Are You An Active Team Member or Professionally Passive?

Are you a passive or active team member? Sought-after because you add value and are not afraid to explore what is new, different and changing.

Or, are you avoided? Not exactly everyone’s first choice for team member. Because you prefer to be a spectator on teams.

How would you rate your tenure on workplace teams? Would your self-assessment differ from, or be aligned with, how the rest of your team perceives your level of participation?

Consider that the quality and delivery of professional commitment tells your story: active team member or professionally passive.

As you read these words, do you think of “specific team members?” Some memorable because they are trustworthy and dependable, regardless of job titles, pay grades, levels of education, generations or professional disciplines. Then again, some notorious because they are risk-averse spectators, rather than active participants. If their role does not place them in the best light for their own professional success, why should they invest in yours and the team’s? (And your organization’s and clients’ success, as long as we are discussing together today.)

Which description best fits who you are, what you do and why you are there in the first place?

Ponder how working remotely and virtually today compares with working on-site and live yesterday. Are you an active team member or a professionally passive spectator?

In my conversations with colleagues and clients, working virtually brings out the best in team members who otherwise are easily dominated and overpowered in live, workplace meetings. Because these team members establish their own sacred virtual workspaces. Also, because these workspaces are unimpeded by passive / aggressive team members’ levels of energy.

Let’s face it, muting people on Zoom can be a wonderful feature for those professionals who are all-business. And find no value in conversational fluff and meeting foreplay. Or those professionals who find no value in spending time and energy listening to half-baked deliverables. Usually reported by other team members who like to work alone, rather than cross-functionally and collaboratively.

• Still other now-virtual team members fine-tune their communication skills.
• They’ve finally found their voices and economy of style in the value of being succinct.
• Primarily because they respect everyone’s time, as they always have.
• Also, they do not focus on hearing themselves speak.
• Because they perceive greater value built from the insights offered by everyone seated around the virtual table.
• Therefore, the team becomes more productive, overall.

Optimal teams owe their visibility, relevance and value to the combined quality and commitment of each active member. Also, because team members who are spectators find they no longer have a valued or trusted seat at that team’s table.

When everyone better serves each other, first, they better serve the organization and clients, together. To get to where they need to go. One millimeter at a time.

Where do you currently sit at your team’s table? Where would you like to sit? Contact me here. Set up a brief, complementary discovery call. Get to where you need to go, today. What are you waiting for? 

My One Millimeter Mindset™  virtual and in-person keynotes, workshops, coaching and mastermind programs translate across strategic communication and collaboration disconnects between people and professional disciplines. Build trust. Contact me here. Retain employees and clients. Optimize strategic business and human capital value in your organizations. Get everyone to where they need to go. Together. One millimeter at a time.  My playbook of communication tools and methods, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.

Image source: Adobe Stock.