TEAM – Is it?

I am a member of a team and I rely on the team. I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual is the champion. ~ Mia Hamm

Rowing Team

According to Patrick Lencioni, it’s not finance, strategy or technology that gives a company the ultimate advantage. It’s the people and their ability to subordinate their individuality for the greater goal of achieving team objective.

If done successfully, working as teams can be very rewarding both for the organisation and the individuals who make up the team. But teams are made up of people and the default nature of the human being is the individual. We live in a “I”, “me” and “my” world.

The more complex the work to be accomplished the greater the need for team effort. And that’s what make teams powerful. Together you can achieve more when everyone is moving in the same direction.

Examples of Team Accomplishments

  1. Building the Tower of Babel
  2. Building the Space Shuttle
  3. Building the worlds biggest passenger airplane
  4. Building the worlds tallest bridge
  5. Building the computer or mobile device on which you are reading this article.

People are your greatest asset and your greatest liability.

Its not all the time that you have the ability or luxury of picking who is on your team. For example, when you have been chosen to be part of a team at work or in other settings. However, should you have the opportunity to pick your team, take some time to think about it because your success can depend on who is on the team with you or who is not.

To grow your business beyond yourself, other people need to be a part of what you are doing.  Here are a few things to consider before setting out to find the right people for your team.

5 Things to Consider

1. How big is your dream?

John F Kennedy set the target of being the first nation to safely take a man to the moon and back. Bill Gates dreamt of a computer on every desk and in every home. You need to dream big and you need to be able to start small. If you can do it alone, there is no point in getting others on board.

2. Can you articulate your dream?

It doesn’t matter how big your dream is, if you can’t put it in words and paint a picture for some to see, you will find it difficult to attract the right people. You may attract some people who are desperate for work. If you had only one and a half minutes to talk about your idea to a potential investor, what would you say? Spend some time clarifying your ideas and craft your words.

3. Is there an opportunity for people to grow and develop?

Is there going to be any transformation in their lives as a result of being part of your team? Invest in the training and development of your team members. Ensure that your team members have the opportunity to acquire the new skills that will take your business to the next level. Give them the space and watch as they take your business to the next level.

4. What is the reward for joining your team?

This is such an important question because everyone will ultimately want an answer to the question “what’s in it for me?”. Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Beyond money, people want a sense of belonging, achievement and purpose. What have you got to offer? While team members may subordinate their individual ambition for team success, great teams are made of people who can achieve some or all of their personal goals while working on team goals.

5. Are you a team player yourself?

Do you know it all? Do your find it difficult to let go after you have assigned work? Are you pleasant to be around?

 One is too small a number to achieve greatness ~ John C Maxwell

To be a team player, you must be

  • Trustworthy
  • Comminicative
  • Commited
  • Accountable
  • Enthusastic
  • Result focused

TEAM – Together Each-one Achieves More.

Why not leave a comment by telling me your thoughts about Team

Increase Productivity by Reducing Distractions

Productivity is meaningless unless you know what your goal is Eliyahu Goldrat

Increase Productivity by Reducing Distractions

For as long as I remember I have always had to struggle to maintain focus and avoid distractions. I still do battle daily against the things that take my attention away from what I have set my mind and heart to achieve.

Believe it or not, but productivity increases inversely with distractions. If you have no ambition or big goals you want to accomplish, it is unlikely that you will derive any benefits from reducing distractions. So what is a distraction?

A distraction is that which divides your attention or prevents concentration.

When I set out to write my blog posts, my mind wanders and my attention is divided between what I am doing and the many other things I want to do. I constantly have to fight to get back on track and complete the task. This for me is energy draining and a cause of low productivity. So I set out to increase my productivity, get more done and achieve my goals by reducing distractions.

Here are 5 changes I made to my working life that has yielded big results.

  1. Create A Personal Work Space.

Your personal work space includes your desk, your chair, the walls around you, access to day light, room temperature and any other thing you can think of that makes for a pleasant environment. The more comfortable you are in your chair, the less you would fidget and the longer you will stay and complete your work.

