The Indian Optician, April, 2009
I remember this question being asked when we were kids. A group of children would get together to play ….. cricket, football or whichever game they chose & the first activity would be to form teams. Depending on the answer to the question ‘Am I in Your Team ?’, one would feel excited & delighted or have a feeling of rejection. Years later, as time passes, we keep going through the same experiences on gaining membership to various organisations, groups, clubs etc.. Feelings of acceptance or rejection, delight or dejection as we find our way through different associations in life.
In some of my interactions with various people supposed to be working together in an organisation, as a team, when I ask which was the first team they became a member of, invariably, the above memories of childhood team memberships would be played back ….. cricket team, school team, kabaddi team etc. etc.. On repeating my question several times, very rarely would someone, from one corner of the room raise a meek voice (as if unsure of his/her answer) and say ….. ‘Family’ !! And lo & behold ….. a sudden realisation dawns on everyone present ….. Yes, Yes that was the first team for sure !! And ‘The Strongest’ too, some say !!
How does the ‘Family Team’ work together ? How do ‘Family Team Members’ interact ? How do they feel in each others’ company ? What do they do for each other ? Why do they feel more relaxed & comfortable in each others’ company ? Multiple questions like these can give deep insight into Teamwork in different situations. Can one learn from these ? For sure. But the ‘Family Team Members’ have Blood Relationship, someone in the group would invariably say. Yes, this is a strong point and definitely goes in favour of why ‘Family Teams’ are strong. But then there are certain factors beyond Blood Relationship, that are there & contribute to the success of this team. As much as, the absence of those same factors can lead to breaking up & fracturing of these teams as well.
What are these factors ? Responses come up ….. they stay together, they support each, they feel for each other, they help each other ….. But Why ? They are familiar with each other, they know a lot about each other, they know about each others’ likes & dislikes ….. hence the ‘unknown’ is reduced ….. there is little, if not ‘nil fear of the uknown’ & hence a high level of comfort.
I have been a part of various teams myself. The other day I was thinking about my career spanning engineering, consumer goods, publishing, music, eyecare ….. While I did spend the longest time in eyecare, I also have great memories & relationships from my days in other fields. At each stage of entry into a new industry, I also used to ask this question in my mind ….. ‘Am I in Your Team ?’ Today, definitely I have the strongest & largest numbers of relationships in the eyecare industry, but at one stage, 15 years back, I did ask that question. As time passed, I guess I came to know more about members of this team & some of them came to now more about me & fear of the unknown, sort of vanished. One big contributor, as I reflect back, was the way this industry’s success was characteristically based on strong relationships ….. & we, in the organisation that I worked with, internally developed the pledge of ‘Customer Intimacy’ ….. to be committed to be reliable & preferred partners for our customers through nurturing a long term intimate relationship based on understanding & providing them tailormade solutions leading to mutual growth & profitability.
Knowing what each other wants, is probably one of those strong factors in building teams & relationships ….. through transparency & understanding. How is it that certain teams achieve extraordinary excellence, day after day, year after year & manage to stay committed to each other, their customers & their organisation’s mission ? Better Teamwork, Better Results ….. It’s that simple !! The fact is that while all teams are groups, all groups are not teams. A group becomes a true team when its members support & enhance each others’ performance & contributions ….. when they work together to achieve results that are bigger & better than those that could be realised individually.
Learnings from the above examples can also be extremely insightful towards having lifelong relationships with our customers, rather than one time interactions !! Organisations try reward points, loyalty programmes etc. etc. ….. while these have their own benefits, they end up being transactional at best & with multiple organisations trying these ‘team building’ stunts, the customer ends up saying OK for a short fling, before swinging off elsewhere. Very often, we have experiences as customers ourselves & these can be very enlightening, if we look at the worst experience, the just satisfying experience & the delightful WOW experience !! What do we feel about the situation ? What do we feel about the salesperson ? What do we feel about the organisation ? Will we go there again ? Will we recommend them to others ?
Stepping into customers’ shoes, ‘feeling’ what they feel, knowing what they want, understanding likes & dislikes, practically ‘living together’ with the customer can build a strong relationship in which the customer becomes a team mate !! ….. Supporting & enhancing each others’ performance & contribution ….. working together to achieve results that are bigger & better than those that could be realised individually ….. or is the customer left wondering ‘Am I in Your Team’ ?
J.P.Singh
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