Team Connectedness

Here’s a nice quote illustrating the importance of connectedness – the motivation that comes from feeling connected with others towards a common purpose, from England cricketer Ian Bell from the BBC Sport website yesterday. It also nicely demonstrates how a team can turn theory into practice for them in their environment, even coining a term for it.

“Sometimes, when you’re out there in the middle, it can be hard. If you look up at the dressing-room and there’s no-one watching… It’s 11 against one, most of the time. That’s why it’s important to bat as a pair. And as a team we talk now about ‘balcony presence’.”

(‘Balcony presence’ being the presence of your team mates watching and supporting you from the balcony outside the players’ dressing room – not a new gift for the veranda outside your bedroom).

Feeling supported by others around you can be incredibly important, and for some lots more than others – even vital. Imagine what it would be like to be working all day with your best performance friends at work watching you all day, encouraging you, acknowledging your successes and giving you those little pick ups if you need them when things don’t go to plan. This can be particularly useful when you’re working on your own or away from the team, like the cricket batsman out in the middle.

And, this sort of connectedness can be easily worked on and developed, and costs nothing. Wow, free motivation on tap, what would you give for that? (that’s a joke, you don’t have to give anything – it’s for free you see.) One of our current obsessions with our customers is to challenge their obsession for measuring and for measuring employee engagement. We believe much of the time spend measuring engagement would be better spend helping people to feel more motivated and connected and confident, perhaps by connecting with one another just a little better. Food for thought and for movement…