Taylor Studios has an awesome team.  Some of the reasons we function well as a team follow:

• We check our egos at the door.
• We have high integrity and trust each other.
• Everyone wants to produce a high quality product.
• We set goals and objectives.
• Each of us keeps an open mind and accepts criticism and input.
• We are respectful in our communication, yet encourage debate.
• We treat our teammates as trusted advisers.
• We hold each other accountable.

Today, I got an email from Matt Wiley, one of our Graphic Designers.  He was concerned that some of my tweets were not appropriate.  I had posted some silly ones that were probably more appropriate for personal tweeting versus company tweeting.  I often get in a hurry and tweet just to tweet instead of watching the quality of the tweet.  I appreciated his input and made changes.

We are pursuing a very large project.  This week, several of us presented to this potential client.  At the presentation, it was obvious we work well as a team.  After the client asked a question, one of us would start the answer then another would pop in and finish the thought.  It flowed smoothly and we conveyed that we have fun, are passionate about what we do and have an effective team.  I was telling Joe Taylor, the company co-founder, about the opportunity.  He said, “Well if you really want it, why don’t you make them an offer they can’t refuse?”  This morning I threw a brainstorm with Sam, Drew and Kara and we came up with a great idea to present to the client.

Our shop is very busy right now.  We are working overtime and people are on the road.  There are many upcoming installs.  The few weeks before an install can be stressful for project managers.  There always seems to be more details to figure out, more questions and more to dos.  When something goes slightly wrong it is easy to jump on the project manager and say, “Why didn’t you take care of this?”  For example, this week a subcontractor delivered a Great Blue Heron model that was not made to our specifications.  This meant Marc, our Model Shop Lead, had to spend a day fixing the model even though something else had already been scheduled for that day.  Jason noticed that everyone was asking why don’t we hold our subs, clients, vendors, etc. more accountable.  Jason knew this was not the time to add more stress to their plate.  As we often say, he reminded them to offer solutions instead of complaints and criticism.  With that perspective in mind, the team got down to business and came up with solutions.  We’ll look at what we could have done better at the lessons learned meeting we’ll have after the installs are done.

These examples from this week illustrate what good teamwork looks like.   My team rocks!

Tell us about a time when you saw good teamwork.

I recently asked the Community Manager at a PR firm in Chicago, “How do we get more comments on our blog?”  (Yes, I realize a good blog isn’t defined solely on the number of comments it receives (good thing!), but it is a starting point.)  Daniel posed the question on their blog, Spin Sucks.  The suggestions he and other readers offered were good and I will start implementing several of the ideas.  Dan’s post was also referenced by another blogger, Adam Singer, creator of The Future Buzz.  This blog probed my question a little more deeply and also offered some good tips.

An assumption made in The Future Buzz post was, “The real reason they are blogging (speculating here) is to build awareness for their firm and to gain additional inquiries (and ultimately clients) from blogging. “  So why do we blog?  We’ve been asked this question many times and Adam was pretty spot on. (Not really a difficult assumption to make.)

We started this blog about a year and a half ago.  We recognized the importance of social media and embraced it.  We wanted a way to connect with potential and current clients and others in the industry. We also wanted to educate our readers as to why we’re different.  In this industry, differentiation is hard.  We believe we offer our clients more value and a higher quality product, but there’s more to it than that and that’s often difficult to explain in 15 pages or less.  So we started blogging in order to give our clients, and yes, our competitors, a behind the scenes look at what we do, why we do it, what we believe, and ultimately how we’re different from other firms in our industry.

The posts you read on our blog range from meeting our staff, to learning about our management style, to understanding our history.  Some posts are fun (see what Tony does in his spare time), some are informative (see Renee’s series on our design-build process), and some are serious (see Betty’s position on incentives).

Do you have a blog?  Why did you start blogging?  What do you hope to gain from your efforts?

Posted by: Kara