Prioritizing Team Health in the Fitness Industry

Ralph Rajs shares the importance of prioritizing team health and creating a trust-based environment in the fitness industry.

Every year, no matter the sport, there is an unlikely team that pops up and does significantly better than expected.  They are the loveable underdog or as we like to call them, the Cinderella team. These teams have a few things in common; they are typically well coached, they are void of excessive egos, and they seem to be having a lot of fun playing together. It’s never the professional team with the highest payroll and the biggest stars. More often than not, we see the so-called super teams fall flat. I’m looking at you New York Mets and Yankees. Merely collecting a bunch of highly talented individuals doesn’t make a team, but highly committed players to a single common goal can accomplish extraordinary things. 

This also translates to our work teams.

At some point in your life, hopefully, you have experienced working on a high performing team. Whether it was a sports team or work team, you know how great it feels to be a part of that kind of team. When we ask work teams to describe the attributes of the best teamthey’ve ever been a part of, they regularly cite things like, they had fun working hard, they wanted to do well for their team, and their teammates had their back. The leader created a supportive environment where people could ask for help and there was no fear of criticism. These teams are playing loose and having fun. 

So how do you bring those best team ever attributes to your current team?

In “The Advantage,” best-selling author Pat Lencioni writes about the smart teams versus healthy teams. Smart teams have people who are technically good at their jobs. They stay educated in their field and they know their business. If the team wasn’t smart, they wouldn’t be in business. Think of the star athletes on a professional sports team. A healthy team, on the other hand, has a high degree of trust among the team and is able to work through tough situations and arrive at great solutions. They can have healthy conflict and they hold each other accountable for the decisions the team committed to. On smart teams, members are engaged and motivated; turnover is low; everyone is a clear about what needs to be done, and office politics are kept to a minimum. Ideally, we should all be working toward getting our teams smart and healthy to maximize performance. When a team is both smart and healthy, they’re unstoppable.

You may be wondering where do I start?

Trust is the key that opens everything up. A simple first step, and a very effective way to start to build trust, is simply for all members of the team to work at getting to know each other better. Understanding people’s personal histories allows us to better understand why they behave the way they do in certain situations and can create an atmosphere of support and empathy. 

In the fitness industry, where it’s very important to get to know our members, it’s equally important for us to get to know our team.

We can’t expect our staff to make connections with members unless we are setting the example and doing the same with them. Unfortunately, the gigantic tech companies have set a precedent for the impersonal work environment, and have made it routine to lay off hundreds of people with a single overnight email. We know in the fitness industry — where relationship building is so important — we can do better than that.

As we start to plan for the new year, let’s keep in mind the value of increasing the productivity of our teams by prioritizing team health and creating a trust-based environment where people are highly engaged, motivated and excited to come to work.