My leadership coach Robert Grossman has been saying for nearly 18 months that I need to take my team through a process he calls a “Team Charter.” I resisted it for a year. I thought it sounded hokey and that it wasn’t my kind of thing. And then, after so much time of building trust with Robert, I relented.
After sharing a vision for where the team could go in the next five years and what we needed to achieve to get there, we sat down as a team, and THEY answered the question: How do YOU want to go about getting there? What should our team values be? How do we need to grow? How do I need to grow to get there?
It was a good conversation. Energizing. Engaging. Fun. Meaningful.
But then this happened…
I was leaving a late meeting around 6 pm on a Thursday only to find my entire team still at the office. I knew that one team member was working late every night that week to get a critical project done, but the rest of the team didn’t have to be there…So I asked what was up. None of them gave me a real answer. I follow up and asked directly: “Are you all working late just so Claire doesn’t have to work late alone?”
Without a word, they each recited the key value they had agreed upon during the Charter process:
“Win as a team, lose at a team, Jack,” they said.
WOW. How inspiring! This group is on a mission. They’re on fire. And thanks to the Charter process, and Robert’s coaching, they’re all rowing in the same direction!
Pretty cool.