Keeping a clutter free work environment will add to your productivity. Look around you. Do you like the look and feel of where you work? If not, come up with three things you can do to make yourself relaxed and comfortable.

  1. Turn Off Emails, Telephone and Text

I am one of those persons who checks his email as soon as it arrives. So I have lights that blink when I get an email, a buzzer that rings when I get a text and a phone that vibrates when on silent.

For years I couldn’t imagine life without a smart phone. However, after overcoming the withdrawal symptoms, I get more done in my day with the phone turned off.

If you have work to do that demands focus and attention, you may want to try having these things turned off.

  1. Take Some Time To Plan Your Day In Advance

If you start your day without a plan, you are more likely to end that day without achieving much. Take some time to plan your day in advance. The previous night is a good time to do this. Set goals and have targets for the day.

A list of what you want to do or achieve is a simple tool that can make you more productive. On completion of a task, you do not have to spend time wondering what to do next. You simply look at your list and tackle the next task.

  1. Use A Timer

When on social media, decide how much time you want to spend and then spend no more that the time you have allocated. A timer is a wonderful device which simply bleeps when your allocated time is up.

When writing, use your timer, when researching online, use a timer and when you go to sleep in the middle of the day, if you have that luxury, use your timer.

  1. Record, Review And Reward

Many years ago when I was struggling with money, I was given a sheet of paper to record and keep track of my spending. The result of that exercise was an eye opener. By tracking my spending I was able to review my actual spend against my planned spend. I had actual numbers that were always different from the plan. I didn’t need much prompting to make spending cuts.

What you track you can change. Keep track of how you spend your time. Record how many minutes in your day you spend doing actual productive work. Record how many minutes you spend watching television. Record how many minutes you spend on the telephone and on social media.

Review what you have recorded. Make necessary adjustments and reward yourself for good behaviour.

Why not add your own productivity tip by leaving a comment below.

Book Review – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R Covey

to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know. ~ Stephen R. Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is recognised as one of the most influential books ever written. This book has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages world wide. It must have more influence on me than I realised because I have a print and an audio copy.

So whats so special about the 7 habits?

Your habits will determine your future

You can live your life by design or default. To design the future you want, you need to be aware of the habits that take you towards and the habits that pull you away from your desired future.

Successful people have successful habits and unsuccessful people don’t ~Jack Canfield

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey starts by introducing the concept of a paradigm. Using the analogy of a map, having a wrong paradigm is like trying to find you way around the city of London with a map of Manchester labelled London. You will experience a great deal of frustration and hardship because you have an incorrectly labelled map. We see things based not on reality but on our own version of reality.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.~ Albert Einstein

Steven Covey proposes a new and deeper level of thinking that will lead to the creation of 7 habits that can and will change your life. My top three are:

  1. Be Proactive – Principle of Personal Vision. – Take responsibility for your future. You have the ability to change many things about your life and future by proactively making newer and better choices that will lead you down your desired path. Proactive people according to Covey have the freedom to choose their response to external stimulus. There are lots of illustrations in the book about how you can take control of your life and influence the outcome.
  1. Synergize – Principle of Creative Cooperation. – Simply put, one plus one is greater than two (1+1>2). Synergy is more than working together. It is thinking TEAM (Together Each Achieves More). When we work together as a team, we must value our differences and combine our strengths to achieve much more than each individual can. This is about collaboration with an abundance mindset.
  1. Sharpen the Saw – Principle of Balanced Self-Renewal. Steven Covey identifies four dimensions of renewal
    • The body needs physical renewal though exercise, healthy eating and stress management
    • The mind needs a mental renewal via reading, writing, visualising and planning
    • The spiritual dimension is renewed by our continuous value clarification and commitment to study and meditation
    • Our relationships will benefit from a social and emotional balance through our own internal security, service to others and empathy.

This book is a classic that is worth reading or re-reading to reinforce your good habit of sharpening the saw and perhaps pick up one or two new habits.

