TEAMS

Mar

2024

Three Ways to Create an Inspiring Environment

Many years ago I was visiting with the strength and conditioning coaches of a very successful professional football team. I had one goal in mind: to understand how they motivate their athletes.

I was talking with the head strength coach ready for some wisdom on how they motivate their athletes. Guess what he said.

“We don’t.”

Needless to say, I was a little deflated at that point and also curious why. Many years later I have heard other leaders in the business world say similar things. So, what does a leader do if we don’t motivate our team members?

I am going to suggest we create an environment that inspires them. We may not be motivating them because we hired them to do a job and don’t feel we should have to. Could it be we have a responsibility to create an inspiring environment? Allow me to provide three ideas on creating that environment for your team.

Understand Their Style

Every one of us is different. We are predictably different though. I have a file on my desk with the results of multiple assessments I have taken to understand myself. One of my favorite, which I use in trainings with organizations, is the DISC assessment.

This tool helps you understand an individual’s personal behavior style. How does this help you create an inspiring culture? Each person is inspired a little differently. Some are inspired by a goal and challenge, some by relationships, some by being a part of a team, and some by precision. When we understand the individual and collective style of our team, we can then create an environment that brings out the best in the team and each individual.

As we speak their style, we connect more effectively and inspire more powerfully.

Sort Out Their Strengths

The human experience can cause us to focus on our weak areas and how to improve them. What if we flip this, focus on our strengths, and use them more frequently? When we position people on our team so that they are working in their areas of strength, we get improved results.

People who work in their strengths will be in flow, enjoy their work, and perform at a higher level. The Maxwell DISC Personality Indicator has helped me understand individual leadership strengths, but I have also used another tool. The Working Genius helps individuals see their work performance preferences and what gives them the most fulfillment.

As a leader who understands these two areas, you will begin to be equipped to create a more inspiring environment.

What is Their Why?

Of the three, this is the most important. When facilitating an ongoing leadership academy I continually remind the leaders in the room to “align the whys.” The team you lead has a purpose, why it exists. Each individual also has a purpose, why they are on your team.

As the leader your job is to understand each individual’s “why” and align it with the teams. For example, if they work to provide for their family and the organization offers more money with increased results then you can remind that individual how their performance helps both the organization and them accomplish their purpose.

As you look at these three areas, which do you need to work on with your team? Need help understanding your team member’s style and strengths? Contact me to discuss how I may serve your team and help you strengthen them and partner with you in building an inspiring culture. Lead Well!

Mar

2022

Three Secrets of Successful Coaches

It is that time of year where college basketball suddenly comes to the front of many lives. Work productivity seems to drop a bit on the Thursday and Friday the tournament begins. People like myself who don’t pay attention all year to college basketball become more in tune.

The games are exciting to watch especially when David topples Goliath (i.e. Kentucky being beat early this year), but there is an element we rarely notice. The coaches. We notice the crazy coaches that get media attention, but I am going to suggest that none of these teams get to the tournament without great leader-coaches.

Sports psychologist Jeff Janssen and Greg Dale years ago described the secrets of successful coaches in their book The Seven Secrets of Successful Coaches. I will not go into all the seven secrets here, but if you are interested I do recommend this book as a great resource for any leader. Allow me to dive into a few of the principles and challenge us to evaluate how we are doing on these areas.

Caring

“I know if somebody really cares about me and is really fighting for me, I’ll go through a wall for them.”

Mike Shanahan

I realize this one may seem like a no-brainer. Of course we care about our people. Just like some of us men may think “of course I love my spouse” but we fail to tell or show our spouse that we love her. What does this look like for us as leaders?

One example Janssen shares is of Coach K of Duke. He would make it a practice to have each of his players over for dinner to get to know them and connect. I realize as leaders we can’t always nor may want to do something like that, but maybe we take someone out for lunch or stop by their office with no agenda but to check in on how they are doing. If they had something significant happen in their personal lives did we celebrate with them?

When a team member is struggling personally reach out and listen. Maybe they need their workload lightened for a period. If you see more in them than they see in themselves, call it out. Caring can be demonstrated in multiple ways, think of one way you can demonstrate caring to your team members.

Confidence Builder

“You have to create an environment where everybody feels good about themselves and what they can do.”

Marty Schottenheimer

Our words and actions can build others up or tear them down. This is always true, but when we have a position of authority over others our words can have even more impact. Let’s be honest, we all can have fragile egos, even the most confident of us battles. Janssen provides seven steps to building confidence that he covers in depth but I will share a modified version of them here so you can think into which of these seven you need to focus on with some of your team members:

Focus on Potential
Plant Seeds of Success
Sell Team Members on Themselves
Show Them a Simple, Specific Plan
Inspire Them
Set Them Up for Quick Wins
Accentuate the Positive

Be a Communicator

“Confusion leads to misunderstanding, and misunderstanding leads to conflict.”

