Innovative Approaches to Team Building with Melissa Severance

Discover how to harness your team's strengths to create a cohesive, high-performing unit in our latest episode with Melissa Severance, a leadership and career coach at Inspire Big Dreams. Melissa shares expert advice on evaluating team dynamics, placing the right people in the right roles, and implementing effective team-building activities. She emphasizes regular assessments and aligning team members' skills with their responsibilities to foster productivity.

We also explore the importance of building strong personal connections in the workplace. Melissa offers creative strategies for meaningful interactions, such as potlucks, fun competitions, and thoughtful meeting questions, all designed to enhance team bonds affordably. Learn how to measure the success of these initiatives through improved communication and collaboration. Tune in to unlock the secrets to creating an engaging, supportive team culture that boosts employee engagement, retention, and overall performance.

Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Transcript

Jennifer Johnson: 1:39

Today, we welcome into the studio Melissa Severance. She's a leadership and career coach and is also an HR consultant and training specialist, and she owns the company Inspire Big Dreams. Welcome, I'm so glad to be here again, jen, and I love the name of your company. Thank you, because it embodies a lot.

Melissa Severance: 1:59

Yeah, and I think we all have these dreams, but do we go after them? Do we dream big enough? We really have to put attentional time to them and do baby steps and big leaps to really get our dreams going and meet them goals. So that's what I'm here for. That's my mission. I want to help people get where they want in life.

Jennifer Johnson: 2:20

Awesome, and we can't do that typically without a team. Yes, and that's what we're talking about today is all about teams and great team building ideas, because I don't know, what is it? Who's the John Madden John Madden always talked about you can't have a great team if you don't have great players. You can't have a great and he continued on. It's very true, but you also have to be able to harness the energy and the congruency of that team, that group, and I want to talk about that Building. What are some really effective team building activities that you can do with your team? That's going to help foster them to work together.

Melissa Severance: 3:03

Yeah, I think you really have to know what each team player is bringing. So really evaluate each of your employees and figure out their strengths. What are they doing on the team that's really standing out helping a team get to the next level? But you also have to figure out what they're doing on the team that's maybe hindering or holding back, so you can address both of them, really strengthen the amazing what they're doing on the team that's maybe hindering or holding back, so you can address both of them Really strengthen the amazing things they're doing for the team, but also address the areas that there maybe needs some improvement.

Melissa Severance: 3:32

You need a coaching guide and be there for them so you can make their strengths be even stronger to the whole team and make you have more results. So, evaluating all your team members together and even asking your team who excels in this area. What should we celebrate? What do our team really do well and who does the best and who should be doing certain things more because of their talent and their expertise and what they do effortlessly for the team?

Jennifer Johnson: 4:00

So you're getting it from the actual team members themselves. Oh, I think this person is really great at this. But this person's really good at this.

Melissa Severance: 4:09

I think so. I think we should all evaluate. Everybody has different perspectives and we need to learn what people really excel at and where we should go and where we should leverage. We all try to improve our weaknesses, but sometimes we need to leverage and go to the right team player to really get the results more effectively, efficiently and in a better way.

Jennifer Johnson: 4:28

Right, I have this saying the right souls for the right roles. I love that, because a lot of times we maybe pigeonhole people and we go well, we know you're good at this, and then you let them do that, and then six months down the road, that's not something they love to do, yeah.

Melissa Severance: 4:46

And I think there's a lot of assessments that are out there to really see what people love at work and what they excel at and what they're passionate about. And I love doing assessments with teams and really figuring out who should be doing what. And because you know, because you're right, we sometimes pigeonhole people or put people in a place my old firm I worked at for 16 years I was known as the process person. I could implement. I can make sure we get everything 100%. I do all my assessments. They say do not work with process. And here you are, yeah, and I'm doing it most of my career. I love that. I have that strength now, but it wasn't what I should be doing and putting my it wasn't effortless to me.

Melissa Severance: 5:24

I made it effortless but it took a long time to do that because I was put in a position that I had to do it every day. There was change we had to implement, so we have to really figure out what really makes our team strive and each person strive, so they can stay longer with your team and do better things together, because I probably was getting burned out by doing things that wasn't effortless most of my day, but I didn't know that in time and they didn't know that at the time.

