Monthly Archives: February 2015

The one way to team success

team success - common visionThere are three common ways used to achieve team success, only one works over the long-term:

Do what the leader says is right, do what you think is right, and do what the team agrees is right.

“In the end, team success only comes when working towards a common vision.”- Denis G. McLaughlin 

 

 

Do what the leader says is right, follow the rules. Which leads to this….

  • – Short term activities that have no long-term vision attached
  • – Waiting for direction
  • – No sense of belonging to anything bigger than the activities
  • This may lead to short-term success, but over the long haul it falls short. Rules from the top can never cover every decision that must be made in every circumstance.
  • Mike Krzyzewski, the first coach in NCAA Division I basketball history to record 1,000 victories said, “The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.”­
  • Do what you think is right, make up the rules. Which leads to this…
  • – Short term activities that have no team-centered vision attached
  • – Searching for direction
  • – No sense of belonging to anything bigger than yourself
  • Even if every person has the best of intentions, they come from a limited perspective. Each individual can have a unique view of success for the team and will head in their own direction to pursue that success.
  • Hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “Hockey is a unique sport in the sense that you need each and every guy helping each other and pulling in the same direction to be successful.”
  • Do what the team agrees is right, agree on the rules. Which leads to this…
  • – Short term activities that lead to achieving the long-term, team-centered vision
  • – Having a direction
  • – Belonging to a group who together achieve success
  • Vince Lombardi, one of the most successful NFL coaches and namesake of the Super Bowl trophy said, “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
  • In the end, Team Success only comes when working towards a common vision.

The Energy of Leadership

successful leaders energizeIf you want to light a lamp in your house how do you do that? Simple, flip the switch.

Before the switch can be activated, electricity had to be disseminated to your home through transmission lines and transformers that make sure the right level of energy is delivered to your lamp; and before the electricity could be disseminated to the lamp, it had to be generated in a power plant.

The Energy of Leadership follows the same course as electricity: Generation, Dissemination, and Activation.

  • Leaders Generate vision
  • Leaders Disseminate resources
  • Leaders Activate goals
  • Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric said that leaders need tremendous personal energy and the ability to energize their teams. This flow of the energy of leadership is what makes a successful team.
  • Sometimes I think this doesn’t happen as often as it could because we spend too much time and money trying to set up the perfect apparatus. Invest the time needed to clarify the message but don’t waste time when you could be moving forward. Like Dennis Miller said about electric energy, “Why is electricity so expensive these days? Why does it cost so much for something I can make with a balloon and my hair?”
  • Leaders Generate vision.   George Carlin once joked that, “Electricity is really just organized lightning.” Lightening is random and its power difficult to harness, but when focused into electricity it can provide power to light up a city. Leaders generate the same type of power when they focus the attention of the team on a single vision. A scattered collection of activities can now become a united effort to achieve success.
  • Leaders Disseminate resources.  Like electricity that is stepped up and down so the right voltage is delivered to each user, the energy of leadership is only really useful when it is at the right place, in the right format, to the right people, who know how to use it. I heard it said that, “It doesn’t matter how many resources you have, if you don’t know how to use them, they will never be enough.” Leaders should ensure that their team has the resources needed to accomplish the vision.
  • Leaders Activate goals.  Once the work is done to generate and disseminate electricity to the house, the lamp is activated by simply flipping the switch. The goals in the energy of leadership should be that simple. Layout the key activities that need to be done and watch success come to light.  As Earle Nightingale said, “People with goals succeed because they know where they are going, it’s as simple as that.”

Time Travel Leadership

Dr who and time travel picture of TartusWe are fascinated with the idea of time travel. We read about it in the 1895 book The Time Machine by H.G. Wells; we learned about the space-time continuum in Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in 1915; we watched the movie Back to the Future in 1985; and in 2014 an average of about 7 million people watched each episode of the BBC television classic Doctor Who.

Each of the stories, movies and television shows explores the possibilities of what could be accomplished if time travel was possible. I believe this is because ordinary people think of how to spend time, great people think of how to invest time.

