In my book The WE Gear, I describe the five key behaviors of good teammates—Active, Loyal, Invested, Viral, and Empathetic. Those behaviors are crucial to maximizing teamwork, especially the fourth. I had an interesting opportunity last week to witness firsthand how true this is.
A group of Texas Head Start and Early Head Start professionals used The WE Gear for a leadership book study this year and brought me in to speak at their organization’s annual year-end retreat.
Head Start is an amazing program that provides services to underprivileged children and families. They do important work and their organization is filled with kind, caring people.
Early morning engagements can be tricky. Getting people—even kind, caring ones–to be enthusiastic at that hour can be like drawing blood from a stone.
The program’s leader enthusiastically welcomed everyone to the retreat, but it took her several rounds of “Good Morning…I said GOOOOD MOOORNING” just to generate a minor uptick in the room’s energy level.
Before introducing me to speak, the book study team presented the findings from a poll they conducted during their study. As they relayed the data, which I found to be both fascinating and insightful, they solicited feedback from the audience.
But the audience still seemed lethargic and reluctant to engage—until, a bubbly woman named Pauline stood up to speak.
Pauline smiled, laughed, and spoke with passion. More importantly, though, her response triggered everyone else to smile, laugh, and passionately nod their heads in agreement. Pauline’s fervor was contagious, and it changed the temperature of the entire room.
A few moments later, a woman named Tamika stood and provided a similarly enthusiastic testimonial. Her words moved the audience to joyful tears. If Pauline’s fervor got the ball rolling, Tamika’s was the equivalent of, “Ball, I’m not going to let you stop rolling. In fact, I’m going to make you roll faster.”
By the time I was introduced to speak, the room was filled with kind, caring…lively, enthusiastic individuals—eager to hear about the art of being a good teammate. Pauline and Tamika warmed up the audience and made my job exponentially easier. (Good teammate move on their part!)
Virality—the state of being viral—leads to momentum. Sometimes all a team needs to get moving in the right direction is a little virality from one or two of its team members.
Unfortunately, people don’t always appreciate the power of virality to the extent that they should. They write off a teammate’s virality as “that’s just who that teammates is.” But there’s more to virality than natural personality.
Being viral requires courage, a willingness to be judged, and a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone—for the benefit your team.
Everyone has the capacity to be a viral. Those who wish to make a difference on their teams choose to be viral. If you’ve got teammates like Pauline and Tamika on your team, don’t take them for granted. Embrace their virality and allow it to inspire you.
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
