#2 Team Building and Cross-Pollination

Cecil Daniels's picture
Posted Thu, 01/20/2011 - 20:33 by Cecil Daniels
Team Building and Cross-Pollination
The Louisiana District has a culture of team building. All department heads and leaders came together on several occasions each year to share vision, goals, even to address problems or needs. Many of our departmental activities affect other departments so we needed to function as a team. Also, we may have different responsibilities but we are working to achieve the same end result.
Cross-pollination is the function of “stimulating influence among diverse elements”. This means that we transfer ideas from one person to another, build trust, share ideas and help each other achieve our goals. This fosters a culture of inclusion and togetherness. In this way every person matters and makes a contribution to the overall success of the organization  
This type of culture produces synergy. Synergy is achieved when two or more agents working together produce a result not achievable by individual efforts. Teamwork is essential to the success of any organization. By virtue of being one of the larger districts in the UPCI; the Louisiana district has a large pool of leaders to work with at any given time.
The “Lone-Ranger” style of leadership is antiquated and ineffective. Every leader should study other leaders or organizations in order to learn how to build a team, share vision, and inspire action to advance a common purpose. Some leadership styles seem to stifle creativity and breed mistrust.