Life Outside Your Walls

Nice Method: Internal

“To move forward you have to give back.”

— Oprah Winfrey

One of the best ways to bring a team together is to get them out of the office together. This is why I prefer to conduct our Nice Method workshops in different locations from the office.

Offsite workshops are more memorable when held in different locations. They also take the team away from work, so they can work on enjoying their colleagues while learning something new.

We also encourage our clients to get together with one another in the office to think of and help people beyond the walls.

These nice initiatives can include stuffing back-to-school backpacks to help underprivileged children, using Kiva.org to support international entrepreneurs, and contributing to DonorsChoose.org to help local teachers raise funds for classroom needs.

Leaders allocate a budget for each department for the full company to distribute.

Nice Method: External

“If everyone is moving forward together then success takes care of itself.”

— Henry Ford

Working together as teams to support others is a wonderful way to bring people together while doing good. These initiatives can take your team members out of the office to deliver meals to the needy with programs like Meals on Wheels, assisting at food banks like Second Harvest, or embarking on a 2,500-mile road trip.

Effective companies bring their people together and foster friendships by also organizing social hours such as attending sporting events, movies, games, and concerts. They are encouraged to bring their partners and children too, so everyone can get to know each other better.

We also encourage leaders to send their staff to conferences and trade shows. We help you develop a plan to ensure you see a return on that investment. Relationships are born at conferences and these can lead to new hires, investments, co-branded promotional partnerships, and new clients.

When a company sends their staff to a conference they are extending their trust in those team members. They learn from the presentations and workshops and bring back new knowledge that is applied to building your business.

Nice Method: Building Trust

Arnie Malham is the founder of Better Book Club and a former guest on my podcast, The Nice Podcast. During his last venture, he would pay his employees to read books from their internal non-fiction bookshelf. He trusted his teams to read, they got smarter with what they learned, and everyone grew as his company, CJ Advertising, did too.

“Leadership is an achievement of trust.”

— Peter F. Drucker

Team leaders are encouraged to share when they are wrong. This honest transparency helps team members to acquire the confidence to take greater risks and to know that everyone makes mistakes.

Leaders also share a consistent vision with their teams, so everyone is on the same page and they know what role they play to reach those goals. Group projects also encourage everyone to participate and to trust one another.

The Nice Card Game is an activity where employees leave one positive comment about each individual team member or employee. When the cards are filled with positive feedback they are returned to the employee who cherishes the reminders of what their colleagues have to say about them. This card serves as a reminder of why they trust the team member, but it also reminds each team member why they should trust themselves. This helps combat self-doubt.

The results from the above effects everyone positively and encourages them to consider life outside your walls.

I have personally been there and felt what those employees feel, and I don’t want others to go through that. I want to give leaders a look behind the scenes at what goes wrong and how to fix it.

Fast-growing technology firms lose their heart, communication, and cohesiveness by not practicing Nice Method best practices. We can help.