Hello, everyone. Welcome to Strengthening the Team. This is the next topic in the 2022 Deer Oak Supervisor Excellence Webinar series. My name is Greg Brannan from Deer Oaks. Great to be with you today.

Before we get started, I want to make sure our technology is working for us. If you can please locate the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right hand corner of your screen. And if you can hear my voice clearly and see the screen and the PowerPoint clearly, could you please click on the Raise Hand icon now?

That's great, folks. Looks like we're good to go technology wise. I also want to remind you that during these educational presentations provided by Deer Oaks, participants are in listen only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation, which really should last about 30 minutes today, give or take.

But your questions are important to me. When we get to the end of the formal part of the presentation today, we'll go ahead and open it up for questions. And we'll spend as much time as we have this afternoon, addressing questions. We do have several people on the line today. So I'm anticipating a lot of questions. But I will get to as many as we can today. And so I look forward to that Q&A session coming up shortly.

Now, let me begin today's program by summarizing, again, the topics in the 2022 Deer Oaks Supervisor Excellence Webinar series. This is, I believe, the ninth year that we've done this series. So we're really happy to bring it to you again this year. And we'll be running it again in 2023. So we choose quarterly topics. And we try to do fresh and new quarterly topics each and every quarter.

And so in February, if you missed it, our topic at the beginning-- at the first quarter of this year was the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Supervisors. If you miss that program and you want to view the recording, we record all of these sessions. All you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our team to send you a copy of the link to the recording of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Supervisors webinar that was held back on February 28.

And so then our second topic this year was on May 23. It was the Key to Effectively Managing Employee Performance. And so, again, if you miss that session and you'd like to view the recording, you certainly can do so. All you have to do is, again, hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and just ask our team to send you a copy of the recording link for the Keys to Effectively Managing Employee Performance. And that, again, was presented live on May 23.

Now, after today's session, Strengthening the Team, our fourth and final quarterly program, quarterly topic in this year's Supervisor Excellence Webinar series will be coming up on November 14. That topic is Transitioning From Staff Member to Supervisor. If you're interested in that program and you're not registered yet and you'd like to receive the link to register, all you have to do, again, is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today or Reminder for today and just ask our team again to send you the registration link for the Transitioning From Staff Member to Supervisor webinar. That'll be coming up on November 14.

All right, folks. Let's go ahead and get started with today's program. All right, let me begin with the benefits of team building. Now, folks, team building is one of those areas that I think every manager or supervisor has a-- it's on our radar screen. So we have-- I think we recognize inherently that there's value in team building. But honestly, over the years, when I've talked to a lot of managers and supervisors, this is an area where a lot of leaders don't have a formal program in place.

I mean, we'll attend a team building from time to time, like if there's times when the teams-- when team morale is down or maybe the team has gone through a big transition or we're feeling like people are burned out. And then we'll schedule some sort of a team building event. We'll take everybody off-site. We'll do a team lunch. We'll do something to try to connect people a little bit better or take a break or celebrate together. And those are positive steps, of course. But team building is best accomplished when it's a consistent regular focus.

Now, I want to share some of the research around the benefits of team building. Because one of my goals today is to have most of us or hopefully as many as possible of us come off of the webinar today, just to inspire to pay more regular consistent attention to team building. Because there's a lot of benefits to consistently focusing in this great area.

And so one is teams where individuals are really well bonded together. And they care about each other as people, not just as coworkers, but they really see themselves as part of a work family. And they really care about each other. They have each other's back. They enjoy being together. They have remarkably higher productivity, 70% higher.

One study that was set forward or mentioned in the book, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, one of my favorite leadership books-- again, the name of that book is The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. Kouzes is spelled K-O-U-Z-E-S. And Posner is P-O-S-N-E-R. But if there's one leadership book that you pursue to read this year, I'd recommend that one. And they really talked about this.

