I Cried at Work This Week

I cried at work this week… They were not tears of frustration or sadness, but rather tears of joy. The joy was from watching the culmination of true teamwork yield an enormously successfully live broadcast event.?“Teamwork makes the dream work.” That saying is not hyperbole and I experienced it this week. I am feeling extremely grateful.

I’m not talking about only my production team.

First, let me say that company culture matters. It impacts everyone and everything. If you are fostering a positive environment that serves to lift people up, make them feel supported, and that they are part of team meant for something bigger together, then you are doing it right. I’ve worked with some companies in the past who treated each other terribly and didn’t understand the definition of the word “team.” Their toxic environment extended outward to how they treated vendors and agency partners. My team and I still went the extra mile for them every day. And I felt cranky almost every single day as I pushed myself to the limit.

Because my career is very personal to me. I dislike the saying “it’s just business, it’s not personal.” I say, if your work isn’t personal, you’re not doing it right.

Flash forward to this past week to a truly collaborative client-partner who has been investing in their own company culture and ingraining it in everything. In fact for this broadcast, there was no talking head showing slide after slide specifically about their company culture. Rather, we made their culture present everywhere throughout the event, just as it should be present everywhere every day of their careers.

They lived it and it extended to the planning process. As the production partner we were absorbed into their team. Individual skills were used to the advantage of the team. We were all working towards the same objectives, and by the individuals working to elevate the team, the individuals were elevated along the way. ?The respect shown and support given was a beautiful thing. Each morning as I stared at a full inbox to start the day, I smiled instead of frowned.

The experience made me better. I found myself asking more questions and making less assumptions, as a collaborative dialogue was always an option. I felt supported not only by my colleagues, but also by the client team. I can only hope they felt the same about us as their production partner.

This supportive environment ?along with clear objectives yielded the realization of a small dream: to collaborate with clients to produce a broadcast formatted in a way that aligns to how viewers consume information while watching a screen. There was absolutely no “presenter plus” is this show. We modeled it after television with our participants being viewers, but added all the engagement that comes (or should come) with a virtual platform. We gave much thought into viewer behavior and asked ourselves “why do we watch our favorite television programs” and how can we bring that point of view to a corporate broadcast? The results? The energy, the excitement, and the engagement were through the roof.

I’m just feeling very grateful right now to my colleagues at TMW Enterprises for their collaborative spirit and our entire production team for pulling this off resulting in a very happy client. I am happy to call these clients teammates. ?I look forward to our next production adventure together and shedding more happy tears.

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."? – Phil Jackson

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