Showing posts with label Teamwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teamwork. Show all posts

Friday, 19 September 2014

Pathways and Pitfalls to Leading Teams

by: Jim Clemmer


“Skilled team leaders transform a group from what they are into what they could be.”


• The following Outstanding Teams Checklist outlines the key elements of top performing teams (and organizations). Use this to assess yourself and your team. Even better, get your team to do this assessment:


__ A high performance balance (analytical skills and disciplined management processes, technical skills and strong capabilities to use the latest technologies, and people leadership skills)


__ Strong self-determination with no tolerance for the Victimitis Virus or Pessimism Plague (one team agreed “you can visit Pity City, but you aren’t allow to move there”)


__ Passion and high energy for rapid and continuous learning, developing, and improving


__ A clear and compelling picture of the team’s preferred future


__ A clearly articulated set of shared principles outlining how the team will work together


__ A strong sense of purpose and unity around why the team exists


__ Solid agreement on whom the team is serving within the customer-partner chain and across horizontal organization processes


__ Identification of, and an aggressive plan for improving, the team’s customer-partner performance gaps


__ (If appropriate to the team’s role) relentless exploring, searching, and creating new customers and markets


__ A process for innovation and team learning


__ A handful of performance goals and priorities directly linked to the organization’s strategic imperatives


__ A concrete process and discipline for continuous team improvement linked to the organization’s improvement effort


__ Process management skills, roles, and responsibilities


__ High levels of team leadership and team effectiveness skills


__ Powerful feedback loops and measurements


__ A culture of thanks, recognition, and celebration


• If meetings are a chore, or have become a meeting of the bored, you may have a skill or application problem. Meetings should re-energize and refocus. With the proliferation of practical resource materials, seminars, and training now available there’s little reason for poorly run meetings. Meetings are a prime example of how a modest investment in learning and skill development can pay incredible dividends in saved time and frustration. If your meetings were just ten percent better (25 – 40 percent improvements aren’t uncommon after good meeting leadership training) how long would it take to repay learning and skill building time?


• Effective teams meet frequently. At the senior management level, we’ve found a correlation between how frequently (and effectively) a team meets and the amount of vertical management — departmentalism, territoriality, turfdom, etc. — in that team.


The senior management group of a company we worked with hadn’t met since their last retreat two years ago. As we reviewed an internal survey they had just conducted, not surprisingly, one of their biggest organizational problems was poor communications. If senior management doesn’t frequently get together and talk to each other, how can they expect the rest of the organization do anything but follow their lead?


• Team learning and development is dependent upon team reflection (and ideally feedback from others who work with and for that team) on how effectively the team works together. This can get too introspective with everyone lying on conference room couches gazing at their navels. The reflection needs to be within the context of the work the team is doing.


• If you’re trying to move your team toward self-management, you need to lead as if you are driving a car on an icy road. Guide and intervene with a light touch. Sudden, jerky changes will send the team into a skid.


• Build a series of small wins. That doesn’t mean pumping up your team with a lot of hot air (you’ll quickly send their phony meters over the red line). But look for ways to point out and celebrate the real performance progress the team is making.


Most high performing organizations use a wide variety of teams. But many managers underestimate what it takes to build a team-based organization.


About The Author


Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. During the last 25 years he has delivered over two thousand customized keynote presentations, workshops, and retreats. Jim’s five international bestselling books include The VIP Strategy, Firing on All Cylinders, Pathways to Performance, Growing the Distance, and The Leader’s Digest. His web site is http://ift.tt/1o6kZKS


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Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Focus Your Expertise

by: Skye Thomas


Yes, you are amazing and brilliant and capable of multi-tasking to a fine art. You can do anything you set you mind to and you know that already. You’ve become a master of juggling multiple responsibilities and you seem to be fairly successful at just about everything you do. So why aren’t you making the big bucks? Where is all that abundance and prosperity that being so multi-talented should be getting you? You are going to hate my answer, but sit with it and you’ll see that it makes sense.


