Hello, everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season so far. My name is Scott Mueller. I am a senior supply chain management major at Wilkes University. I am also the Scholar of Internal Operations and Logistics at the Allan P. Kirby Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. Additionally, I intern at the Fastenal Company on the quality management team, while also playing on the men’s ice hockey team at Wilkes.
After nearly four years of college, I have learned the importance of building a strong team and culture within the workplace and the impacts it can have on people's individual performance and the team's performance. When it comes to having a strong team, there are a few things that I believe help build and maintain an effective dynamic.
Culture: When a team can sustain a culture, they will have sustained success. Culture drives expectations and beliefs. Expectations and beliefs drive behaviors. Behaviors drive habits and habits sustain and create a future. Culture is created by everyone up and down, while allowing them to know what the team stands for and the process it takes to build a sustainable culture.
Contagious: Everyone has the ability to be positively contagious. Positivity can create a healthy workplace within the team and leadership can be a prime example of how positivity can develop a strong, healthy team. Leadership is a transfer of belief that can share visions and missions in a positively contagious way.
Communicate: Communication begins with developing relationships within the workplace. Voids in communication are filled with negativity and to avoid this we need to build relationships while learning from and listening to one another.
Commit: Commitment does not mean just being involved. It means that your commitment to the team has to be greater than anything else. Building a healthy strong workplace consists of everyone realizing it is about the team and not the individual. That everyone needs to commit to each other and the ultimate commitment is sacrifice.
Consistent: When it comes to consistency, everyone needs to be the same person and leader whether things are going well or poorly. Consistency helps remove any source of doubt or complacency. In order for the team to be consistent, everyone needs to commit to the process and what it takes to be consistent. For example, being humble to become a lifelong learner and being hungry to push yourself and your team.
As college students who are soon entering the workforce and joining new teams and work environments, it can be important to bring an impactful understanding of what it means to create a strong team at the workplace.
Thank you for reading my blog!
See you soon!
- Scott