[Book Excerpt] The Five TA DA Tenets of Teamwork

We all want to be awesome team players. A normal and sane person (and this includes almost all of us) does not wake up in the morning, dress for work, eat breakfast, and say, “I am going to be negative today. I am going to whine. I am not going to work well with others. I will probably eat someone's blueberry muffin in the break room.” Your colleagues do not get in the car and head to work planning on being a terrible teammate.

We do not become great teammates because there is no foundation for great teamwork. As leaders, we must create the opportunity and foundation for our team to excel, produce, and create. If we create the right foundation, great teamwork will happen.

I use improvisation to discuss the foundation and right choices for successful teamwork. I have watched thousands of diverse audience members perform on stage in front of their peers. I give a few moments of instruction. The team is creative, focused, supportive, meets their goals and objectives, takes responsibility, is accountable, and most important, has fun.

The foundation I create for audience volunteers who share the stage with me is the same foundation we must create as leaders. Here is the best part. It is simple. If I can create this foundation on stage in front of an audience in only a few minutes, you can do this at your work.

This chapter covers the tenets of teamwork that I have learned watching thousands of audience volunteers perform with me on stage. The audience volunteers all make the same choices in how they work together to overcome challenges and meet the objectives. In an earlier chapter, I discussed the importance of leaders to create the opportunity for great teamwork. Once the opportunity is created, team members must make the right choices to find success.

First, I want to share a story. During a recent event, I was playing a game I call Road Trip. Three audience volunteers join me on stage. From the audience, I ask for a road trip destination and four emotions (I am also participating in the game). Each audience volunteer is assigned an emotion. As the “driver” picks up each hitchhiker, everyone must take on the emotion of the last person who entered the car. The driver then drops off the hitchhikers in order, and the group changes their emotion in reverse.

At a recent event, I did something different. I asked the audience for a story to go along with the road trip. Something that happened to them on a recent car ride. A man in the front told a story about driving the back roads of Arkansas and not being able to find a restroom. He stopped at an abandoned gas station. As he relieved himself, he noticed giant rats were all around him. We call this comedy gold.

I asked my team to try and incorporate the story into our road trip. During the improv game (in front of more than 1,000 people), the volunteers mentioned driving through Arkansas, having to go to the bathroom, and not seeing anywhere to stop. The participants incorporated the story and continued to change their emotions. I was elated at the incredible teamwork. The audience laughed and applauded. And then the team, buoyed by the audience’s positive support, made a choice that demonstrated even more amazing teamwork. Two of the audience members exited the car (as they were instructed) and walked to the back of the stage. Backs to the audience, arms around each other, they acted (tastefully) like they were relieving themselves. The audience went nuts. Building on their idea, I jumped on the chair, acted like a giant rat, and scurried around the stage. I am certain not one attendee who walked into their ballroom that morning expected to see their keynote speaker acting like a giant rat as two audience members (again, tastefully and backs to the audience) implied that they were relieving themselves.

The audience volunteers created a magical improvisational moment. They worked together as a team. They were creative. They were accountable and took ownership. They listened and supported each other. Isn’t that what we all want from our teams? I provided the opportunity. They made the choices, on their own, that led to successful teamwork.

Let us examine five of their choices. They are the five TA DA tenets of teamwork:

1. Be open and flexible. 

We all have different backgrounds, educations, and experiences. We work differently. We think differently. And we all have our own ways to solve problems. To me, a variety of perspectives is an advantage.

The secret to making this work is your choice of openness and flexibility. If you are a “my way or the highway” type of person, you are going to struggle in the team environment. You are also not going to have many friends that will help you move when you get divorced.

When I use improvisation games to demonstrate my messages, the audience members who perform best will accept each other's ideas, and work to make the idea better. They are open to new ideas. And they accept and are flexible to how their teammates are participating.

We will make mistakes. Our teammates will choose different paths than we prefer. We can choose to be frustrated. Or we can choose to be open and flexible.

We must answer the first question of improvisation, “How do I help the other people around me be successful?” We should all ask and act on that question. To make that question really work, we must be open and flexible to ideas and how people work and engage.

When the first audience volunteer left the car on the road trip, the second followed him. One person had the idea to go to the back of the stage. The other volunteer was open and flexible to the idea and reacted. The first volunteer put his arm around the other. The second did the same. That moment, because of the teamwork, elicited a huge laugh from the audience. His openness and flexibility created that moment. What if he fought the idea? He might have defeated the volunteer with the idea, and the moment would never have happened. Instead, he reacted positively and even built on the idea.

2. Solicit and encourage the team to give ideas.

Sometimes people on the team do not want to participate. When I bring an audience member on stage that is reticent, I immediately ask a question. “Where do they live?” “What is their job?” This forces my teammate to respond and engage. The audience will usually give them some positive encouragement, and the audience volunteer starts to build confidence. The confidence builds during the game. They take more risks. The audience gives more positive support.

