Do You Have a Story About a Remarkable Team?

I do. My team experiences are many and varied. I often think back and tell stories about one in particular, my first ever management role. I was 19/20(ish) years old and had been given the task of managing a very poor performing sports retail store. It was ranked quite low compared to its national peers, and very low against its peers closer by within the region.

Over the year, an unassuming bunch of 17-22 year olds (that was the age spread of the team - mostly casual uni students) managed to achieve 'store of the quarter' status nationally and even stick around in the top tier the quarter after that.

I was reading an article by Bob Nelson called "Creating High-Performing Teams - Characteristics of an effective team and team recognition tips" (2010) and in the article, acknowledging there are many attributes of high-performing teams, he outlined 7 in particular. I thought it would be fun to retrospectively compare my team of 1997 to the 7 Attributes.

I went on to do a business degree and then spend a decade working in adult learning roles within corporate environments. Every time I'd learn a new technique, theory or methodology for performance I'd think back to this team and how we were doing a lot of those things on instinct. I think most of us do work on experience and instinct. These days I just do it with more purpose and rationale.

For my reminiscing and possibly your amusement, this is my rose-coloured recollection:

Purpose	We had a common purpose based around survival and full clarity of the mission ahead. If the store didn’t improve, its future (and our jobs) would be in jeopardy. We didn’t have a fancy name for that back then… I can still remember sitting around one Thursday night and mutually agreeing to a set of guiding principles for how we could get the store back on track…<see below in Empowerment>
Empowerment	Luckily, we had a pretty flat structure – I had been the full-timer/2IC and was promoted internally. Everyone else was either part-time or casual and looked on each other as peers (given we were all the same measure of ‘wet behind the ears’ naïve). We agreed to 2 behaviours/actions that would be invoked 100% and had the absolute autonomy to call each other on it if they weren’t being adhered to: 1. Every customer gets a nice and friendly interaction whether they’re there to buy the most expensive shoes or a pair of laces. The deal was, they leave with an invisible ‘+’ sign on their forehead. 2. If a customer comes in with one of our bags (ie. Some shoes they want to return), they’re not allowed to make it all the way to the counter without being met by one of the team (think about it, going in to try and return anything in a shop isn’t fun, people don’t like doing it. Meeting the customer half way was a symbolic measure that we wanted to help). The agreement on decision making was that as long as it was in the interest of the store and customer and one of your peers agreed (helped people feel like they were allowed to reach out for help), then people were empowered to make decisions.
Relationships & Communication	We were a little bit like the blind leading the blind, so there was high trust and acceptance that we weren’t going to be perfect but we were going to have a go! Many members of the team had grown up in the area and knew each other from school days and childhood, so there wasn’t really a façade for individuals to hide behind at work. Looking back, if I had overthought this high level of personal history I might have tried to prevent people being too ‘buddy buddy at work’ and stifled the organic connections and shared history that actually drove commitment to each other and the team outcomes.
Flexibility	We took shared responsibility for team development and leadership. We did have a variety of experience in the team, so people leveraged their strengths to share knowledge with the newer staff. There was a lot of ‘street cred’ relating to product knowledge and selling skills. The more you could break down all the elements of the latest technology, the more street cred you had. When senior staff were asked to help out a new staff member with their product knowledge or selling process, it was a form of recognition and pride. Given the team was heavy in casual staff, there was an inherent adaptive mojo that pervaded. The group were young and up for challenges!
Optimal Productivity	We got a lot more purposeful about having sales targets front and centre for people to assist with motivating productivity. There was already a commission based pay structure in place to incentivise, but in the past people had accepted that our store wasn’t one where you could earn commission. Given this, targets were put to the side and people weren’t heading in the same direction. When people know where the goal posts are they are far more likely to shoot for them. The culture of the group meant we were all up for a little competition internally, but more so was the desire to compete at the same level as other stores in our region.
Recognition & Appreciation	This was big. It’s the most I felt like I was a peer within the team rather than the leader. We started the journey at the bottom of the pack, so there was a real feeling of comradery in the team. Given the dire conditions of the store when we got started with the turn around, there was a feeling of ‘us against the world’. We were tight and relied strongly on our peers for recognition. It was a critical driver the way that people showed appreciation for a colleague going the extra mile. When someone does a favour, then the other feels like they need to match it back in some other way down the track – we were trading in a currency that was very intangible and paid very highly!
Morale	I can still remember the Boxing Day sale of that year. It was always the biggest day in retail. The first business day after Christmas and the sales were hot to trot. Generally speaking, the store sales target would be set at approx. 5 x the normal. Not only did we meet our target that day, but we outsold the two other stores in our city! The feeling was visceral. It was nearly like our grand-final. It also marked the end of a tough year where we had stuck with each other and there was great optimism for the year to come – a critical element of morale.