At Your Service: Money ball

Beane was very strategic in signing some key no-name players. He was known for his innate ability to scout and analyze players to build a better team. His simple philosophy of bringing in people who could get on base and not necessarily hit home runs was a key component on the success the team had. The more on-base occurrences led to more runs being scored. Even without the star power, he managed to take his team all the way to first in the American League West with a record of 103-59. They also went on a 20-game winning streak and their 2002 season ranks amongst the best ever for this franchise.

How is this relevant? Well, sometimes in business, we cannot afford to pay our employees what our competitors do but that doesn’t always mean we cannot compete with those companies. A superior team-building strategy can win.

When it comes to building a truly cohesive team, there are four areas that play an important part to making it happen.

1) Build trust and integrity – This is the most important item when building a team. Can I trust you? We have to work incredibly hard to build trust and if we let our teammates down, the trust is gone and we then have to work incredibly hard to build it up again. This starts with the leaders in your organization and flows throughout your company. Instill this with your employees and almost everything else will fall into place.

2) Hold regular meetings – To truly build a positive culture and strong team, having open conversations and keeping everyone up to speed with what is happening with your company, and projects, is essential. The more departments share what is going on, the better understanding everyone will have. It also helps us avoid conflict.

3) Be kind to everyone – It sounds trite but goes such a long way. Do you want to work with miserable people or do you want to be part of a happy, thriving team? Working with negative, glum and disheartened people brings the rest of the team down. Smiling, chatting and being upbeat is infectious…try it out and see what happens!

4) Be accountable to your team – Do this in everything you say you will do for them or the company. Never make promises you cannot keep. Will you do what you say you will do? When everyone is held accountable, employees work harder to keep everyone happy (this doesn’t mean they cannot ask for help if falling behind due to an overload of work). Being accountable also discourages mediocrity.

We don’t have to have the biggest budget to compete with the biggest players in our industry but we do have to take the time to properly build and maintain the strongest team we can field. Once you have the right players in the right positions, functioning as an effective team, you are guaranteed to not only get on base but also hit a lot of home runs.

Russ Dantu is a 30-year veteran of the rental industry and has been delivering workshops, seminars and keynotes on customer servicce for over 15 years. For more information, visit russdantu.com or email russ@russdantu.com