What is the Ideal Team Player?

Ralph and Cindy share their experience of working with hundreds of corporate teams and offer their assessment of the mindset and behavior characteristics common to the best team players.

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Welcome to the GetEmergent podcast. This is a podcast about leadership development, improving communication and enhancing team performance. I’m Cindy Massengill and I’m Ralph Simone. We’d love this topic today. The ideal team player, we get a lot of questions about what makes for the best team player.

And I’m hard-pressed not to say, just do what I do because I think I have. The ideal team player, but that statement in itself is problematic. Right? And it would make for a short podcast. It would. But if I have that high of an opinion of myself, I may not be open to differences of other people. Right. And I, and I think that our ego often gets in the way of being a really good team.

We’ve worked with a lot of teams and it’s given me the opportunity to really watch the interactions with all different types of people in different sizes of teams and how people really perform together effectively and not effectively. And there’s gosh, there are so many nuances to that human interaction.

There are, but we think if we organize it by really two areas, there’s a certain mindset than an effective team player brings into a group environment. I’m going to say because it, uh, you know, bringing people together does not make them a team. Right. And then there’s the behaviors that are required for a teammate or a team player to be effective in that team or group.

I agree. Agreed. You know, we’ve had a lot of years of experience in not just working with individuals and organizations but working with a lot of teams. And that experience has really taught us that there’s some highlighted bullets under both mindset and behaviors that we wanted to share with our followers today.

Why don’t we start with. I’d love to start with nights, because I think what we know is that our behavior flows out of our paradigms and our mindset. And so we’re not going to have the behavior of effective team player if we don’t first start with the mindset. So what’s the first thing that we think is critical in the mindset to be a, an effective or ideal team player.

So, it’s around appreciating different. And to be more specific, it’s an ideal team player really sees how your strengths might be different than my strengths. I have different gifts that you bring to the table, but I realize that we’re better to get. Absolutely. Not only do they allow for them, they actually embrace and celebrate and expect them as opposed to just giving lip service to the differences because sometimes the differences end up in conflict.

And I think the other thing is that they understand that they must subordinate their ego, their identity for the team’s identity and performance. That’s critical. I think to being an ideal team, And I think as part of this around appreciating differences, they also care about me as a person. You know, that’s part of this whole thing.

They, you know, the work is really important, but they also care about me and my contribution and who I am as a person. I think one of the things that we have to look at as team players on teams is how much are we stuck in the independent versus the interdependent paradigm? You know, me versus. And it reminds me.

And for those of you, uh, you know, Americans that were around in 1980, we remember the 1980 us Olympic team, you know, the underdogs winning the gold medal. And I don’t know how true it is, but in the movie, her Brooks was played by Kurt Russell and, and he’s, he’s having the, the players do line drills after their team performance.

Wasn’t very high and he makes the point that the name on the front of the jury. Is way more important than the name on the back. And I think that is a critical lesson in a critical mindset for every team player. If they’re going to maximize the performance of the team they’re on, well, that’s actually our point number two under mindset is it’s not about me.

It’s about the team. Yeah. Yeah. Mettawee, it’s a meta wee thing and it really does focus on, and that’s why you have to have current. You know, and, and we have to also look at sometimes how organizational structure and goals in systems may actually be impediments to effective team play. Also, if it’s not about me, if it’s about we, or it’s about the team, there also could be some sacrifices, some sacrifices in the form of resources, budget.

Whatever, those are just a few examples, but it’s the sacrifices in order to help the collective and not necessarily just me, so whatever it takes. And I think that’s, sometimes it breaks down between sports where you would do anything to win the game for the team in business, where if you’re measured by your performance and not necessarily rewarded or.

Taking one for the team and expression we’d here, then we may not get the behavior. So we do need to make sure that our systems and structures are in fact encouraging team play and that discouraging. So our first bullet under mindset was around appreciating differences. Our number two was, it’s not about me.

It’s about the team and our number three. What is our. Pfizer div positive. You know, we talked about being positive, focusing on outcomes, as opposed to focusing on problems. We even use the expression. When we tend to get mired in a problem, we don’t want to be Debbie downer and apologize any of the Debbie’s out there, but we don’t want to be a downer around it.

And if we’re outcome focused, that is a lot more creative. It’s a lot more imaginative. It’s a lot more fun. What could we do versus what aren’t we doing? I mean, Uninspiring in that. So I think the language that I use as a teammate in how much positive energy I bring to the team activity makes a huge, huge difference.

Absolutely. I want to be a part of a team that believes we can achieve something, not just sees all the barriers that get in the way I’m not. I, you know, I don’t want to have. Rose colored glasses, so to speak, right. I want to see things realistically, but I also want to believe that when things get tough, we can do this together.

And I want to work with a team. That’s the ideal team player for me. I want to work with somebody who believes. We can get through this together. This was both and they are positive and realistic and they believe that together we’re tougher. Nothing stops us. Great. Great. So that’s mindset. Let’s go to behaviors, behavior.

Number one, you want to go or you want me to go? Well, I think, no, let me go because I think this is one that I think I’m reasonably good at, although sometimes not good enough and that’s talk straight. That’s really being clear with how I feel about something, what I think needs to change, what it’ll take to get there.

So I think talking straight is the first week. Bernay brown has an expression clear is kind, and I’m crazy over that. I think that could be a number one mantra for me is just clear as kind. I want to know if I have a blind spot, let me know, help me be a better version of myself. And I think the ideal team player can give me some tough news, but give it to me with some compassion and believe.

