Guest Column
Lori Irvine
TGNA Team & Leadership Coach
Investing in Team Synergy can improve the bottom line
Team training carries the potential to maximize human capital by promoting engagement, improving communication and building trust within teams.
Although at times it is perceived as “fluff,” building a synergistic team can produce a significant return on investment. When people hear the term “team building,” they often envision games and activities with forced interaction.
Synergistic team training is much more than games; through various methods, it mitigates conflict, encourages communication, and increases positive collaboration thereby boosting employee engagement. The training results positively impact workplace culture and in turn boost the bottom line.
In the dental practice, conflict arises when there is a misunderstanding or a misperception of goals, or values, especially when people care about the outcome. Conflict sometimes is what a team needs to begin an open discussion to create a greater understanding amongst the team.
The challenge is when negativity invades a workplace culture. It can slowly creep through undetected for months, sometimes years. Left unattended, or addressed, this can have the greatest effect on the health of the practice. It infects morale, which in turn affects patient satisfaction, which directly has a concrete negative effect on your productivity.
Synergistic Team coaching helps to address all areas of the practice: positive and celebratory, as well as those that are uncomfortable, and challenging. Sometimes you need to identify the elephant in the room to be able to move forward.
It is all about providing clarity for a team’s workplace vision and culture. Team members learn ways to share new ideas, take accountability and problem solve through their “growing pains.”
Team building helps break down barriers, saving time and money lost to inefficient communication. Discussions without the structure of an agenda are an ineffective use of valuable time. You have undoubtedly attended meetings that dragged on without achieving anything…Optimising communication through team coaching leads to greater efficiency, less misunderstanding and increased productivity.
Although outcomes are not easily measured in numbers and percentages, make no mistake, this perceived “waste of time” is one of the most impactful business investments you can make.
Team members with leaders invested in improving workplace culture through synergistic team training feel involved and valued. They are more committed to serving their purpose, they welcome opportunities for advancement, are motivated to come to work and perform better because they have a clear understanding of company’s uniqueness and their contribution to it.
A committed workforce is more productive than its disengaged counterpart. Team Synergy training is a great asset to a company and well worth the investment.