They talked about the importance of having supervisors and managers create an environment where people really bond together, a team environment where it's like a work family, where people care about each other. They spend time together. They get to know each other. They're not all business. But they also at times socialize or take part in different team building activities. So we'll talk more about today. But really come to care about each other, look forward to coming to work every day because they feel like they're a family.

And if you think about it, the benefits of creating that kind of a work family environment are really, really high, really great. In addition to higher productivity, job satisfaction is oftentimes driven for people by the quality of their connection with their colleagues. If you love who you work with, you really enjoy spending time with them. You look forward to seeing them. Again, where you feel like you're in that work family environment, you have that sense of belonging.

When you look at basic needs of human beings, we all have a need to feel like we belong. So if you're on a team professionally where you feel like you're an important part of the team, that people-- I mean, they really look forward to seeing you. They miss you when you're on vacation or if you're out sick. They look forward to catching back up with you again.

I mean, again, when you feel that sense of belonging and you feel like this is your work family-- and I'm very blessed I have that at Deer Oaks. And I've been here going on 11 years. We have a really, really well-bonded, close-knit work family environment. We care about each other. We've taken the time to get to know each other. And we really-- and we really pay attention to team building and bonding. It really makes a difference, folks.

This has probably been my best professional experience ever. And it's because of the connection I have with my colleagues and my supervisor. And I work for a lot of other good organizations over the years. But this has been my best.

And, again, it's because we have intentionally as a team-- and my boss, our executive director does a great job with this. She's created a work family environment. She really cares about us and makes us feel valued and has created an environment where we care about each other. We spend time bonding together. We're just not all business when we meet. We do some-- we get to know each other. We get to know about each other's families, each other's interests.

And I'll talk more about strategies for doing that here in a moment. But it's really worth taking the time to do this. Because the benefits are incredible. I mean, you're going to have less turnover. There's research that shows that when people really care about the people they work with, they're much less likely to go look for another job because it's not every-- it's not every job where you connect with people and feel welcomed and that sense of belonging and that sense of being cared about.

And so when you find that, I mean, people are hesitant to leave that. It's a wonderful place to be professionally. And also, in terms of job satisfaction, we spend so much of our waking hours at work. Think about this. If you work full-time-- my guess is most of us on the call today do. Think about this. Between Monday and Friday, we spend more of our waking hours at work with our colleagues than we do even with our own families and our loved ones.

And so it just makes sense to make sure that that environment is as caring and supportive and positive as possible. And so I can't over-- I can't oversell or overestimate the value of really intentionally creating an environment like this. I love it. I look forward to-- I used to be-- a lot of people say, hey, I'm a TGIF person. TGIF means, of course, Thank God It's Friday. People do look forward to the weekend. That's normal.

But I've become, over the years, a TGIM guy. I look forward Sundays. I look forward to coming back to work on Monday. Because I really enjoy my team. I really enjoy catching up with the people that I work with. We always ask each other, what'd you do this weekend? Did you see that game? How's your son doing? How's your mom? You got any plans for vacation this summer? I mean, we really take an interest in each other and get to know each other.

So, again, higher job satisfaction, less turnover, and much more productivity when we create an environment through team building where people really, really care about each other, have each other back and-- have each other's backs, and enjoy working together.

Now, there are barriers to this. There's definitely barriers to team synergy. I think a lot of you would probably, if we were talking one-on-one, myself included, we could share examples of times when we worked for organizations or in environments that were not very well bonded, where we didn't really feel a good connection with our colleagues, where we didn't really feel like the environment was really positive and supportive.

And so there's barriers to creating that kind of connection that I was talking about earlier. Let's talk about some of those barriers. So one is lack of focus on team building by leadership. Again, this is what I started with at the outset. I found that a lot of-- a lot of leaders, myself included, I didn't value this enough earlier in my career.

I've been managing people now for, I think, 28 years now. And probably the first half of my management career, I didn't really value this enough. I mean, every once in a while, I would do like most of us. I would think, hey, we better maybe go off-site. And the team's kind of burned out or morale isn't what I wish it was.