Here’s a little secret to becoming wildly successful that most people don’t know and don’t want to believe. Most people are not capable of doing more than two things, sometimes three, really well. Before you start screaming at me, think about this… how many self-made millionaires are also workaholics? How many of them lose their marriages and/or their children, because their loved ones think that they love the company more then them? How often do you see someone in the building stages of their fortune, doing a really great job of anything else? Not very often. There is a reason that the old saying, “Behind every great man is an even greater woman” was so popular a few generations ago. In order for the man to be able to focus all of his expertise and energies into creating such a noteworthy career, he had to have a wife back home who took care of everything else for him. Teamwork is a powerful thing, and we can definitely get into debates over gender roles and such another time. For now let’s stay focused on being focused.


Look at the woman who is an amazing wife and mother and keeps an immaculately clean house while doing so. If she’s truly an expert doing an outrageously good job at raising her kids and having a well run home and family, she probably is not working on a career outside of the home. Look at the opposite. How many super successful career women feel deep down that they are really doing their best for their family? If they are, then chances are they’ve sacrificed by not demanding that they keep a picture perfect clean house. They may focus just on family and work and let the chores slide. Many single parents who are really working hard to earn an income to support their families are also working equally hard to make sure that their children are mentally and emotionally well off after the divorce. They put most of their focus and energy into those two areas and subsequently many of those people really don’t have time to date and to give a new relationship the kind of serious attention it deserves? We have all seen the newly divorced parents who are so focused on their own needs to find a new partner and to let loose and play for awhile, that they blow off their kids and their careers. We cannot judge any of these people for the choices that they make. No one is right or wrong. It’s simply a matter of time and energy, you can’t do all things well and you can’t be all things to all people.


Does this mean that in order to become fabulously rich that we have to travel through life without family and friends? Without a social life or a hobby? Yes and no. What it means is that you have to take the time to set your priorities and be honest with yourself. How important is that money? How important are your children? Your marriage? How important is it to you to be elected into public office or to be a self-made tycoon? You have to really sit down with those answers and pick a couple of things to do extremely well. Then forgive yourself for letting the other things fall by the wayside. Remember that you don’t have to choose to put making money above the other delights of life. Perhaps you’ll decide that your personal idea of prosperity is getting to dabble in many things. You can choose to do many things fairly well and be an expert in none. Your income will show that choice in that you will do fairly well, but you won’t have the great abundance and wealth that you might have been dreaming of before.


If you do have a family that will be deeply affected by your decision, then you should probably include them in the discussion. Don’t decide by yourself that you’re going to put your marriage on autopilot for a couple of years while you run off to make a ton of money assuming that they’ll wait around forever. If together you agree this is a sacrifice you are both willing to make for long-term wealth, then so be it. Teenagers will understand these sorts of decisions a lot better then toddlers will. If you have small children, I don’t recommend putting your relationship with them on the back burner while you earn money. They will likely end up with some psychological issues around whether you loved them or money… and it will mess with their self-worth. If you’re single and you have no kids, then you can simply pick a couple of things to seriously focus on and become so expert that you make some serious money for yourself.


It simply comes down to this — experts earn experts’ wages. A jack-of-all-trades smorgasbord lifestyle means you get a little of this and a little of that. You get to meet a lot of different people and you get to play a lot. That can be a very rewarding and satisfying life. But there’s rarely any money in it! If money is your goal, pick a couple of things that you love and do them really well, become the best of the best. Stay focused. Don’t allow anything beyond your tight little priority list to distract you. Make peace with whatever you decide and have fun.


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Saturday, 23 August 2014

What Should You Be Committed To?

by: Jeff Earlywine


There are many dynamics that go into making a great team. Dynamics such as chemistry, talent, unity, and the list could go on and on. However, there is one dynamic that many teams, businesses, and leaders often overlook. That dynamic is commitment. Without each individual person in the organization, including yourself, being totally committed to the organization it will never reach its potential.