Jennifer Johnson: 5:51

So is it always better? I know this is kind of off topic, but it's not really because you're talking about assessments. Are those best to be done before you hire someone and then you do them, or is it something that should be done every year Because, hey, my typing speed I'm just picking on typing because I don't know my typing speed is way better now than it was a year ago. Is it something that you constantly do, or is it you just do it?

Melissa Severance: 6:18

on onboarding. You know I think onboarding is a great time so you really get to know what your new team player is really bringing to the firm, to the team and to the role. But I do think doing them throughout and doing different ones it just helps keep that self-awareness for that employee and also for the leader if they're reviewing them as well too, to know really what they bring to the table. And it does change over time.

Melissa Severance: 6:42

One of the popular ones is Strength Finder, and I remember doing it probably 20 years ago now, because I loved that. We implemented it throughout my whole firm. Everybody did it when they started. It was just something we all knew our strengths, so I didn't do it again until about when I was doing my team coaching certification so about six years ago and a lot of them changed. I was a little mad at first but they were good changes for what I'm doing in my role now and what I should have been probably doing before. So your strengths do change and go down or go up a little bit, because whatever you're doing and experiencing is showing up more, so you get to show those strengths in a different way.

Jennifer Johnson: 7:23

You know, in the age of now, doing a lot of things virtually, people are still working from home. They're still working virtually versus in person, those team building activities that you would do normally in the office. How does that translate over to working with remote workers? Because, I can't even imagine how that looks, because it's a different landscape.

Melissa Severance: 7:45

Yeah, it was so challenging. It still is, you know, because we have a lot of people working remotely. A lot of companies are trying to bring people back, at least for hybrid, because we do know it helps people do better at work, be more creative. We're losing a lot by not being together. What do you think we're losing? The connection, relationships, really knowing what's going on. I think culture is really diminishing. You can try to keep it and I know there's a lot of ways on Zoom that you can.

Melissa Severance: 8:14

I do most of my practice, my coaching in Zoom and I have these deep connections over Zoom, but sometimes you really lose people if you're not really paying attention to it.

Melissa Severance: 8:23

You know we get so busy, we get into the agenda items we don't really get deep into like really what our employees need or what's really going on, what's challenging them. You know in the HR world we call them stay interviews, really asking the critical questions to make sure that we're really paying attention to our employees and they're happy at work and what can we do to bring them to the next level and grow and make sure they're learning and challenged. If we're not doing all of those key conversations, and especially if they're remote, you're not going to see that they're maybe not performing the way they do until it's really bad, unfortunately, you know, sometimes I come in for team coaching, especially when there's a lot of remote team members, and try to see the dynamics of people, how they're communicating, sometimes email and you know doing stuff on Slack and different things like the tone. You don't know what the tone is.

Melissa Severance: 9:15

So, people look into things in a different way. Blackened, everything's like the tone.

Melissa Severance: 9:17

You don't know what the tone is. So people look into things in a different way. So sometimes you got to evaluate really how each player is. You know, interacting with everybody virtually and in person, because it really matters with the culture and the team. If one person, one person, can make a team toxic, unfortunately, it could be the leader, it could be anybody in there that's functioning on the team and we have to figure that out and try to enhance that or change that as quickly as possible so more people don't get on that toxic path or unengaged path. Unengaged, you're right, retention is a big thing. With team dynamics, you want to come to work and be happy and excited about who you're working with, but if the team dynamics is not there, they're not going to want to really show up the way that we need them to show up and I find it interesting.

Jennifer Johnson: 10:04

I honestly don't know how I would handle the day-to-day just doing Zoom meetings, because when you're a people person it's very hard.

Melissa Severance: 10:13

Yeah, it is, and there's some people that are intro. You know introverts that love this.

Jennifer Johnson: 10:18

And they want to go back.

Melissa Severance: 10:19

They want to stick, and that's why they're fighting it so much. And they're saying, hey, I performed. I'm sure they performed, but maybe not as well. As you know, I do a lot of networking and outside because I'm on Zoom all day, Like I do get some interaction, you know, with my clients, but I do think the in-person is just for me, is needed to make me whole.

Jennifer Johnson: 10:38

Right, absolutely. I mean, it makes complete sense.

Melissa Severance: 10:41

We're people first oh, absolutely so. That's why you're seeing the hybrid. You're seeing everybody bring them in, having that, team building activities, more training Again, everything's coming full circle because we know that it's important. But sometimes you can't get people in, so maybe the leader has to travel out, or you get everybody together once a quarter. You have to do something to make sure you have that, I should say.