And regardless of who’s in the room, you know, regardless of what level, because I think oftentimes people are not talking straight or not as clear if their bosses in the room, because they think they, if the boss said something, even if they disagree with it, right. And that is not an effective team player, you’ve got away.

So that we can have the important information on the table before we decide if you want to wreck a relationship with one of your team players, here’s exactly what to do. Hold back feedback, because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. That is crazy because they’re going to find out months later and they’re going to be more upset that you didn’t share the information.

Don’t hold back, talk straight. Let’s put it. Yeah. Okay. I hit an example. I did have an example and I think this is where I think business world could learn a lot from sports in sports. You’re getting feedback in every game between plays. So the whole back thing is almost ridiculous. Not only is it damaging to a relationship, it doesn’t even make sense as a behavior, an effective team player, because now I don’t have a chance to correct it until the season’s over.

I mean, how, how ridiculous could that be? So let’s go to number two. What is number two? Number two is executes. Number two is executes. So unlike you on this podcast right now, they do what they say. They’re going to do. Thank you for letting me talk straight on. Well, I, I would’ve executed better. It had, I been able to read my writing.

I actually do have it written down, but I do think that there’s a, there’s a credibility piece, right? There’s an integrity piece around execution, you know, doing what they say, holding themselves accountable to the commitments they make, even the commitment. To showing up on time prepared for the meeting.

You know, I think we’ve gotten casual. If I’m on a team, a basketball team, and there’s five of us. I can’t just roll in 10 minutes after the game starts, we’re going to be shorthanded for 10 minutes. So I think that’s the biggest execution is showing up on time. Ready to get. I also think it’s art of execution is about managing the commitments when things might fall through the cracks, right.

Or if I am going to be late for the game, I need to let you know far in advance so we can make other arrangements. If I’m not going to finish my piece of a project, that’s going to impact you. I need to let you know way in advance so we can make some adjustments. It’s not the fact that you have to change it.

It’s the fact that you don’t give me enough time. To make my adjustments based on the new circumstances that you’re in. So it’s proactive communication with the members of the team so that you can maximize input. So what it looks like is I am reaching out. As soon as I know, I may not be able to execute on what I said.

Exactly. So it’s both, it’s both executing and managing on those commitments. And then the last is, uh, we talked about, and we’ve observed this, the best teams, the best team players. They’re the ones who speak up they’re at the table and they’re a part of it. They’re a part of the conversation. Absolutely.

We’ve talked about this before, but there’s, it’s conversational. Turn-taking if we formed a team to work on this outcome, we need to hear from everybody. I was on a zoom call this morning, and I was talking about a situation that I was challenged by in one of the participants noticed that somebody else had something to say, even though it wasn’t that obvious to me.

So she called on the person who may not have. Shared it, unless she was called on and she offered an excellent suggestion for me and the thing I was challenged with. So that required team players being present and noticing, right. When someone is needing to speak up and they might be reluctant to speak up, even though that’s not an excuse, but I thought that was actually excellent facilitation.

And that was just a team member. There was no leader, you know, nobody was needing that. He saw it inactive. So I think what we’re saying here in speaking up is not only do we have a commitment to being a part of the conversation or a part of the meeting, but we’re also observing how our team members are engaged and.

Encouraging them to be a part of the conversation, right? It’s both sides, right. It’s managing ourselves and how we show up in assisting our team players in those situations. And maybe this is mindset, and I wasn’t even going to say this, but I think that an ideal team player grows a little thicker skin.

You gotta be able to mix it up a little bit. You know, I was listening to a very senior level person and of course I’m taking say, well, some people just don’t like to speak up in meetings. No, no, no. They’re not the ideal team player. Then that’s ineffective and inefficient use of time. And I, I was strongly, I mean, Webinar.

It wasn’t interactive, but I was strongly disagreeing with that. I said that you are now you’re letting people off the hook from being the ideal team player while you’re uncomfortable, you don’t need to speak up. No, no. We need to find a way to help you get more comfortable speaking up. And I was really disappointed in that.

Why don’t we summarize these, we talked about mindset and behaviors and in mindset, we talked about appreciating differences, knowing that it’s not about me, it’s about the team and being positive focused, focusing on more on outcomes, as opposed to everything’s a problem or a barrier. Yeah. And I think that what I would add to that we did in the conversation, just this idea of notice that you need to be both interdependent and independent to be a really good team players, because there’s both, it’s a both and model.

Excellent. And then on the behavior side, we talked about talking straight that clear as kind, they execute and they manage, um, what they’re executing. If something changed. And then last they speak up. I’m not an auditor, no audit, no auditing in there is, there is no meetings after the meeting I feel heard.

And I feel like, you know, where I stand. And even if I don’t agree by feeling heard, I’m more willing to get in line with what the team has decided. Yeah. This is not a passive sport being on a team. It is an active sport and everyone has a key. That’s excellent. That’s great. This was a great reminder for kind of a summary of what we’ve experienced in the work that we’re doing with teams and especially in our offering called team forward.

And if any of our listeners would like more information about team forward, please go to our website getemergent.com and you can also reach out to Ralph and I directly we’d love the opportunity to chat more about our experience with working with corporate teams. And last invitation is come back for more episodes of our get emergent podcast, including the driving leadership series with our partner, Bill is talking with leaders from our community about what it really takes to be an effective leader and what it means to drive leadership.