Guest Post by: JoDee Curtis, Purple Ink
Purple Ink recently held a team retreat; it was not our first one, but our team has grown from 4 to 10 people since we held our last one 2 years ago. In addition to the fact that we all work remotely, three of our team members just joined us in the last few months, so teambuilding was especially important for us.
We hired Deseri at Vida Aventura to facilitate the opening session on values and team building. It was fun, enlightening, and a powerful exercise for us to work through as a growing team.
A few years ago we established our Purple Ink Promise, which is our vow to our clients that we will be positive, creative, and flexible. We believe this, we live this, we own up to our promise. But we also wanted to develop our internal values, or as Deseri likes to call it, our credo. It’s how we work with each other, grow the business, and enjoy our work.
I particularly enjoyed that Deseri had us start by naming our own personal values. I was pleasantly surprised to find how similar many of our team members’ values were. This made it easy for us to quickly come together to create them for the team. Our credo starts with:
How did you make your purple splash today?
We defined purple as:
P Positively JoyPowered
U Unique
R Resourceful
P Productive
L Lighthearted
E Explorers
Deseri has challenged us to continue the spirit of our values by talking about them in meetings, asking ourselves and others our credo question, celebrating our “wins” with our team, and committing to improve upon our values.
Some of my takeaways from this valuable session are:
The importance of team building exercises. Taking time away from the office to reflect, share, and listen to each other when you are not caught up in the day to day of work and customers.
The importance of hiring an outside facilitator. It was important for me, as the company owner, to fully participate in the exercise, and I think it better allowed the team to share their thoughts and ideas.
The fun and the power of creating our values as a team, and now the challenge of ensuring that we keep them alive!
We are having new conversations; they are enlightening, motivating, and powerful!