Melissa Severance: 11:06

I don't want to say physical contact, but in-person contact, I should say, to make sure they're really feeling connected to the firm, to the team, to the leader.

Jennifer Johnson: 11:21

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Melissa Severance: 12:06

Jennifer, small, medium, large, how's that?

Jennifer Johnson: 12:10

But actual activities. What can we do to foster that team relationship?

Melissa Severance: 12:15

Yeah, it could be big activities, small activities, they all count, and I am a big person about fun, playfulness, so I always try to make sure we have some of those activities within the team building calendar or team activity calendar, whatever you call it.

Melissa Severance: 12:33

So it could be connections, doing activities out and aboutgolf or something team building related that we structure and have. It could just be going out and getting some drinks and some appetizers together and having it fun like that. You need to make avenues for people to really connect and get to know each other instead of just the work-related communication, and even in daily meetings or weekly meetings or catch-ups with the whole group, ask people what they did that weekend, something that is exciting, that's going on in their life. Get to know each of them and let them show something about their personal life to the rest of the team and that'll start building relationships, because somebody will say you know what I do that or I kayak on the weekend or I just did that hike, so they'll have something in common to talk about more than work and start getting that bond in a better place.

Jennifer Johnson: 13:29

And I like that because that's truly how those bonds are formed, because when you actually take an interest in someone hey, how was your weekend? And you ask that with intent, and then you actually listen Because so many, it's a superficial oh hi, how are you? Oh, I'm good. How was your weekend? Oh, it was great. Oh, good, Take it a step further. What?

Melissa Severance: 13:50

did you do? Yeah, I had one employee that that was the first thing she asked. She asked every single person. She knew so much about everyone and it just started a conversation. Even if you didn't have a conversation or didn't know what to say, you asked that one powerful question and if somebody really wants to share with you and what they say shows a lot too- and how much they share, even if they're telling you we didn't have a good weekend, we had this happen in our family or something along those lines.

Melissa Severance: 14:18

They're trusting you Exactly. But I think all of these activities is trying to build trust within teams. Trust happens over time, of course, but you're trying to speed it up on a team so you guys work more collaboratively together, you are more efficient, you can leverage each other. You want to work with everybody in a more powerful way, and when we do these activities no matter what they are big and small, and I see some people get so creative and I love it Games, anything, competitions, all this stuff brings the team together and we need to make sure we're incorporating them in all different ways and being creative.

Melissa Severance: 14:55

And during Zoom, we had to be so creative and to figure out how to do that on a screen, and I think a lot of leaders got up to that challenge and we got to continue doing it. So it's not, you know, when you're in person, sometimes we didn't have to be so creative. We sometimes lost that, you know, extra playfulness or that extra fun that we used to have, and now, even just bringing people back in the office, we're trying to make it enjoyable even more than it was before Absolutely, which I actually love because I love people enjoying work, people being happy going to work, and that's all about employee engagement Right. So if we're doing this right as a leader, as an organization, and really putting our culture out there, what we want, and fostering it, you're going to see people happy at work and you're going to see your team unity just go skyrocketing.

Melissa Severance: 15:44

And your retention will be there, absolutely.

Jennifer Johnson: 15:47

That's the residual At my store. I know that it's really important to get together outside of the workplace and that's sometimes hard to do for everybody, but we do at Christmas time and we do at Thanksgiving potlucks and it's so interesting to see because everybody brings something and then we vote on the best dessert or the best, whatever it is, and it does something for the team.

Melissa Severance: 16:15

Yeah, and people ask for that recipe, like it'll just go further, and then like, oh, we make this. Do you want? You know it just starts collaboration out, even outside of work, and that's what you want. You want people to form these connections where they want to be with each other, inside of work and outside of work, and all of these activities do that together and when there's tough times you'll get through it together. There won't be as much friction happening in the workplace.

Jennifer Johnson: 16:40

And I really like that because that again, cohesiveness it's I'm in it, you're in it, we're in this together kind of thing, and I can see how online it's definitely harder to do, but it's definitely doable. How do you and I know you can do this on any budget, right? It doesn't matter. Like you said, you can play games Absolutely.

Melissa Severance: 16:59

Nothing that's free. Yeah, I have one client that I'm going to be working with and there's no budget at all. And figuring out, does that?