And maybe we could go off-site or do a picnic or do a holiday party or do a team lunch. And those are-- again, those are good activities worthwhile to do. But I would do it just as a one-off. I wouldn't think about, how do I keep people connected together, how do I create an environment where people really get to know each other better and bond and really care about each other?

And so I really didn't focus on it enough. And nowadays, since I've really gotten more into the research and really understanding the value of it, I'm just much more proactive about it now. And so I think lack of focus by those of us in charge is one of the major reasons why teams don't have the kind of connection and that work family environment that I think is so crucial to enjoying our work again and maximizing productivity.

Now, human nature and technology-- I mean, technology nowadays, we're all so-- we're so virtual in our world now. And certainly, there's a lot of benefits of virtual communication. And then through the pandemic, we had social distancing and a lot of people working remotely. And nowadays, we still have even more people working remotely than really ever before and/or working in a hybrid situation.

So folks, let's just recognize that too much focus on technology and not enough connection with people. Now, you don't have to-- you don't have to be in the same room to connect. You can do some creative things to connect. You can pick up the telephone. You can jump on a team's call or a Zoom call and be face-to-face with people.

But we need to be regularly nurturing those relationships and creating those bonds. And if the way that we're communicating with each other 75% of the time is virtual, we're not going to bond as well as we could otherwise. It takes spending time together, seeing each other eye to eye, really spending time together to build those bonds that are so important to creating that work family environment.

Another barrier to team synergy is when people prioritize tasks over people. And this, again, was a problem I had earlier in my career. I'm very bottom line oriented. So oftentimes, when I would be coming to work every day as a supervisor, I wouldn't be-- I wouldn't spend time with visiting with people or catching up with them or doing small talk with them. If I call them into my office or I stopped by their desk, it was typically just to get something done or something off my to-do list.

So I was very-- and I am a bottom line-oriented person like many supervisors are. But I came to realize I needed to slow down a little bit and not just be about the work. But, of course, the work needs to be done. I needed to also be about connection, really making sure that those relationships were good. And that's where job satisfaction comes from.

I enjoy my work nowadays probably five times as much as I did 20 years ago because I nurture those relationships, those connections. And I still get the work done. But I just prioritize making sure that I'm staying connected with people.

But if our own-- or if 80% of our focus every day is what mine used to be-- hey, I'm here just to get my job done. And I'm not going to think a whole lot about the people around me unless I need them for something where we're working on a project together. I need them for help with a problem-- you're going to miss an opportunity for connection, again, that will increase your job satisfaction and that sense of belonging and being part of a work family.

Another barrier to team synergy-- and then we'll move on-- is insensitivity to interpersonal differences. I think most of us would agree, we live in a extremely diverse world nowadays. And when I'm talking about diversity, folks, I'm not just talking about cultural diversity as important as that is. I'm talking about different generations. We have five generations in the American workforce right now-- different personality styles, different ways of seeing the world, different opinions, different ways of communicating.

And if people aren't sensitive to that, our connection with each other will not be as effective. So nowadays, what I try to do-- what I try to do when I'm going to connect with someone, I try to think of, how can I best connect with this person? What's going to be most comfortable with them?

For example, if I'm dealing with a younger colleague-- and I don't mind sharing I recently turned 60. And so I'm a baby boomer, a younger baby boomer. But I'm not as up on technology as some of my younger colleagues. I do like email. So I will oftentimes send an email.

I was trying to connect with a colleague probably half my age. I sent him an email. He responded back to me with a text. I sent him another email a day later. He responded back to me another day later with another text. We went three days without connecting because both of us were trying to communicate with the other person using the mode that we were comfortable with.

And so when I finally realized that and I responded to one of his texts, and bingo, we were talking. And we were communicating. And that reminded me that to be an effective communicator, we need to be willing to adjust our communication approach to what's comfortable for the person we're communicating with.