The world we live in today may have changed from the time Covey wrote this book, but the principles contained in the seven habits are timeless in its application and they will certainly change your life if you make them habits.

Why not leave a comment if you have read this book or read the book and then leave a comment.

#3. Leadership 101 Series

#11. Risk

Leadership 101 Series

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins ~ Charles Stanley

Wikipedia describes risk as a potential for loss (due to a desirable or undesirable outcome) resulting from a given action and or inaction.

Everyday cycling on the streets of London carries the risk of being knocked down by a car on the road. Yet thousands of cyclists take to the roads on a daily basis. I couldn’t. Because it carries too much of a risk for me.

Risk therefore is in the eye’s of the beholder. The risk involved in any task is related of the skills, training and experience you have in the given task.

What you considers as safe, such as being in paid employment is probably a risky venture to the business owner.

Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back. Think of all the benefit that would come your way if you succeed, and then take one small step at a time.

#12. Courage

You must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear ~ Martin Luther King Jnr

Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage is you acting in-spite of your fears. Fear is never going to go away so stop trying to get rid of it.

Courage is like muscles that are built up with use. Learn to act even when afraid in little things and when the big one comes, you can draw from your history the courage necessary to see you through your present situation.

Courageous leaders are comfortable with making choices despite limited information, making choices within a limited time and having the grace and humility to admit that they have got it wrong rather than stick to their guns and wreck the ship.

#13. Smart

Smart

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. ~ Bill Gates

Smart is a difficult one to describe. How smart is smart or how dumb is dumb? The world is filled with smart people who have made stupid mistakes and not so smart people who have the wisdom to surround themselves with people smarter than they are. How smart are you?

Do you recognise your weaknesses and ensure that you have people who will complement you on your team? Are you smart enough to listen to them? They can protect you and your business from your blind spots. We all have them so you are no exception.

#14. Relational

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

What would the world be without people? I certainly wouldn’t want to be the only person in a world full of trees. I would rather have human beings with their quirkiness any-day.

The leader who has no follower is obviously going for a walk. You are going to have to spend time building relationships with people, some of whom will be your colleagues, your employees and your customers. And yes they may not respond as you predicted. That’s because they are human beings with a free will which is used without rational at times.

So quite being upset with people. They are not going to be eradicated from the face of the earth.

Love people, learn to understand their needs and then spend your time adding value to their lives and filling your identified needs. They will reward you with their follower-ship, loyalty and sometimes money.

#15. Communicator

First, you must realise and accept that clear communication is a two way process. It’s not enough to speak clearly. You have to make sure you are heard and understood. ~ Lee Froschhelser

There’s no doubt in my mind that communication is one of the essential skills a leader must have. Here are a few things that can help your communication

1. Have great clarity as to what you want to say and why you want to say it.

2. Keep it simple. Avoid jargon and use everyday words. No one will be impressed with your big words if they don’t know what it means. And don’t kid yourself. They will not bother to look it up in the dictionary.

3. Say what you have to say and then listen for feed back that will give you clues as to whether you have been understood or not.

4. Remember to keep the body language in line with the message.

Do you recognise any of this qualities?

5 Reasons to Choose Diligence

Diligence, is the constant and earnest effort to accomplish whatever is undertaken (Dictionary.com). Diligence is also the steady application of effort to accomplish a task. 

5 Reasons to Choose Diligence

 

At the heart of success in many endeavours is diligence. This is described by Atul Gawande in his book “Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance” as the necessity of giving sufficient attention to detail to avoid error or prevail against obstacles.

 

Publishing new blog posts at Leading like a Champion requires diligence on my part and while it has not been an easy task to achieve, it is very rewarding. So what does diligence mean in practice?

 

Diligence in Practice

  • Diligence presupposes that you have a goal or task you are working towards. Since you do not have the energy to be diligent at everything, it makes sense to carefully choose your goals and tasks so that you can apply your limited time and effort towards its achievement.
  • Diligence requires time and effort to yield results. Having decided on your goal, you must understand that it’s achievement will require effort also known as hard work. This reminds me of a phrase – ‘No bees, no honey. No work no money”
  • Diligence rewards attention to detail, careful completion of repetitive and sometimes boring task and a determined commitment to finish what you have began.

