Team-Based

We are Team-Based

We are in it together. We work in a true collaborative environment and always have someone available to lean on for support.

To be really great at Outside-In® we must be good teammates, and the company structurally must be Team-Based. Our overall strategy and structure is about being flexible and quick to change direction as a business. To be able to turn on a dime and create the type of environment that can react quicker to customer requests than they can possibly do themselves! This is really a part of added value and how we differentiate. We have built 17 employee teams in three weeks to meet a project plan request. We have all worked late, weekends, and early mornings to be what our customers need us to be.

But do we understand our individual roles and responsibilities as it relates to being Team-Based? Being a great teammate is something different to consider. Our real advantage as a business is that we have the opportunity to bring all of us together across skill set and function to work together. Our ideas and insights can represent the entire talents of the company as one. Our lack of silos is really what matters around here. It is not easy to work together, however, when we do work together we do our best, most innovative, most custom work that we are proud of!

I have seen a lot of great individual performances. Sometimes being solo is necessary, but all of the work that we do gets done in some team fashion. A proposal involves sales, marketing, operations, finance, and leadership. No one can just do it alone. Our recruitment and delivery of all services are measured by service level agreements, and those agreements relate to many teammates and their performances together. Not just one. Reports must be right, many people must play their role to get high marks to do well.

What does being Team-Based mean to you? Are you Outside-In® on your teams and with your peers? This can be as simple as washing your coffee mug out when you’re finished and not leaving it for someone else, or offering a candidate a cup of coffee.

• Team-Based is about how we communicate with each other and how we make it effective.
• Team-Based is about being prepared for the meetings we attend by doing what it takes to be ready.
• Team-Based is about over-communication. Don’t make assumptions. Assume your teammates don’t know what you know.
• Team-Based is about seeking to understand and as Dale Carnegie says, “walk in their shoes.” Seek to see things from another perspective. This is a great team dynamic.
• Team-Based is about being a lifelong learner and teacher all at the same time. I find sometimes we are the expert and sometimes we are the student.
• Team-Based is about trust. How do you get to know the folks you work with?
• Team-Based is about knowledge. Knowing that as knowledge workers we must constantly be focused on more learning. This is our advantage today.

So being Team-Based is an ongoing, forever thing.