GOAL

Oct

2022

Roadblocks to Momentum Part IV

I was sixteen years old in a Honda Accord. We stopped on a hill. This is typically no big deal, but right now it was.

I was driving a manual (stick shift) car. This was my mentor’s car and he explained to me how I needed to slowly let off the clutch while gently pressing on the gas at the same time. I start the process, then it happened.

The car started violently shaking back and forth like it was having a seizure. Internally I was thinking the car was going to blow up! My mentor remained calm, told me to push the clutch back in and push down on the gas. With a jerk, shimmy, and big lurch I then moved forward.

I don’t know if you have ever had that specific experience, but it reminds me of leading ourselves. The car was either going to go forward or backward even if it stalled. If I put the brake on, then I would be stuck going nowhere.

Leading ourselves can feel like driving a stick shift that has a clutch that is slipping. We don’t know what to do and get stuck out of ignorance or fear. What can we do when we sense this temptation to be complacent?

Set a Goal

I had this statement from my older brother going around in my head saying I wasn’t coordinated enough to drive a stick so I had a goal to prove I could accomplish this. Maybe you are stuck and feeling paralyzed on what to do because of a lack of vision. Take time to ask yourself these three questions:

What makes me excited?
What moves me to tears?
What brings me great joy?

These questions help you identify your passion. Once you have clarity on your passion ask what is one step that can move me in that direction? This will reveal your first goal. Continue asking this to determine the following goals.

Get in Motion

A goal is like revving the engine. Next you must put the car in gear. At this point you know your goal and need to move. Is there someone you need to talk to? Maybe you need to develop a new habit that will get you moving in the direction of your goal.

Take time to determine the first step and then do it immediately! As you move discover the next step and take it. Continue asking yourself what is the next best step to help me get to my goal? This is like putting the car in first, but if we stay there too long we overheat so we shift into second and continue climbing the hill.

Find Accountability

As I was learning to drive this stick shift, I had a person beside me who could teach me and correct me if I was heading in a destructive direction. To avoid the complacency trap, find someone or a group of people who know your goals and will challenge you when you are not moving toward them.

Each Friday I have a business accountability partner call with a friend. A consistent question for us on the call is what did you do this week and what are you doing next week? This forces me to think into how I’m moving the business forward on a weekly basis. When I’m stuck he encourages me and when I’m lazy he is honest with me. A little tough love helps us all move from complacency to consistent action.

Which of these three steps do you need to take? Are you stuck in any of these areas and need someone to come alongside you to help you get unstuck and regain clarity on where you are headed or where you are leading your team? Contact me for a powerful thinking partner session to help you think into your business and go from stuck to soaring. Lead Well.

Feb

2022

Building Championship Teams

When I was in the sports performance industry, I came across an author who has great experience developing teams. In his book Championship Team Building performance coach and author Jeff Janssen describes seven characteristics of championship teams. He has helped build them in multiple NCAA sports.

I’m not going to highlight all of them as you can invest in his book yourself, but I will highlight a few that are common to all teams whether in sports or elsewhere.

Common Goal

As the leader you can have a vision or large team goal. Until that vision becomes something shared and committed to by everyone results will be limited. The first leadership challenge is they have the goal in mind, but the team may be slow to buy in. Let me suggest a way to improve buy in.

Take time to meet with your team and get feedback on what is important to them. Have them provide input as to what success looks like beyond just improving the bottom line. Bring together key influencers (who may not be in positions of leadership) to determine the steps to achieve the common goal. The more influencers involved in the process, the greater the buy in. Regardless of his personal challenges this thought by Rick Pitino is a great summary to this idea:

“Create significance for the group, whether it is an organization, a team, or a company . . . Each member must feel he or she is part of something important, and not just putting in time.”

Having team members actively contributing to the goal setting conversation will increase the sense of being a part of something important.

Clear Communication

“You can only succeed when people are communicating, not just from the top down but in complete interchange.”

Bill Walsh

I don’t have the time to go into all the depths of communication. I provide workshops on various elements of how to communicate and connect better. The key with this principle for teams is to communicate. I would take this a step further to suggest we OVERCOMMUNICATE. Within any organization communication and productivity correlate. If we communicate more than expected we will keep the vision and goals top of mind and keep everyone moving forward. Three of the ten tips Janssen gives on sending messages are:

Be consistent – a leader’s message may be stated different ways, but the expectations and goals behind them are consistent.
Be focused – stick to one message to prevent confusion
Be redundant – vision leaks so say it multiple times in multiple ways

Constructive Conflict

“Happiness is not the absence of conflict but the ability to deal with it effectively.”

Anonymous

Entire books have been written on this topic so we will only scratch the surface here. Healthy teams have conflict. Alan Mullaly former CEO of Ford during the 2008 economic crises created a system for conflict where everyone was expected to grade their department. If everyone was giving their area green (for all good) he knew they were not being honest. Without conflict we cannot address problems. Janssen provides some excellent tips on our attitude when handling conflict. Here are a few I will highlight:

Confront in a spirit of helping – create an environment where everyone is learning
Attack the problem, not the person – pause to be sure you have the real issue and are not making the individual feel they are the problem
Keep control of your emotions – this may be the most challenging one, especially when the issue is important, but maintain objectivity so you can find the best solution for everyone

These were just a few of his tips on building championship teams. Which one of these areas do you need to develop? Take a minute and write down one action step you will take so you can develop a healthier and more productive team. Need help thinking into this? Contact me for a no cost thinking partner session. Lead Well.