 Do not spend your days gathering flowers by the wayside, lest night come upon you before you arrive at your journeys end, and then you will not reach it. ~ Isaac Watts. 

5 Reasons to Choose Diligence

  1. A commitment to diligence will help you achieve great things in life. Do you have big dreams? Are you ambitious enough to want to make a difference in the world you live in? From history, we know that it was the commitment to diligence that helped Thomas Edison discover the light bulb after over two thousand unsuccessful experiments.
  1. A commitment to diligence will reward you with expertise and authority. You will have had of the 10,000 hour rule made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. Only the diligent can put in this required number of hours of purposeful practice to become an expert or authority in their field or profession. Only the diligent athlete can compete in the Olympic finals.
  1. A commitment to diligence will help you creates success habits. There are no short cuts to success. You will benefit from a steady progress towards your goal as Muscles develop from a diligent application of weights. You grow to become a bigger and better person by the diligent effort you apply to your work and business.
  1. A commitment to diligence will help you stay on track with your goals. Breaking down your larger goals into smaller specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound goals (SMART) increases the chances of your success.
  1. A commitment to diligence keeps you clear of slothfulness, indifference and laziness. These three words will significantly affect your growth and development as a leader, an entrepreneur and valuable contributor at work.

So you have a goal that is worth your putting your limited resources to. Reap the rewards of diligence. Break down your goal or task into several smaller goals or subtask. Your subtasks need to be meaningful and the accomplishment of each step must bring you closer to the achievement of your overall goal. Start today on the first step and stick to the task until the task sticks to you.

Winning is by choice and not by chance, so never, never, never give up ~ Winston Churchill

How committed are you to achieving your goals?

Without a Follower there is no Leader

I sat down with some friends over coffee and the discussion quickly moved on to the topic of leadership, and someone defined leadership as taking the lead and having people follow you. This got me thinking, not about the leader but the follower who has put his or her trust in the leader in the hope of getting to a particular destination.

Leaders and Followers

Without a follower, there is no Leader.

Without followers, there can be no leaders. The leader is the person in the group who has decided on the direction and destination and has inspired, convinced and motivated the others to follow. Followers agree to be led and thus give credibility to leadership.

“Followership, like leadership, is a role and not a destination.” – Michael McKinney

More than at any time in the past, the world needs leaders. We need good, strong and visionary leaders.

However, most of us are followers. In fact all of us whether we consider ourselves leaders or not will at some time play the role of follower. There will be times where in one setting such as your department or team, you are the numero uno.  In another setting for example at corporate level you have to diligently follow another.

You are your number one follower.

To lead others, you must be the leading influence in your life. You need to have direction, goals or objectives you want to accomplish. Your success in achieving your goals will depend on your ability, discipline and commitment to follow through on your decisions.

You the leader are thus your number one follower. You set examples for others to follow, you show by your disciplined action what it means to be committed to a vision and you model the change that you want to see in others. To be a good leader you must know how to follow.

3 things to make you a good follower.

1. Get the job done. To lead and follow effectively, you need to get the job done. It is your responsibility to get the job done. Don’t hang around waiting for instructions. You may be the boss in your other role but here you are required to follow.

2. Grow yourself as a person. To be continually effective as a follower, you must grow and up skill yourself. As your organization grows from five to five thousand employees, you as a follower will need to have grown into a person capable of leading ten, hundred and eventually a thousand.

3. Serve your leader. This is not a very popular word. As a follower, it is important that you take the weight off your leader. Make his or her job easier by not being a clog in the wheel. Put in your best effort at accomplishing vision.

Serve with Diligence

The challenge for you as you progress on your leadership journey is to commit your time energy and other resources to serve diligently wherever you find yourself in the role of a follower. In so doing, you will make your own leadership much more effective and enjoyable for yourself and for your followers.

Question: What makes it difficult to serve?