So we'll talk a little bit more about that here in a moment. But it is-- I mean, communications 101 or best practices in communication do dictate that the best connection between two people is when the sender of the communication adjusts their communication approach to what's comfortable for the receiver of the communication.

All right, so let's start talking about some steps that we can take to start building better bonds for our teams. And so one is, I think it's important to maintain a consistent communication structure. A lot of teams only meet on an as-needed basis. And that's not unusual. And people are busy.

But, folks, regular structured communication-- Gallup, the polling people, who do a lot of research around employee engagement, they say that individual employees who have regularly structured one-on-one meetings with their supervisor are three times in general more engaged or more likely to be engaged as people that only meet with their boss on an as-needed basis.

There's something about having regularly structured meetings with your team. I have weekly one-on-one meetings with my team. My boss has regular one-on-one meetings with me. And so there's something about that structure where you start those meetings by catching up with the other person, asking them how their family is, finding out what's going on in their world, following up on things that are pending, or following up on things that you know the person that shared about the things that they were interested in that they shared about earlier.

Think about it. Every time you meet with someone, you learn a little bit more about them, which gives you things to talk to them about later as you continue to nurture that relationship. And so it's just-- I got to tell you, I am a believer in the value of regularly structured one-on-one meetings. Now, you don't necessarily have to do them once a week like I do. You can do them every other week. Excuse me. You can do them once a month.

But the important thing by the research is that you do them regularly. There's something about knowing that you've got regularly scheduled time with your supervisor that keeps you bonded with your supervisor and gives both parties a chance to really stay on the same page, talk about priorities, and stay connected interpersonally, catch up with each other how things are going in their lives.

And during those meetings, you don't want to just get right down to business. You want to spend the first 5 or 10 minutes visiting with that person. I was thinking about last week. I had a really wonderful conversation with one of my direct reports at Deer Oaks.

And we started talking about football. I know she is part of a fantasy football league. I was asking her-- and I'm a big football guy. And so I was asking her about when they were doing their draft. And she was saying it was this weekend. And I was asking how the draft usually goes. And we had like a six- or seven-minute conversation about fantasy football. And then we got down to business.

But that's what I'm talking about is when you have that kind of connection with your colleagues or the people that report to you or that you report to, where you can just visit with each other and take an interest in each other and what's important to the other person-- I mean, it goes a long way to creating a bond that helps you actually work more effectively together, feel more a part of something, feel more cared about, feel more connected.

So just try to make sure you've got a regular communication structure, which would include one-on-one meetings, team meetings. A lot of teams don't meet regularly. They meet on an as-needed basis. Folks, I think that's a mistake. Kevin Kruse in the book Employee Engagement 2.0, he said the teams ought to meet on a regular basis, just to stay on the same page together as well as bond together, have an identity as a team, create that work family environment.

So we do our team meetings at the end of the day, every Tuesday. It's virtual because we all work virtually. But we start those meetings oftentimes with icebreakers, where we go around the virtual room, and everyone gets a chance to weigh in on whatever icebreaker topic we've talked about in the past.

We've done icebreakers like what's the best concert you ever went to, a musical concert ever went to and why. And we had some laughs about people's musical preferences. And another time, we talked about, if you could give some advice to your younger self, who was just starting out, what would you have said with everything that you learned over the years? And that was interesting to hear what people were thinking about.

But icebreakers are a way to get people to bond. And so for team meeting agendas, folks, you don't want to just get right down to business. You want to spend some time at the beginning of the meeting going around the room, giving people a chance to catch up with each other.

You can use icebreakers, if that works for you. Or you can just give people a couple of minutes at the beginning of the meeting and say, hey, can you just update us on what's going on in your world? And just give people a chance to stay connected with each other. It makes a world of difference when people have that informal opportunity to just stay connected.

