Tag Archive - colleagues

Trust Your Team

July 13, 2010 in Business, Leadership, Quotes with 24 Comments

trust your team 215x300 Trust Your TeamAlthough motivational words never hurt, sometimes you just have to step back and realize that it’s not just you who needs care and feeding in your daily work life. It might be time to start thinking about those you work with…your teammates, your staff, and your colleagues. You want to get the most you can from these people, because all of you want to deliver the best work possible.

Stay engaged with your team and it’s leaders. The big picture and strategy is the common objective.

I think when Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great” he was expressing his belief that establishing trust in any relationship is the place to start. Getting others to trust you stems from your trust in them. This is a foundation of a good team. You can build on loyalty and trust and get spectacular dividends. Treat your colleagues to reflect your belief in them and their talents. Never miss an opportunity to tell them how great they are, and after a while, they’ll not only beleive it (becasue they are great), they’ll prove themselves great.

Pay close attention to your actions. Attitude reflects leadership.

Keep the team spirit high. You’re the catalyst in this equation. It is your task to bring out the greatness in others by treating them as valued players in your mission. Inspire them by your example, and they will in turn inspire others. It’s a winning formula.

How are you maintaining trust within your team?

Destroy Bureaucracy!

February 11, 2010 in Leadership with 23 Comments

destroy bureaucracy 300x202 Destroy Bureaucracy!I’ve always hated bureaucracy.  To me, bureaucracy is the enemy. Bureaucracy means waste, slow decision making, unnecessary approvals, and all the other things that kill an organization’s competitive spirit.  I’ve spent many years battling bureaucracy, trying to rid any company I’ve worked with of anything that would make it less competitive.

I feel that ridding any company of bureaucracy is everybody’s job. Over the years, I’ve urged all of my co-workers and employees to “fight it, kick it.”  That’s why “disdaining bureaucracy” became such an important part of my first organization’s shared values (the list of behaviors that were expected of all SFS /Alloy Software employees).

When a young intern asked me what he should do when he encounters bureaucracy in a large corporation, with a smile, I advised him to “get a hand grenade…and blow it up” (figuratively, of course).  Again, I feel that it is everyone’s job to at least try to rid any organization of wasteful bureaucracy.

But isn’t that easier said than done?  Yes, even organizations that do a good job of eliminating this cancerous element can’t kill it permanently.  That’s why I’ve referred to bureaucracy as “the Dracula of institutional behavior,” because it had a way of rising from the dead every few years and sucking the life out of what ever is left.

Anything that you can do to simplify, remove complexity and formality, and make the organization more responsive and agile, will reduce bureaucracy:

Drop unnecessary work: Most organizations have far too manyrules, approvals, and forms. Work with colleagues to figure out whichof these old ways of doing things can be either eliminated orimproved.

Work with colleagues to streamline decision making: If it takes an organization a week to make a decision, the process needs to be simplified. If no one can remember why your organization does something a certain way, chances are that it is more complicated than it needs to be.

Make your workplace more informal: Send handwritten notes instead of memos (I love handwritten notes, and it is “Geoff,” not“Mr. Snyder”), keep meetings conversational (rather than formal and rigid), and encourage dialogue up and down and the entire organization.