Jennifer Johnson: 17:06

mean like infinite budget, or that means like I have no money to do that. Figuring out. Does that mean like infinite budget or that means like I have no money to do that?

Melissa Severance: 17:17

No money to do anything. That would be great too, but I was just saying that we're thinking of ways and Potlucks came up and she told she was saying we did this once and it was amazing. And I'm like, yeah, you don't need to always put a lot of money out. Sometimes it's great when you can. If you want to do lunch and learns, have somebody on the team teach something. Don't bring an outside person in or don't, you know, leverage your people internally. It'll make them feel great that they're empowered to train their team. That's an excellent point. That's an awesome point to make. Yeah, and that's like something that you're doing to empower that person as a leader. Also to give the team more education and just to have everybody come together and they can bring their own lunch in. If you can't even pay for lunch, there's ways of doing that. You know, of course they love. You know it's funny.

Jennifer Johnson: 17:59

Now there's like saying pizza parties aren't enough you know, because people just need to bring pizza in.

Melissa Severance: 18:03

But they still love pizza. No, like, I think pizza parties have to be part of it. That's just not the only thing. That's not going to be. You know what's really going to be the game changer, but it is the connections during the pizza party. It's not just bringing pizza and leaving in there, it's like doing stuff during the pizza party that's really going to matter the conversations, the connections, the relationship building that happens during it.

Jennifer Johnson: 18:24

You know, what I find interesting is something that I've always done. We always celebrate birthdays and anniversaries Always. I bake something. Bring it in, like now my team has gotten so large that I have to just do it once a month I'd be baking all the time and I'd be eating it all.

Jennifer Johnson: 18:38

So it's once a month, but I tried to find the best day that all of those people that are celebrating those milestones are there. But then I never used to do this, but I started it this year and it has had such a profound effect. I would write handwrite cards to my employees who are celebrating a birthday or anniversary and I mail it to them. I love it and I can't tell you how many thank yous for the card that I have gotten. It's a simple gesture, it's one card, it's one stamp, but it makes a, it leaves a mark. Yeah Well, you're going extra.

Melissa Severance: 19:15

You're doing this extra effort. You know it's so easy to take, you do a text and you know email these days, but you're you're actually picking a card out or writing your words down and really show you know, show you're not using maybe AI actually.

Jennifer Johnson: 19:27

Exactly, you're putting it from the heart.

Melissa Severance: 19:30

And it just shows like you care. Even for holidays. I'd rather get a card that somebody picks out write something in it. More than a present, it just means more to me.

Jennifer Johnson: 19:41

They put in their thought.

Melissa Severance: 19:43

Exactly.

Jennifer Johnson: 19:48

So now, once we determine that, okay, we're going to do some team building activities, how can we actually measure the success of doing that activity?

Melissa Severance: 19:53

Yeah, I think you afterwards ask the team how it went, what they got out of it, and then you'll probably have to see their interactions afterwards. Some of the stuff or some of the results or KPIs whatever you want to call it is probably not easy to translate into numbers, but you will see that people will be talking to people that they didn't talk to before, maybe in a different way, or going to ask for help or even being more vulnerable, saying, hey, I don't know what I'm doing here, can you help me with that? Or you're really good at this, can you help? You'll see interactions and wording change that you use or that they use and maybe even you use. From the interaction, the team building that you do, you'll definitely see performance go up. If the team is working really coherent together and having each other's back and helping each other and leveraging, you'll see your performance go up. You'll see people happier at work.

Melissa Severance: 20:48

You'll see more of their behavior change. So these are some of the KPIs that you need to really look at. They'll be more inspired, they'll be putting their hand up more to do things for the team or for others, and that's what I think really shows. Employee engagement and retention is going to be coming right after that, and then you'll get the big numbers that you're looking for.

Jennifer Johnson: 21:10

That's awesome. I have loved our conversation. I think it's just what I needed today, and I'm sure many of our listeners needed as well. If our listeners would like to get in touch with you, either for your trainings or just to chat with you, how can they do that?

Melissa Severance: 21:24

Yeah, I have my website, inspirebigdreamscom. My email is melissa at inspirebigdreamscom, and I'm on all the social channels, as you know, so look me up on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Fabulous, thank you so much for being here today, thank you. It's so great to be here too.