I also, from time to time, like to facilitate a rules of engagement conversation. What I mean by that is get people thinking about how to treat each other at work. Oftentimes, work teams, they think about the work product. They think about their to-do list. They think about their job responsibilities. And those are all important, of course.

But they don't think a lot about the quality of their interactions with their colleagues like, how well do we get along? How do we treat each other day-to-day? How do we communicate together? And so rules of engagement conversation is one where we periodically-- and I think it's a good idea to do this every six months or so to bring people into a team meeting and just say, let's spend a little time today talking about the environment we've established here for each other. And because we spend so much time together during the week, let's make this environment as comfortable for everyone as possible.

So what do we want to remember, folks? And give everyone a chance to weigh in. What do we want to remember about how to treat each other interpersonally day-to-day? What's important to everyone? And people go around the room and say, I want people to remember to say hello in the morning, that I feel uncomfortable when I come to work in the morning. And sometimes people are already so into their own world that they don't even look up and say hello.

And I think it's important to connect with people and say good morning. Folks, there's research that says the first two minutes of every day is really important to get people off on the right foot for a really-- for a good day and maximize their motivation. And so it's important that people are friendly. It's important that we say good morning to each other. Or when people leave, take time to say, hey, have a good night or have a good weekend.

Those little niceties are not just-- those are not just rote things that people do as fillers. Those are things that people need. People need connection. And especially in the virtual world that we live in, the more we can connect with each other, the better. And so other people say, I want to make sure that we're being respectful to each other. I want to make sure that we can have each other's back.

And so it's really great, in my experience, every once in a while to do this rules of engagement and summarize with everyone's input what are three or four or five things we should be thinking about in terms of how we interact together on a day-to-day basis to make this environment the best possible environment for everybody. And then you visited again six months later and say, OK, six months ago, we said we were going to do these four or five things. How are we doing? I mean, are we making each other comfortable? Are we greeting each other in the morning? Are we being respectful to one another? And give everyone a chance to just remind each other.

Because we all get busy. And it's easy to forget common courtesy. It's easy to forget being polite. It's easy to forget bonding together and becoming all business. It's real easy to get into that because work is busy. But when you have those periodic rules of engagement conversations, it reminds people of focusing on the interpersonal and treating each other well and nurturing that work environment and not just being all businesslike.

And then creating opportunities for bonding. And so I mentioned use of icebreakers. I think it's really important, folks, to use icebreakers from time to time. And icebreakers, if you ever want to go online, just Google icebreakers, meeting icebreakers. You will get so-- there's so many websites out there with best practices and examples.

And the way we've done it with our team is we'll do-- we don't do them every single meeting. But we'll do a month where we've done on and off a couple of times, where we did a month where we did an icebreaker every week, where each one of us-- there's me and three others on the team. So each one of us had an opportunity to choose the icebreaker and facilitate that going around the virtual room at the beginning of the meeting.

And it only really takes 5 or 10 minutes or so at the beginning of the meeting. But it lets people let their hair down, get more comfortable with each other as people, be less all businesslike and more relational. I think it's a wonderful practice. Now, of course, I think it's a good idea to also be talking to each other about how we like to communicate.

And so this is another good team building practice to do from time to time is to go around the virtual room. Or if you're in person, go around the room and say, today, folks, I'd like to see if we couldn't share-- and I usually call it how to best communicate with me. Let's have a conversation today about how to best communicate with each other. Let's go around the room.

Everyone's going to get 5 or 10 minutes to share and let us know how to best communicate with me, what mode of communication do you like. Do you prefer text or email? Do you prefer in mails through Teams? Do you prefer someone picking up the phone and calling you? Do you prefer face-to-face or jumping on a team's call with cameras on? Just give people an opportunity to share, this is the best way to communicate with me.

Because, again, you want to communicate with others ideally in the way that's most comfortable for them and then ask people, in addition to how they like to be communicated with, what time of day works for them. Some people will say, please don't call me at 8:30 in the morning till I've had my second cup of coffee. I am not a morning person.

