Building Teamwork in Your Martial Arts Studio

From a past article we have learned the importance of delegating work to other people. These may be your family members or your employees. These people, act like cogs to the machinery which is your martial arts studio and for the business to run smoothly, you need to make sure that those cogs are in sync and aligned. In this article, we are going to talk about how we can increase productivity and provide greater customer satisfaction through a stronger and more united team.

Evaluate the Team’s Current Situation

Before you create a better team, you need to understand first the present dynamics within the martial arts studio. Some employees may not enjoy working together or there might be misunderstandings or even fights between them. You should know these issues to avoid conflicts and problems. You can get this information by talking to your employees or asking the students for feedback. By doing this you will also know the instances when certain employees provided better service by either working together or creating a system that will allow such thing to happen. Keep every bit of information in mind as this will give you the picture of how a great team operates.

Create Team Goals and Assign Individual Roles

After you have evaluated your team, based on the information you’ve gathered, you could assign individual roles depending on the strength and weaknesses of your employees. Aside from increasing productivity, you will prevent miscommunication and conflicts if the roles in the martial arts studio are clearly defined.

Team goals, on the other hand, are combinations of employee goals and company goals. You should create goals that benefits the employee while ultimately benefiting the martial arts studio. An example would be to get enough new students for this month and in return, the team will be rewarded with a small party or a gift.

Have Regular Meetings with Some Fun on the Side

Meetings are excellent at providing an opportunity for people to voice out their comments and opinions. When this happens, listen intently on what your employees are saying. Take note of their suggestions, questions, and concerns. A good meeting is not one sided. Meetings are not lectures but a discussion of ideas from all the people you work with. When a certain issue needs to be resolved, make sure that the team has a say on what should happen and the decision, made in the end, should be a consensus. From time to time, hold social gatherings where you won’t talk about work and just let the team get to know each other and relax. Order a pizza from time to time or set-up a company outing. As they say, all work and no play…

Minimize Competition

Some people are competitive and this might produce good results for certain individuals, but it creates a toxic environment for employees who don’t like antagonism and rivalry. You can’t get rid of competition entirely, and a little bit would be nice, but it’s also a good idea to promote a friendly environment to make a stronger team. Encourage your employees to share their knowledge and cooperate with each other rather than being selfish and preferring to do tasks alone. This will improve the skills and knowledge of your employees which further strengthens the team itself.

And to end this article, I would like to quote Master Jin Kwon:

“One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up,

add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire,

large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends;

needless to say that individuality counts but team work dynamites.”