Building a Cohesive Leadership Team

It's hard for business leaders to understand how to take practical steps toward building a cohesive and healthy leadership team. Many ignore the office dynamics and simply hope that personalities start to mesh. Like many things in life, a healthy leadership team requires intentionality and hard work. What would it look like to have an event that you really looked forward to attending with your core team?

I frequently find myself urging clients to book a dinner together after Day One of the two-day annual planning sessions. Further, I suggest they continue this dinner in future quarters and add an activity they would enjoy doing together.

?In a recent session with a team, I learned some really cool things about them as individuals. I encouraged them to spend time together not talking about work, but rather a relaxed activity discussing their interests and hobbies outside of the office. As we imagined what sort of gathering could feature all their talents, I was blown away by the accomplishments, hobbies, and knowledge that each individual had outside of their professional career. It gave me a new appreciation for each member of the leadership team, and more importantly, they cultivated a newfound respect for one another. He’s the activity that we envisioned:

• The Visionary invites the team for an evening at his very unique home.
• The Integrator is playing Adelle on the piano as the team arrives.
• The Finance Leader is in the kitchen cooking up the meal (He’s a bona fide chef!).
• The Engineering Leader is setting up the tournament poker game.
• The Sales Leader has carefully planned the craft beer and drink selection.

I had some fun with them the next morning of Day Two when they arrived at the session room with the above photo on the screen and Adelle playing in the background.

Visionaries love to dream—so let them! Bring your unique ability to your next team-building event and see what happens. The need to laugh and have fun is essential to your health, sparks creativity, and helps you get more done. Believe it!

EOS firmly believes that strong teams are cemented with trust. Watch the Patrick Lencioni video below about the importance of trust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwj9bMLiV4E

If the idea of planning an out-of-office event is met with eye-rolling, you probably need to cultivate trust in the office to inspire a fun event off-site. EOS has developed a Trust Builders tool and has many inspirational blogs (Click for “Three Ways to Build Trust”) for developing trust and team health.

One of EOS’s mottos is “Help first.” This means that I, as a Certified EOS Implementer, am willing to answer questions regarding EOS implementation, whether self-implemented or professionally implemented, schedule a free 30-minute Q&A session, and teach tools and workshops for the business and leader community. If I can be a resource to help you achieve your goals this year, please reach out to me here or via my website, Jim Socci - EOS Worldwide.