How to Build High Performance Teams
copyright, 2015, Debbi A. Ballard All rights reserved worldwide.
If you want to maximize your income in network marketing, you must learn how to build high performance teams. In this video, Zane Harris gives an excellent summary of the neuroscience behind building successful teams.
He explains the five phases of team building and then gives six breakthrough ideas in neuroscience that lead to producing successful teams. These are applicable to any business, not just network marketing.
The five successful team building phases are as follows:
1) Team members may initially feel threatened by each other. This is referred to as tribal hostility or tribal warfare and can be manifested in anger, stress, lack of productive collaboration, etc.
2) There is a reluctant truce that takes place after intervention by a CEO, manager, or other leader who tells them to settle down.
3) Tactical collaboration takes place. This often results when team members realize that a problem at hand is so serious that they want to collaborate. Hence the recognition of the problem actually encourages collaboration.
4) Strategic collaboration with a longer term view now takes hold since team members have seen the positive results from the previous tactical collaboration.
5) Transformational collaboration occurs whereby each team member changes individually as the team changes and strengthens.
Six breakthroughs in neuroscience that will help you build better teams include the following:
1) Exclusion and threats can be harmful. Harris states that research shows that when a person is excluded from a group, changes occur in the brain similar to that experienced when one is in pain. In addition threats such as being excluded or losing a certain position if xyz is not done will often cause the person to actually perform worse. This is due to how the brain reacts to stress with serotonin levels diminishing.
Harris suggests that the best way to overcome this is to concentrate on working with the team members to make sure they all feel it is worthwhile to work together. If each member on the team feels there is value to him/her in working collaboratively, then the team will perform better.
2) Dealing with emotions, with the ability to express one’s feelings is important. When emotions are triggered, the brain can lose 80% of its ability to rationalize. In working collaboratively, team members must be able to recognize and state his/her feelings in a calm way since that can help to sustain rational thought.
Having an environment whereby people feel like they can loosen up a bit during meetings can, however, help to unleash creativity. If meetings are so detailed oriented and data driven with little to no emotion involved, creativity can be stifled.
3) Status matters in terms of recognition and rewards. Team members crave recognition since everyone wants to feel good about themselves. (Network marketing team members should not wait to be recognized by their respective companies. They should look to recognize and reward themselves and other team members when they achieve certain milestones individually and/or as a group.) Work to get individual objectives aligned with team objectives.
4) The brain reacts to empathy. Making interpersonal connections with other team members is important. This leads to more fruitful collaboration as well. If a team member lets other team members know about a personal loss of some kind that recently occurred, team members know to be sensitive during any collaboration that takes place that day.
5) The brain responds to emotions and to facts differently. When there is too much emotion allowed to pervade a meeting, then the facts can get overlooked.
6) A shared vision is what keeps the team focused long term. However, if any team member feels that he/she is not valuable to the team or that he/she is not getting anything of value out of the team collaboration, then that team member will not actively participate in the shared vision.
MLM training is critical for your success as I have written about previously. Knowing and understanding the role neuroscience plays in how to build high performance teams is also important. And, now, hopefully, you can strengthen your mlm network marketing teams even more. Comment below if you have utilized neuroscience to help you build more productive teams.
Debbi A. Ballard introduced the world’s first comprehensive marketing and management consulting services for start-ups and established multinational firms in the mlm (network marketing) industry. A consultant, speaker, author and expert witness, she is considered a trusted authority and visionary in that industry. She is also recognized for her innovation and leadership relating to the convergence issues that impact network marketing and affiliate marketing. Thousands of corporate owners, managers, networkers, and affiliates subscribe to her firm’s newsletter, MyNetBrief(tm), for news, research and valuable tips.
About the Author: MLM Consultant, Expert Witness, Author, Blogger, Speaker and CEO of International Network Liaison Corporation...but more importantly, wife, mother, daughter, aunt, cousin and friend.