And it was interesting. Because the three people on my team-- I used to wonder. This true story. I used to wonder up until about three years ago when we did one of these go around the room and talk about how to best communicate with me meetings-- I used to wonder why-- I would send out emails early in the morning. I am a true morning person. I'm up at 5:00, 5:30. And I'm typically at my desk by 7:00 or 7:30. And so I'm sending out emails. And then I wouldn't get emails replies back till 11:00, 1:00, 2:00.

And I would wonder sometimes why it would take so long until we did one of these communication meetings. And what I found was my three colleagues, none of them are morning people. But I do get emails from them in the evening. Now, I'm already checked out by then. I mean, I started early. And so I end at 6:00. And so I'm not messing with email after hours because I'm an early morning person. But I'm going to sleep by 9:00 or 9:30 at night, so.

But it's interesting. Just knowing what people's rhythms are and what time of day they like to be communicated with can help you know how to best reach each other and not be wondering why you're not hearing back for someone. Or it can help you choose the best time to reach out to someone or the best time to schedule a meeting.

But I got to tell you, just understanding my team's communication preferences-- another one that I learned is I've got a colleague that's a writer. And she writes proposals for us. And I'm an extrovert. And I just pick up the phone. I'm also old-school. I like to talk on the phone. So I just pick up the phone. And I would just pick up the phone any time I had a need and call my colleague.

And then all of a-- and then one time I went to a communication skills seminar that said, if you're dealing with people who are creative, if you call them out of the blue, you can actually be very interruptive. And it can pull them out of their creative zone that people that are creative-- which is not me-- that people are creative tend to need to be in that creative zone, where they're not being bothered. They have some privacy. And they can really get into their creative space to be thinking outside of the box or creating.

And because that's not me, I never stopped to think that just by picking up the phone, I might be interrupting one of my colleagues. So I tested it. I asked him-- I asked my colleague. I said, hey, when I just pick up the phone and call you-- because you're a really creative person. You do a lot of writing for us-- does that interrupt you? Does that pull you out of your creative zone?

And she was honest with me. She said it does. And I said I'm so sorry. I never stopped to think about that. I said, well, how can I best communicate with you then? She said, send me an email. If you need me, send me an email. And I'll email you right back to let you know when I'll be available. She said, now-- and she was very polite and said now, if you need me right away, I mean, just pick up the phone and call. I mean, it doesn't matter. I'll be here-- I'll be here for you. But she said if you wouldn't mind, it would help me if you would shoot me an email ahead of time.

And so I've been doing that with her ever since at least most of the time. Sometimes I still pick up the phone, obviously, if it's an emergency, or I need it right away. But it's helped in the quality of our communication and help me communicate with her in a way that's more comfortable for her. So be thinking about those communication preferences as well.

All right, folks. Last thing I want to talk about today-- or two last things I want to talk about. Another thing is as a supervisor, when you're coaching people-- and I know we all are doing with every one of our direct reports-- I know, as supervisors, we regularly are working with our individual teammates, with our colleagues, with our direct reports. We're working with them on growing and helping them become more skillful, help them be more productive. It's part of every supervisor's role.

But one of the things I realize is oftentimes in personal and professional development, supervisors are focused on technical skills like helping my proposal writers be better proposal writers, where I also have learned that it's important to think about people's interpersonal skills as well-- their listening skills, their ability to get along well with others. And so, again, if you want to bond people together on your team, you need to be thinking about keeping people connected; keeping the teammates, the coworkers connected together, caring about each other treating each other respectfully, being good listeners, taking an interest in each other, nurturing those relationships.

When that happens, again, that team becomes more of a work family. People enjoy being together more. They're more productive. They're less likely to go look for a job somewhere else. So let's make sure that we're focusing our coaching and our professional development work with our teams, not just on their technical skills, but also on their interpersonal skills.