“It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.” – Steve Jobs

Doctor Who is the long running series on time travel that started in 1963 and ran until 1989. It returned to television and DVD in 2005 and has had a successful revival. The show is about a “Time Lord” known only as “The Doctor” who travels across time and space, in a vintage British Police Box, to protect innocent people and prevent evil forces from changing history.

The Doctor is serious about his mission, but to him time travel is as easy as going to work every day. “I can’t tell the future I just work there.” – Doctor Who

Whether or not you watch Doctor Who, or believe in the ability to cross the space-time continuum, you will read below that leaders have the power to use time travel to drive success for their teams.

LEADERS CAN MOVE THEIR TEAM FROM THE PRESENT TO THE FUTURE.

Sometimes your team isn’t ready right now for the success they desire today; they need to work and prepare for it.

Don’t just say, “Not now.” Encourage development. It’s difficult to hear you aren’t ready for your dreams. Leaders must encourage their team to dedicate themselves to get ready for their dreams not just wait.

“We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.” – John F. Kennedy

Don’t just say, “Not now.” Describe the vision. Sometimes people mistake where they are with the finish line. Remind your teams how big their dreams really are.

“Big flashy things have my name written all over them. Well…not yet, give me time and a crayon.” – Doctor Who

Don’t just say, “Not now.” Deliver the plan. Leaders see the dream clearer than anyone. Layout the steps it will take to reach it, so your team knows where to do.

“If you want to encourage individual growth, try to never say “No” but instead answer with “Yes if…” – Denis G. McLaughlin

LEADERS CAN MOVE THEIR TEAM FROM THE FUTURE TO THE PRESENT.

Sometimes your team is ready right now for the success they desire in the future; they need to move and achieve it.

Don’t let them wait. Encourage action. There are always reasons why someone might think they can’t achieve their dreams today. If you get those reasons out in the open you can remove them as obstacles one by one.

I once heard of a conversation between two employees that went like this:

“When are you going to finish that project?”

“When I get around to it,”

“I will get you one if it will help you finish this project.”

“Get me one what?”

“A roundtoit.”

Don’t let them wait. Enable the vision. Some people think they aren’t up for the challenge of achieving their dreams; they need more time. Remind them of all they have accomplished already and enable them to accomplish even more.

“Some people live more in twenty year than others do in eighty. It’s not the time that matters, it’s the person.” – Doctor Who

Don’t let them wait. Adjust the plan. Roadblocks come in every situation, some even pop up right after you start the journey to your dreams. Help your team achieve success by showing them how to go around, over, or through their challenges to keep moving forward.

 “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”– Napoleon Hill

 

Leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions

future possibilitiesIf you want to be successful don’t try to solve tomorrow’s challenges with today’s solutions. That is why leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions into view to solve tomorrow’s challenges.

How do leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions? What are tomorrow’s challenges that need solutions?

These are the questions that leaders must answer as they look around the corner for emerging risks and opportunities.

 

In an ever-changing world, here are the four things leaders must do to bring tomorrow’s solutions:

Predict – the future scenarios. You can’t predict the one thing that will happen, but you can be prepared when something happens.

The past is a guide but doesn’t always predict the future. Based on what you already know you can visualize what else could happen. Find the common themes in all that possible future scenarios you see.

“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking at the back window.”­ – Peter Drucker

Present – the team with the future goals and the plans to reach them.  Don’t just wait for the future to come true, plan for it and execute. Share the themes of the future you visualized with your team and create plans to succeed through them all.

Success does not come from being sure of what will happen. Success comes from being sure of what you will do if something happens. Remember, the future is not something we enter,the future is something we create. We can control how we respond to risks and opportunities.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”– Abraham Lincoln

Prepare – the team to be ready to succeed. With your vision of the future clear and a plan to achieve success in mind, now it’s time to get ready to respond when the future comes. What skills, people, and information will be needed in when the future comes?

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” – Alexander Graham Bell

Prevent – the team from getting off course.  A greater purpose instills a sense of mission in us all. Leaders need to repeat the goals so you don’t retreat from the goals. Leaders are the chief cheerleaders.

“Start strong, stay strong, and finish strong by always remembering why you’re doing it in the first place.” – Ralph Marston

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