The same is true for your teams. People want to voice their opinions and ideas. Create the opportunity for the team to contribute to the plan. Remember to be open to their ideas.

When you ask for ideas, the reality is that few of the ideas will ever be used. That is the nature of creativity. As a leader, the most important action is to reward and appreciate the team member's time spent creating the idea. We want the team to continue to produce ideas. If we reward the time and energy creating the ideas, the team member will be engaged and want to produce more ideas.

The nature of improvisation is that everyone on stage contributes. Everyone has an opportunity to create. All three audience volunteers contributed in the Road Trip game. The audience rewarded them with laughter and applause. The positive support led to the idea of going to the back of the stage. And it led to me imitating a giant rat.

3. Create ownership and responsibility.

We all want our team to be passionate about our goals, work, customers, and mission. People do not always walk into a room beaming with passion. If they do, you might want to ask for a drug test.

Passion happens with a chemical equation. The first step is creating ownership and responsibility. When the team has ownership of the idea, plan, execution, goals, or any other part, they start to care. We do not care about anything unless we have ownership and responsibility. Once the team cares about something, then there is passion. We do not have passion for something unless we first care about it first. Everything starts with ownership and responsibility.

I want the audience volunteers on stage to participate and take ownership. I am there to support them and make sure they are successful. However, it is as much their exercise as it is mine. As a leader, sometimes we want to do everything. We want to take control. Sometimes we think, “It is not going to get done unless I do it.” And that could be true. How do you know if you do not ever give your team the ownership and responsibility? It is hard to let go. The reward, though, is seeing your team engaged and producing.

The audience volunteers in the Road Trip game all took ownership. They wanted the team to succeed. They supported each other, built on each other’s ideas, and contributed to the team's success.

4. Focus on the plan and act.

Once we give the team ownership and responsibility, we need to quickly focus on the goal and act. If we shorten the time frame of our goal, we force the team to focus. The longer we must act, the more time we will overanalyze, lose focus, or lose track.

Shorten the time frames and force the team to focus. When we take too long to decide, the team will feel less engaged. They will start to drift and lose confidence in the team.

Improvisation forces you to focus on the team and objective. In another chapter, I discussed the concept of being “in the moment.” That focus allows the team to understand what everyone needs to be successful. The team engages with each other because everyone is overcoming the immediate challenge of the game.

Improvisation is built on quickly choosing an idea and everyone focusing and acting to make that idea work. How can you take that back to your work? Can you shorten the time frames? Can you engage the team more on the objective? Can you create more positive support?

Value the team's contribution, and they will engage. Communicate through the process, and allow each team member ownership. When I perform with audience members, I only explain the game and the rules. I do not tell them what they should do during the game. They make their own choices. That freedom empowers the team members. Nobody wants a micromanager. Nobody wants a leader who says, “I would have done it this way.”

A leader must empower their team to focus on the challenge, take ownership, and contribute. Each audience volunteer made these choices throughout the Road Trip game.

5. Be positive and supportive.

The best gift you can ever give your team is positive support and appreciation. It is their fuel. Everyone wants to be appreciated. When you go home from work, think about all the people on the team. Did you give the team members encouragement, appreciation, and positive support? If not, then do it tomorrow. Send an email. Call them on the phone. Say something in the hall.

There is no expiration date on appreciation and support. It is not a ham.

When I bring audience members on stage to perform an improvisation game, I make sure they have three rounds of applause before they even start the game. Once the participants start engaging, the audience will laugh and applaud. The more positive support they receive, the more creative and productive they are in the game.

Part of a successful team is the reduction of ego. One element of being positive and supportive is sharing credit in our accomplishments. Once the team understands that everyone is dependent on each other's success, they focus more on the goal. As a leader, share the credit with your team.

These five choices all contributed to the success of the Road Trip game. The cool part is that the art form of improvisation forced the volunteers to make these choices. You must make these choices to succeed in improvisation.

When you go to work, nobody is forcing you to make these choices. There is not an audience laughing and applauding and creating confidence. You make these choices. And if you do make these choices, you will be amazed at how your team functions. I also hope you remember a road trip through the back roads of Arkansas and giant rats.

This article is an excerpt from Joel Zeff’s new book, “Make the Right Choice: Lead with Passion, Elevate Your Team, and Unleash the Fun at Work” and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Porchlight Books, or wherever you purchase books. Joel Zeff is a national speaker, work culture expert, author, and humorist. His spontaneous humor and vital messages have thrilled audiences for more than 25 years.  Joel has shared his experience and insight on collaboration, leadership, change, communication, innovation, fun and passion at more than 2,500 events. For more information, visit his web site at www.joelzeff.com.

You can use this QR Code to purchase
"Make the Right Choice: Lead with Passion, Elevate Your Team, and Unleash the Fun at Work”
from Amazon.