And then last but not least, I'd like to challenge you to create a little bit of a team building plan so that you can be more intentional about this important area. And so my team building plan in a nutshell is I try to do weekly team meetings and start a lot of those team meetings before we get down to business with an icebreaker or casual conversation to catch up with each other, to keep the team interpersonally connected together and caring about each other.

So I try to always start that way. And so that sets the stage. And then a couple of times a year, I try to do formal team building events, where we either go off-site. Now, we haven't done that obviously the last couple of years because of COVID. But prior to COVID, we were getting together once or twice a year in person. We'd go off to a restaurant, go to a bowling alley. We play Topgolf one time. We rented the back of a restaurant and did a big team lunch for a couple of hours and played some games and had some fun together.

So be thinking of also some things you can do that would be more fun for the team. And so to me, the-- so for this year, for 2022, because I do weekly team meetings, I have an opportunity to bond with the team or get the team to bond together 50 times, give or take, because it's a weekly meeting. And then two more times, I get a chance to get us connected together, either in person or virtually.

Last year, we did a couple of really, really neat virtual meetings together, where we all got on a Zoom call. And we did a gift exchange at the end of the year. I think middle of the year, we did a little quiz game like a Trivial Pursuit game that we did together. It was sort of a-- we made it a game meeting where we just had fun together and came up with a winner who got a prize. And we did a best desk competition in another meeting, where we all took a picture of our desks and sent in. We had judges. And then we sent gift cards out to the winners of the best desk competition.

But those are-- just be creative in how you have these team building events throughout the year. It makes a big difference. So, again, have a plan. So it's not just-- you're not just meeting on an as-needed basis. Because it's hard to stay bonded if you're only meeting on an as-needed basis. But if you're getting together regularly for a team meeting, that's the foundation, whether it's weekly or biweekly or once a month. At least you have a rhythm and some consistency. And then add in there some other more formal team building events that are fun for the team.

And all in all together by the end of the year, you will have brought the team closer together, giving people an opportunity, creating an environment for people to know each other better. When people get to each other better, they typically bond more, and they enjoy working together more. And it gives them the ability to stay connected. And, again, when they have to deal with something, they're going to be able to deal with it more effectively because they've got that foundational connection between the two of them.

All right, folks, I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to open it up for questions. If you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. I do want to remind you all that-- I want to remind you all to reach out to us. If you need to either get one of the recording links from any of the previous meetings that were in the series this year-- remember that I shared earlier, and I did-- I know we had some people join after my opening. But let me share again.

We did the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Supervisors back in February and the Keys to Effectively Managing Employee Performance in May. If you did not get to attend those live, you can still attend the recordings. So all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and just ask our team to send you the recording link to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Supervisors in February or the Keys to Effectively Managing Employee Performance in May.

And then if you want to still sign up for the Transitioning From Staff Member to Supervisor session coming up in November, again, just ask our team to send you the registration link for that. We'd be happy to do that. Again, to be able to get our team to send you those things, please don't put them in the question box because our team won't be able to monitor that.

But all you have to do is just hit Reply, again, to your GoToWebinar invitation or reminder for today that the GoToWebinar system sent you and just send-- it doesn't have to be formal. You can just hit Reply and just write, please send me the recording link for the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Supervisors presentation in February. We'd be happy to do that.

Thank you, folks. I appreciate that. All right, let me go through the questions. We're getting a lot of questions. Thank you, folks. Had a great turnout today. Really appreciate it. All right, someone's asking, what was the name of the book again?

I talked about a couple of books. One was The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. So that book is The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. Kouzes is K-O-U-Z-E-S. And Posner is P-O-S-N-E-R. That's a great book. And the other book I mentioned was Employee Engagement 2.0 by Kevin Kruse. Kruse is spelled K-R-U-S-E.

Someone else asked, will the slides-- will these slides be available for download? Yes, if you'd like a copy of the PowerPoint presentation, all you have to do is hit Reply again to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our team to send you a copy of the PowerPoint slides. We'd be happy to do that.

