Tag Archive - team members

Credit Given When Credit is Due

July 13, 2010 in Business, Featured, Leadership with 9 Comments

Give Credit To Your Team2 274x300 Credit Given When Credit is DueA real time player is not concerned about individual credit. Like a true leader, he or she knows that they would not have deserved the credit without the other team members input. And a true leader knows that the credit will come in the long run… that having been part of a successful team will put him in line to be on other successful teams, or earn a promotion, or simply make him or her more valuable when it comes to looking for new objectives.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. – Harry Truman

It’s hard not to care who gets the credit. And even though it takes everyone’s concentrated efforts to get the job done, you need to feel positive about your work even on those occasions when just a few get the credit that perhaps the whole team deserved.

Together Everybody Achieves More

A good team leader will make sure to credit the whole team. When announcing results of a team’s efforts, the leader will emphasize how hard the team worked together, and what each employee contributed to the bigger effort. Don’t worry about team members who didn’t work as hard as they might have or that others might have wanted them to–they will be penalized when they are not picked for a new team. It doesn’t matter once the team’s work is done; it matters for the next time around.

How do you make it known who gets credit when credit is due?

Managing By Walking Around

June 22, 2010 in Business, History, Leadership with 10 Comments

George Patton 247x300 Managing By Walking AroundAs commander of the Third Army, General George S. Patton was known for getting the job done. General Patton succeeded because he was a realist who understood what was going on in the trenches. He always took into consideration the big picture and assessed what needed to get done…and then did it without any delay or excuses. More than anything, he hated orders that didn’t make sense or put his men in harm’s way. If the orders were outrageous, he would tweak them just enough so that the troops could still achieve success.

General Patton wanted no part of bad strategy. When he was told to stand by and not advance, he sharpen and polish his troops by sending out small battle groups to keep the enemy guessing and on their toes.

When it comes down to being successful in business, a leader should make sure his or her “troops” have what they need to execute the grand plan, or that plan can quickly become a disaster. Whether you are selling automobiles to customers in a retail setting or delivering parts to an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, how well you perform the task will indicate your level of success. On the flip side, great plans are ruined when the execution suffers. Bottom line…grandiose strategy plans won’t sell more cars, but solid customer service will. Listen to your customers, as for they are always telling you a story on how to keep them satisfied.

With that said, all of this reminds me of something Tom Peters wrote in A Passion for Excellence. In this book, he states that “Customers love being appreciated and hate supervisors who pull the disappearing act.” Heck, who doesn’t for that matter? Peters also stated, “Bad leaders are invisible, while good leaders demonstrate MBWA,” an acronym that he coined which means: “Managing By Walking Around.”

If you want to be informed about your company and provide useful direction to employees and managers, you need to get out of your office and change your focus from analyzing yesterday’s trends to witnessing the daily operation of your organization. By asking questions in the face of the day-to-day operations, you will get answers to problems you didn’t even know existed. By listening to other people within your team, you can give real input into the processes of your organization. By talking to customers, you’ll know if the business is hitting its target or just missing. Talking to a customer is much more valuable than looking at the results or marketing surveys.

So, the next time you want information…take a walk. Good things are sure to happen!

Merging Talents One Piece at a Time

June 15, 2010 in Business, Leadership with 11 Comments

Merging Talents sm Merging Talents One Piece at a TimeBritish Admiral Sir Sydney Smith believed that talent should be nurtured. Our culture widely admires artistic, musical, and creative talents. But talent is a wide-ranging concept. Business talents can include being good with people, being good with numbers, or being good at thinking innovatively.

As a team leader, choose members with diverse talents. Don’t stick with the obvious…there are many talents that aren’t good fits on a project but that end up becoming useful. For example, musical talent may not seem like something handy on a business team. But a classical musician’s (or rock musician’s) disciplined focus, or ability to recognize complex and harmonious patterns, might have a calming influence on others when the team begins to spin out of controls. Or, a rock musician might just be what you need to fire up the team when morale seems at a low. And any musician who plays in a group will help a team be successful because of their ability to work cooperatively for a common goal without hogging the spotlight.

Find out what talents your team members are proud of outside of the office, and use their seemingly nonrelated strengths to support the entire organization. It will help your team succeed.

How are you currently seeking out your team’s talents?

