-focused organization. Bring a constant stream of customers into your organization. Invite them to planning sessions, feature them at recognition or celebration events, ask them to tell stories about how your products/services are being used and making a difference. Capture those stories on video, audio or in print, and circulate them widely. Frequently get people in your organization (especially those serving the people who are serving customers) out to meet customers.
3. Keep things simple and direct. Keep business units small and give teams autonomy. Keep pruning back the bureaucracy of centralization, rules, complicated systems and multistep processes. These disconnect and frustrate people while killing spirit and making work meaningless.
4. Encourage and promote humor to release tension in a situation and keep people looking at the lighter side of things. But ensure that humorous comments don't disguise barbs and "sniping" among team members. And avoid humorous putdowns of others that may reinforce a sense of "they are out to get us."
5. Lead change with examples of how your organization has gone through tough times or major changes like these before. Appeal to a proud heritage. Tell them how you've all come from a lineage of leaders and it's everyone's obligation to build an even stronger organization as a legacy for future generations.
6. Keep highly visible scoreboards, big thermometers (as in a fund-raising campaign), bulletin boards, Intranet sites, voice-mail messages and newsletters to update everyone on progress toward key goals or change and improvement targets. Make goals/targets and progress as visible as possible.
7. Look for every opportunity to recognize and celebrate significant accomplishments and milestones reached. Model and encourage simple "thank you's" and reinforce positive behavior whenever you see it.