Teambuilding

A great article from Yahoo News about team building!

Some key ideas...

If you have a bunch of jerks, your brand is going to be a jerk," said Tim Sanders, former leadership coach at Yahoo Inc. and author of "The Likeability Factor."

Kris Thompson, vice president of human resources at Lindblad, said, "You can teach people any technical skill, but you can't teach them how to be a kindhearted, generous-minded person with an open spirit."

At KaBoom, a nonprofit that builds playgrounds, CEO Darell Hammond started thinking about who left and why, then focused on the characteristics of workers who stayed. The list of traits: Can do, will do, team fit, damn quick and damn smart.

Hammond said he isn't afraid of scaring people off, since the best candidates "are constantly looking at themselves to excel, not just cross the finish line, but blow through the finish line."

When all 90 of the people on his staff meet that criteria, he said, "It's incredible. If you have 89 who do and one who doesn't — it's painful."