In the play, West Side Story, Tony sings to Maria:

There’s a place for us / Somewhere a place for us / Peace and quiet and open air / Wait for us / Somewhere

Intimacy needs such a place. It’s difficult to form and sustain a meaningful relationship in a chaotic, noisy and closed environment. Forming a group into a creative team, a team that has a meaningful relationship with each other and their vision-mission-values, requires a Somewhere place.

Believers go to their church, mosque or temple on a regular basis to remind themselves that they are members of a community. They go there to be inspired, to be infused with spirit. They don’t live there but they do regularly visit there. Leaders and creative teams need to frequent an inspiring place as well. Cramped and crowded meeting spaces just don’t cut it.

I believe the right space for idea generation and creative strategic thinking is critical. It’s why I opened The Idea Loft in Kansas City. Here are other cities with excellent venues worth your consideration:

Atlanta;  Charlotte; Chicago;  Cincinnati;  Columbus;  Indianapolis;  Louisville;  New York City

Which communication medium, or media, should a leader use when trying to turn a group into a creative team? The answer: whichever work(s). There is no ideal communication medium. People receive and understand messages through a variety of means. Some people need to be shown information. Some need to hear it. Some need to “feel” it–to touch it or be touched by it.

I once met a leader who tried to deliver a complex and very important message to his team and failed miserably. The message turned into a debacle that seriously effected the morale of his team. When I asked him how he delivered his message the answer was email. When I asked him how many emails he sent, the answer was one.

If you’re a leader and have a critical message you need to send to your team (all of whom work in the same building), one email is not a wise choice. When an issue is complex, people will have questions. If they don’t ask you those questions, they will form their own interpretation and end up with false information. If they do have questions, they will have to take the time to write and send an email and you will have to read the email, hope to understand it, and reply to it. All of this takes time and risks increasing misunderstanding. The better choice would be to:

• gather the staff together
• present them with the information you wish to tell them in print (some people need to see it)
• tell them the information that you just gave them in print (some people need to hear it)
• ask if they have any questions about the information
• wait in silence while they process what they’ve just read and/or heard
• listen to the questions people ask (really listen–people will feel you care)
• answer the questions slowly, thoughtfully and thoroughly
• ask if they have any suggestions (uncork the creativity of your team).

Remind staff of the team vision-mission-values on a regular basis:

• during one-to-one conversations
• at weekly team meetings
• through posters
• by means of tweets and email.

One message sent one time via one medium is almost never enough. It takes work to get anyone’s attention today. Communication that binds a team together is worth the work. Put some thought into it.

A team is more than a group of people. A team shares a common purpose that binds the group together. The primary tool for forming the group into a team is communication. Communication comes from the Latin word communicare–to share. It is the sharing, the communication, of a vision, mission and values that joins a group into a team.

Effective communication requires that both the sender of a message and the receivers of that message pay attention. It’s as if the sender and receivers are bound together by a rubber band. They are joined in a positive tension that allows and ensures sharing.

But here’s a problem–paying attention in today’s world is extremely difficult. You’ve heard the litany of distractions before: TV, radio, iPhones, iPods, iPads, YouTube, Facebook, Google, books, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, films. The phrase “paying attention” is accurate–we have to give up focusing on other things and invest in what we’re saying or what is being said. It’s taxing work.

On an early morning walk with my wife Katie, I noticed a police car that had its signal lights on. I told Katie that when I young, police cars had just one signal light on the roof. The light was sometimes referred to as a “gumball machine.” (The picture below, which comes from one of Robert D. West’s galleries of car pictures, is a great illustration of how police cars once looked. I appreciate Mr. West’s permission to use this picture.)

Katie said: “It takes a lot more now to get people’s attention.” She’s absolutely right. If police cars today were equipped as the police car in the picture above–no one would even notice it! There’s just too much else going on. Play the brief video from istockphoto below to see how police grab our attention today:

The dilemma for leaders and teams is finding the time, the place and the media that ensure positive, accurate and enabling communication. We need ommunication that grabs attention and is worth attending to. Sticking with what used to work will no longer work today.

Next week we’ll deal with how leaders can use time, place and media to positively effect team communication. So pay attention!