All right, we're getting a lot of questions. This is great. I'm going to go through and try to grab some questions that would have the widest audience appeal. Because it looks like we're going to have far too many questions. I won't have time to answer today. But I'll do my very best, I promise.

All right, here's a good question. I'm seeing this question asked by a couple of different people in different ways. But I think it's a common issue that most people in a supervisory role have at one time or another is, what if you have people on your team that are negative or that they're not interested in team building and can bring the vibe down or they just complain a lot and pull people down around them?

Every team's going to have people like that, unfortunately. It's human nature. Gallup, the polling company, again, that talks about employee engagement, they say, typically, about one in five American employees is disengaged. And a lot of those folks are pretty negative based on the research. And so we're going to have people from time to time on our teams that will have a negative impact on the rest of the team and maybe not be a lot of fun to be around.

And so basically, I believe in coaching those people. I don't just let people stay negative, especially if they're coming into team meetings and venting a lot of negativity or I notice them pulling people down when they're in the office or people come and complain that this person is always complaining, always negative, and really pulls us down. I will bring those employees in and coach them.

And as we all know, coaching isn't being hard on someone. It's bringing them in and just having a conversation about, I've seen in team meetings sometimes that you tend to-- I mean, you do contribute a lot of positive things because you have a lot of experience and the rest of the team can benefit from. But at times, you get pretty negative. I don't know if you're aware of this, where you start talking about something, and you go on and on and on about how bad it is. And I can see the uncomfortable look on some of your colleagues' faces. And I was wondering if you were aware of that, that you do that sometimes.

And let's say the person says-- well, hopefully, the person is going to say, I had no idea. I'm really sorry. I'll try to be more positive in meetings. But oftentimes, you're going to get a person getting defensive or arguing and saying, no, I'm not negative. I'm just keeping it real, telling you how I feel.

And how I would continue that coaching conversation with that person would be to say, OK, I understand. And I want you to be honest about how you feel. But please, please respect the fact that I want to keep our team meetings as positive and upbeat as possible. And we don't get together as a team that often. And when we are together, I don't want them-- I don't want people to feel like it's a downer.

And so if you do need to share something that's really bothering you and it's going to come out negative, please don't do it in the team meeting, come pull me aside. I'm happy to hear you out and provide you with some support. So come and talk to me about that. I want you to be able to feel like you can share how you feel. But please, if what you're going to share is going to be real negative, please don't use the team meeting atmosphere as the opportunity to vent that. Because that, again, can bring everyone else down in the room or a lot of other people down in the room.

And then I ask them, what could you do next time you want to share in a team meeting that could be more constructive or more positive and still be able to contribute and share your opinion? And to get them thinking about what else they could do other than just getting into a rant of a complaint. And I found that people typically respond pretty well to that. And they won't be as negative in the next meeting.

So that's how I would handle that kind of thing. But don't just let people-- don't just let people be negative, if you feel like they're having a negative impact on others. We have a responsibility as the lead of the team, as the supervisor to make sure the team environment is as positive and helpful for everybody as possible. And I don't want to let one or two people who are real negative bring everyone else down.

So I will call them in, and multiple times, if I have to, if they continue to be negative, and coach them to be a little bit more positive or at least maybe neutralize some of the negativity. I found some people then will get real quiet. Sometimes I've done that in the past. And they'll stop being quite as negative. But then they won't say much. I would rather have them not say much. If they're really negative and all they're going to do is vent negativity and bring people down around them, I'd rather them not say much than go on those negative rants. So I hope that helps.

"Any ideas for free or low cost team building?" That's a great question, folks. And so yeah. So team meetings doing icebreakers are free. I love that. I think that's the best way to do. Honestly, in all the years I've been doing this-- and I have tried-- again, managing people now for going on 30 years. I have tried a lot of things.