I was recently in a meeting where the speaker spoke on the subject of being committed. He felt strongly that each person should be committed to the one leading the organization. In his situation this person was his senior pastor, but it could have been an executive director, president, foreman, coach, or boss.


History is full of organizations that failed to reach their potential because members of the team were not committed. The sad part is that this is allowed to go on, many times unnoticed in every area of the organization.


In most organizations you have three groups of people. There is a board or governing body that usually doesn’t get involved in the day-to-day activities. Then you have the leaders. These people could range from senior vice presidents to assembly line foreman. Lastly, you have the people that are on the front lines getting the job done. Each person in each of these groups must be committed.


With the three groups identified, some time must be spent discussing the definition of commitment and what each person should be committed to. Granted, this could take volumes to explain, I have purposely only hit the highlights.


What does it mean to be committed? The speaker that I previously referred to explained it this way. When asked, “What is your vision? What is the passion in your heart? Where do you see yourself in five years?” His answer to these questions is always, “My vision, passion, and future is the same as my senior pastor.” This feeling and commitment level is consistent throughout all of this organization’s staff. Thus, explaining why they are one of the most influential churches in America.


Pat Williams, in his book The Magic of Team Work defined commitment this way.



  • Loyalty: Commitment to each other on the team.

  • Sense of mission: Commitment to the team vision or cause. The team vision will never become a reality until the players rally around it, commit to it, and bend their backs to make that vision a tangible reality.

  • Class: Commitment to quality and excellence.

  • Competitiveness: Commitment to winning. How you play the game is important, but winning at the end of the day is success. After all, your team is not committed to just play well, but they are committed to win.

  • Accountability: Commitment to continual improvement. Accountability is absolutely essential to the health and success of any team. A team without accountability is not truly a team; it’s just a collection of individuals pursuing their own goals.

  • Mental toughness: Commitment to hustling and finishing.

  • Self-discipline: Commitment to control and self-mastery. This means being committed to conquering your own plays, weaknesses, procrastination, appetites, and laziness. It means being tough on ourselves, denying ourselves some things we want for the moment in order to win what we want for all time.


How about your level of commitment? As you read the following put yourself in the group in which you belong.



  • Board or governing body. At this level of leadership in the organization each person in this group must be committed to the vision and mission. It is not uncommon for this group of people to be the ones that chart the course and hold the senior leadership accountable to accomplishing the stated goals. The members of this group must also be committed to the leadership that is charged with accomplishing the organization’s vision and mission.

  • Leadership in the organization. This group of people must also be committed to the vision and mission but they must also be committed those in which they lead.

  • Front Line. Those who are on the front lines, the largest of the three groups, must be committed not only to the vision and mission, but also to their leadership. This brings us to a critical juncture. In order for the leadership to be committed to the vision and mission they must know what it is. They must know where they are going and the steps it will take to get there. Also, in order for those on the front line to embrace and follow the leader they must be convinced that he or she knows where the organization is going. As Dr. John C. Maxwell says, “No one wants to go on a trip with a person that is lost.”


Now, what do you do if your level of commitment is not what it should be? What do you do if you are a member of a board and you don’t totally believe in its vision or mission? What do you do if you are in leadership and don’t believe your board is guiding the organization in the correct direction or you have a staff member that is not committed to you or the organization. Lastly, what do you do if are on the front lines and have realized that you are not a committed team player? The answers are simple, but the actions and consequences are difficult. The way I see it you have one of two choices, and they both have to do with change.



  1. Change your attitude, direction, philosophy, mentality, or staff.

  2. Change to another organization.


I fully realize that these are strong words. However, these are words that Christ demonstrated all throughout His life and put closure to in John 17, verses 4-5, “I brought glory to you here on earth by dong everything you told me to do. And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.”


Regardless if you are the coach of a professional basketball team, a staff member of a ministry, or a CEO of a fortune 500 corporation you owe it to the organization to give it one hundred percent of your time, talent, and commitment. Anything less will hinder the organization from achieving its vision and mission and will very possibly keep it from accomplishing its goals.


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