Read post and respond. In response, include additional thoughts or reflections that further the discussion.

The best team I have ever been associated with was at my previous store. There were a total of ten of us, one General Manager, one Assistant Store Manager, two Supervisors and six Sales Associates. There were many physical successes that we were able to see, the trophies, placards and banners that were evident of our success as a team but there was so much more to it than that. It all began with the team’s adhesiveness and a talent assessment. I was the Assistant Manager when the store was being opened and with just me and the General Manager, we had to build a team. This took the most amount of work I have ever invested in but the return was far greater than I had ever imagined. We didn't just hire to fill positions, we hired to fill skills, to have an assortment of strengths and leadership that all would correlate seamlessly together. One the positions were filled, my General Manager did something that made all the difference - a team talent assessment. What this meant was we would all sit down together and each identify what we loved to do, wanted to learn, hated doing, needed help with and strengths and weaknesses. This allowed us to invest where needed, put the best people in each role and maximize each individual to make the best of our team.

The worst team I was a part of was a few years prior. The experience was so rough because there was no true leader for us. We worked in a department that ran completely differently than any other but were missing our own manager. Instead, we had multiple leaders from different departments all telling us different things to do. There are two things that the manager could have done differently to improve the experience: dedicated some time to actually learn out department prior to trying to tell us how to do a job that we are trained at and understand what we wanted or needed.

The Herzberg model applies to both of these situations due to opposing reasons. The bad situation had particular hygiene or negative factors that were extremely relevant and some motivator factors that were definitely missing. The specific hygiene factors that caused my situation to be negative were the working conditions, lack of interpersonal relationships and no status of an actual leader for us. On the other hand, I would say every motivator factor listed by Herzberg led to the excellent experience spanning from meaningful and challenging work, recognition, feeling of achievement, growth opportunities and the job and people involved.

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