Nobody’s Perfect

June 3, 2010 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments

nobody is perfect 300x300 Nobodys PerfectNobody is perfect. Every person whether they are a manger or leader puts a foot in his mouth once in a while. When it happens more than once, at least once in the memory of the team, respect is quickly lost, and the leader begins paving his own road to ruin.

I’ve found this to be able to happen quickly when a manager gets to comfortable. maybe you want to talk about a movie you just saw or regale a colleague with a funny vacation story–everyday conversation shows your human side. That’s all well and good, until you slip inti discussing a risky topic like the attractiveness of a particular celebrity or his/her shenanigans at the city’s latest hot spot. Now the conversation includes potentially offensive material, the kind sure to be repeated by those listening or others within earshot. Soon you develop a reputation you don’t want.

Don’t use tact solely when you deal with people directly affiliated with your business. Show discretion during all professional conversations. Give the choice to berate an employee for a big mistake or build him back up now that the mistake is old news, you may well feel it’s within his job description to punish as a means toward correction. By taking frustrations out on team members you will undoubtedly reduce or eliminate any confidence that you’ve already worked hard at establishing.

Four Basic Skills of Leadership

March 3, 2010 in Leadership with 38 Comments

leadership basics 300x169 Four Basic Skills of LeadershipThe skills of leadership need to address each of the key elements which make up the ‘problem space’ of leadership: (a) oneself, (b) one’s relationship with one’s collaborators, (c) the system in which one is acting and (d) the goals to be achieved by oneself and one’s collaborators in that system. This entry will cover a numerous skills addressing these various elements of leadership: self skills, relational skills, strategic thinking skills, and systemic thinking skills.

Self skills are how the leader handles himself or herself in a particular situation. Self skills allow the leader to choose the most appropriate attitude, state-of-mind, focus, etc., with which to enter a situation. In a way, self skills are the steps by which the leader leads himself or herself.

Relational skills have to do with the ability to recognize, encourage, and communicate with other people. They result in the ability to enter another person’s model of the perceived world or perceptual space, establish rapport and guide that person to recognize problems and objectives. Since leaders must reach their dreams and accomplish their goals through their influence upon others, relational skills are one of the most important aspects of leadership.

Strategic thinking skills are necessary in order to define and achieve specific goals and objectives. Strategic thinking involves the ability to identify a relevant desired state, assess the starting state, and then establish and navigate the appropriate path of transition states required to reach the desired state. A key element of effective strategic thinking is determining which team members and tasks will most efficiently and effectively influence and move the present state in the direction of the desired state.

Systemic thinking skills are used by the leader to identify and understand the problem space in which the leader, his or her collaborators and the organization is operating. Systemic thinking is at the root of effective “solution creation” and the ability to create functional teams. The ability to think systemically in a practical and firm way is probably the most definitive sign of maturity in a leader.

Do you apply any of the four leadership skills in your life? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

Group vs. Team

March 3, 2010 in Leadership with 13 Comments

group vs. team Group vs. TeamGroups of people have been around since as long as I’ve been around… and then some; human nature draws people to one another. Group behavior ranges from encouraging to chaotic, from adversity to success. Many managers are fine with group performance. For me, though, it is increasingly obvious that groups that experience the highest output are those that have bonded into a team.

I believe that the main determining factor between a group and a team is their point of reference to one another. A group is two or more people working in proximity, each doing his or her own thing to accomplish a goal.

A team shares the same goal. Its work is dependent upon each team member for the final results. Take for example some of the curriculum at the International Leadership Conference. While it’s a group of people with different accountabilities… one laying out materials, one proofing, another editing, another administering tasks… none is successful without the other. The final product, whether it’s a book, a CD or a slide presentation, cannot be completed without the team’s integration of talent.

A leader’s job is all about getting results. You do that by building your team, individual talent upon individual talent. You balance the multiple needs, recognizing one and minimizing another to incorporate them into a unit. Taking care of your associates with an organic focus is what makes the team strong.

Developing individual team members so they compensate for and support one another makes them a team. As individuals improve, the team improves. The result of moving among your roles of coaching, mentoring and counseling is what your team produces… productivity and job satisfaction.

Ask people today what motivates them to join one organization over another and a top response is to be able to work with the team. Integrating your individual associates into the team requires the same skilled approaches for me. Shared values, common goals, constant rewards and satisfaction take a group and shape it into a top-performing team.

Make your team world class!