101: How to Quickly Build Deep Relationships In Your Team with Jason Treu

Building a cohesive team is hard. Period. Yet it's also the core of a high performing team. Unfortunately traditional team building activities, while fun, can cost a lot of time and money. And they don’t always produce the promised benefits. Plus, if you’re a remote team (now or under normal circumstances) team building is even more challenging. But what if you could spend just an hour or two, even over Zoom, and transform the relationships between your team members?

Jason Treu is a Chief People Officer and employee engagement expert. He spent 15+ years in leadership positions working with Steve Jobs, Reed Hastings (CEO at Netflix), and Mark Cuban. He’s the best-selling author of Social Wealth, that’s sold more than 60,000 copies. His 2017 TEDxWilmington talk focused on “How to Get CoWorkers to Like Each Other.” His team building game Cards Against Mundanity is being used by more than 20000+ employees.

Jason and I talk about how to quickly build deep, authentic relationships, How to develop trust through meaningful conversations, and how teams and organizations benefit when people actually know and care about each other. And, the amazing thing is you don’t need to be together in person to do it!

 

Read the related blog article: The Easiest Way To Create Psychological Safety For Your Team

 

Join the Modern Manager community (www.themodernmanager.co/join) to access dozens of guest bonuses, episode guides and a community of supportive managers in our private Slack team. 

Members get a free 30 min coaching session where Jason can help you strategize and plan for how to use the game and build relationships with your team.

If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.

 

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Despite spending significant time with our colleagues, we actually know very little about each other.
• When you don’t like someone, you don’t trust them. That leads to creating false negative narratives about their behavior which further distances us from them.
• The biggest factor in whether a team is high performing or not is the strength of the relationships and cohesiveness of the team.
• To develop deeper bonds among team members, you need to spend time getting to know them through meaningful conversation.
• Studies have shown that asking deeply personal questions instantly strengthens relationships and allows people to find common ground through shared experience. This opens the door to repairing previously strained relationships.
• Include questions such as: “What was the most important lesson you've learned in the last year?” and “If you were to thank one person for helping you become the person you are, who would that be, and why?” 
• Talk to your team about why these conversations are important and how opening up about ourselves will benefit us as individuals and as a team.
• Role model the desired behavior by being the first to share. Be honest and vulnerable.
• Consider making “work with me” manuals that document each person’s preferred work style. Include pet peeves, optimal communication methods, etc.
• Whenever a new team member joins, hold another group conversation with the deep questions. Then encourage them to create their own “work with me” guide and review those of their colleagues. 

 

KEEP UP WITH JASON

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jasontreu/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasontreu 

Facebook: https://facebook.com/jasontreuexecutivecoaching 

YouTube: https://youtube.com/jasontreucoaching 

 

RESOURCES

• Remote Insensitivity game: http://playingcards.io/game/remote-insensitivity
• Free Download of Cards Against Mundanity: http://cardsagainstmundanity.com/
• Email mamie@mamieks.com to learn more about my Personal Instruction Manual program

mamie@mamieks.com