May 27, 2016
Q: What measures, practices, or programs does your company have in place to build a close-knit team? How do you build a team that’s unified, and how do you maintain it?
Wow! All I can say is that this is quite an interesting topic and something that we have discovered may have been neglected for a while—but no more!
At Advantzware, we have brought in a new team of experienced, career-oriented people and have challenged our existing staff to get better every day. This process of evaluation and communication has allowed us to quickly build cohesion throughout our company and allowed us to change some processes and procedures that we have had in place, but they may not have been as formal and documented as they are now. Advantzware has been in business for 25 years, with President Joe Hentz leading our company in multiple roles. We have now recruited from the best companies in the industry, including EFI, Ricoh, and others, to build a great team that is fixated on the long term and total customer focus. Our new team is built upon the simple motto of “Customers first. Customers for life.” This is how we rallied our team to think differently and made sure everything we do is focused on providing our customers with the best solution and customer service in the industry. This simple change in our focus and strategy has allowed our entire company to rally around a single goal and empowered every employee at every level to take action and quickly help a customer, no matter what the issue may be. A focused employee and management team is what we hope will continue to allow us to jell as a group of people and employees, to become a true partner for our customers. We believe in that focus, and our people are determined to deliver on that motto, not just in words, but in actions—follow-up and delivery such that we hear from our wonderful customers that we have been exceeding their expectations.
We hope to maintain this high level of partnership with a combination of customer surveys, direct management contact visits, customer service happiness ratings, and customer feedback to make sure that we are listening to our customers and stay focused on their needs every day. We are not done improving, but we are continuing to get better every day! — Jay Farr, CEO and partner, Advantzware
I dismantled our “management” team and implemented a “leadership” team. We did this in preparation for our enrollment in The Human Factor strategic planning process with Holly Green. We are six months in, and our entire team is jelling better than ever before. By emphasizing leadership development rather than management, we have engaged all employees in a more effective manner.
Communicating to all employees using many different vehicles and on a constant basis has also contributed to the jelling effect.
And finally, we set a goal of having every employee volunteer to be on a “team”—we set up many opportunities—in order to utilize their unique skills, education, and training. This goal was met within one month of its announcement! — Kim Nelson, CEO, Royal Containers Ltd.
At Fosber: 1) We have quarterly manager meetings, which are offsite to allow all departments to give updates and discuss any . We invite a professional speaker for a portion of the day. We also have some social activity so everyone can have a little fun together. 2) We have a charity luncheon once a quarter where everyone prepares and cooks lunch, which we serve to local businesses. All proceeds go to the specific charity. It’s typically someone connected to Fosber who is struggling with a hardship. 3) We have a monthly company meeting where all financials and updates are shared for all to review and have a Q&A session. This keeps everyone on the same page. Teams “jell” when they feel involved and heard; also, when fairness rules. — Jeff Pallini, president, Fosber America Inc.
