“The interesting thing about my approach is that it is scientifically fact based and it’s evidence based. Most team building is not and yet most companies resort to the stereotypical team building of which there is no evidence that it has any impact upon team performance.”

This is Taylor Sparks of the Raleigh-Durham MO.com, where we feature small business owners and entrepreneurs to bring you, hints, tips, insights, and perspectives on what it takes to be successful. Joining us today is Jim Morgan, Founder of Team Trainers Consulting.  Founded in June of 2000 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the company is currently based out of Raleigh, NC and provides training worldwide.   Jim, thank you for taking the time to speak with MO.com.

MO:
You hold a Master Degree, are Project Management Certified and have worked in a number of industries before going out on your own. Was this always part of your plan, to go out on your own or was it a particular set of events that made you make this move?

Jim:
It was a series of happy accidents. I started doing team development because I was assigned to a project that I realized required four different groups of people to talk to each other who weren’t really talking to each other.  I ended up developing four self-directed work teams at Los Alamos National Laboratory which you may know as the home of the atomic bomb.  I had worked there doing team development for about six years and oddly enough had a wild fire and I had some time off whether I wanted it or not. I decided that maybe this is a sign that I need to move on.  So I wrote a business plan and went from there.

MO:
What have some of the challenges been in launching a team building business?

Jim:
The biggest challenge has been differentiating myself.  People have a certain idea of team building and what that looks like and what I do.  I don’t do anything like a typical team builder.  Early on I realized that I was going to have to do a lot of content on my website.  I was going to have to do a lot of networking.  I started out doing an email newsletter, now it is a blog about my approach and to make clear what I do that other team builder do not do.  When I’m in networking events I will ask the question, how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors. If you can’t do that I think that you are at a distinct disadvantage.

MO:
One difference about your company is that you train using both science and experience. You have a service called Company Change.  What does the Company Change service do for corporations?

Jim:
The approach there is to take what I do on a team by team basis and take it across the company and do it for all of their teams.  The interesting thing about my approach is that it is scientifically fact based and it’s evidence based.  Most team building is not and yet most companies resort to the stereotypical team building of which there is no evidence that it has any impact upon team performance.  What I am able to do on a team level is get a return on investment of at least 20% and usually larger than that so that it easily pays for my services.  If you expand that across a company in the correct way, which is a step by step rational process, then you can get a return on investment for your entire company.

 

MO:
What size companies do you work with?

Jim:
I have worked with companies  as large Hewlett Packard but I don’t actively market to that size company.  I prefer a company of 100-200 employees or a company that is just starting out where the entire company is up to 12 people.  That’s where, by far, I can have the largest return on investment over the lifetime of that company by helping them to do things right from the very start.

MO:
You have also authored a workbook for team training.  What prompted you to write this book?

Jim:
My customers kept asking for it, which is the best possible reason.  The training manual that I had been using was more than 500 pages and which had all of my intellectual properties in it.  My customers kept saying we want that and I kept saying you can’t have it.  Finally after I moved here to Raleigh after operating in Albuquerque and Seattle for many years and needed to start up again I decided to get back into the routine by writing a do it yourself version of my training program. That’s what the book, The Sudden Teams program is and it has just been updated to a second edition with new information added and busting another teamwork myth.  That will be released this month.

MO:
You noted on your website that you are a practicing Zen Buddhist and hold two black belts in martial arts.  How do you believe that these philosophies have helped you to be a better trainer and coach?

Jim:
I have a 2nd degree black belt in the Okinawan style of Shotokan and a 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo and I also have various belts in other styles.  The zen focuses on accepting on things the way they are.  My approach very much focuses on not what should be, not what we would like it to be but the way things actually are and the way human beings actually operate in small groups.  You can either leverage group dynamics to work for you or leverage them to work against you, it’s your choice.  I prefer the former.  Being aware of what is actually happening and accepting what is actually happening and work on things from that stand point.  From the martial arts perspective it is really a firm determination to overcome.  I have never run into a teamwork problem that I could not solve.  Sometime it took a little more or a lot more gabbing but it can always be done and that is one of the things that I try to get across to my clients.  All the teamwork problems they face have been solved, just somewhere else.  We just need to take their solutions and fix them within their environment.

The Final Five!  Five semi-random questions.
MO:
Proudest personal achievement?

Jim:
Turning my life around. I’ve not always been the best person and at some point I decided that I wasn’t going to stand for that anymore.  I didn’t like what direction I was heading. so I turned it around and I like to use that as a symbol that if I can turn my life around anybody can.

MO:
Title of last book read?

Jim:
I actually finished two on the same day.  A historical novel from 1951 called The Ragged One by Burke Davis which is about the revolutionary war campaign in the Carolinas. The other book is called Working by Studs Terkel.  It was published in 1971, where this Chicago columnist interviewed hundreds of people about how they felt about their everyday working life.  I always wanted to read it and finally go around to finishing it.

MO:
Biggest Pet Peeve?

Jim:
People who resist facts and evidence without being able to provide the same.

MO:
Athlete/Celebrity you would most like to work with?

Jim:
I would love to work with Coach Roy Williams of University of North Carolinas men’s basketball team and see how he achieves what he achieves.

MO:
If you weren’t in the training business, what career would you have?

Jim:
I bounced around doing consulting work as a project manager, or a technical writer or a training developer.  I like that life where there is variety.  Until I created my own job I couldn’t find a job in the outside world that allowed me to do everything that I enjoyed doing.  If I can’t find that I enjoy being able to bounce around between those three things.  I enjoy the contractor’s life where you work for some time, make some good money and then you have some time off.