Joe Torre

Whether with teams I lead or am a part of or with organizations I serve, communication is one of the top challenges. I provide entire workshops on this and there is so much that can be said, but Janssen immediately suggests the foundation of effective communication is being open and direct.

For some of us this idea creates anxiety because of a desire to keep people happy and avoid confrontation. When we are caring, open, and direct we eliminate confusion. If we are frustrated we need to discover why and then appropriately share the reason. Balance candor and care in these conversations to maintain connection with those we lead.

Leader, when you see a problem, deal with it. Even better, create space to anticipate problems so you can proactively deal with them and communicate. Be proactive, candid, and continue to care.

Which of these do you need to focus on in the next 24 hours? Need help seeing any blind spots? Contact me or go here to invest in a Maxwell DISC Personality Indicator with a personalized debrief to understand not only your communication style, but your leadership strengths so you can leverage them to demonstrate care and instill confidence in those you lead. Lead Well.

Jan

2022

Training Lions or Feeding Goldfish

I was reading something recently that looked at how Jesus selected his inner circle. Now I am a person of faith and that may not be your thing, but stick with me because I think we can agree that Jesus was a great leader.

This was tied to a story where Jesus was walking along and asked one of the most hated types of people to be part of his inner circle: a tax collector. As I read the note with additional application thoughts the author suggested good teams are built with lions and not goldfish. What does that look like?

We have a few fish who swim all day and eat a little. When we feed them they swim up to get the food, eat a little and return to swimming. Not very exciting. That would be like watching people dig dirt all day. They do the work well, but it is not very exciting. As a leader if you have followers they do their job well, but may be more like goldfish. Lions, on the other hand, are very different.

Different Personalities

A healthy team consists of people with who think differently. Multiple factors contribute to our unique perspectives, but one of the most impactful can be individual personalities. Some people are aggressive while others are more reserved. Some are task oriented while others are more people focused. This natural hardwiring will influence the perspective people bring to the team.

Leader, may I encourage you to learn how to embrace the differences. I know it feels a lot easier to surround ourselves with people who see the world as we do and think as we do and just “get us,” but in the long run we hurt our team. Examine the personalities on your team. Is there an analyzer, a driver, a peacekeeper, and an extremely relational person? If you have each of these then you have a greater chance of a healthy team . . . as long as everyone is headed the same direction.

Different Strengths

Throughout our lives we develop different strengths. Some strengths we identify early on while others may have developed through experience. Maybe taking the lead comes natural to you and you have been that way since you were young. Maybe you have always asked lots of questions. Other strengths you may have developed through your professional experience. If someone on yo

ur team was previously an engineer they may have a strength in seeing the details and solving complex problems.

As a leader evaluate your team and find their strengths both professionally and personally. Take time to determine with your teammates where you can leverage their strengths. When this occurs the individual and team both thrive.

Willing to Initiate

We can’t see either the personality or the strengths of fish when we feed them. When training lions I have a feeling each one has unique personalities and strengths. One clear difference between a fish and a lion can be seen in their approach to being fed.

A goldfish will wait until its owner drops in the food and then go get it. A lion is a hunter! A lion will prowl around looking for its food. A lion will wait for the perfect opportunity and attack its prey chasing it down until it catches it and has it’s meal. A lion has an agenda while a goldfish waits on its owner.

A team of lions will not be easy to control, but an effective leader does not control his or her team but influences them. As a leader of lions take time to understand the individuals on your team and when they initiate in ways you may not have preferred create time to communicate openly to assure you are both going the best direction for the team and maximizing the individual’s strengths.

Want to understand your team members personalities so you can lead them more effectively? Contact me to discover how I can help your team or go here to invest in a Maxwell DISC Personality Indicator to understand your style. Lead Well.

Apr

2018

Four Qualities of Championship Team Builders

Have you wondered how a sport coach becomes an effective leader and builds unified championship caliber teams? I have been around coaches for many years and involved in the sports world on some level. I have seen coaches who demonstrate this ability with great ease and are consistently successful. I have also seen coaches who struggle with this.

I have seen talented teams do poorly and average to above average teams succeed beyond what anyone would have imagined. Without a doubt in order to have success there has to be a certain level of talent or skill which applies in all areas of life. You won’t have a high performing salesperson if they are not good at working with people or get many customers for a service oriented business like plumbing if your plumbers are not knowledgeable.

How do these successful leaders build unified teams? I have been reading a book that answers that question through looking at the lives of nine high level sport coaches. In his book Getting to Us Seth Davis shares the stories of the lives of coaches such as Coach K, Coach Urban Meyer, Coach Izzo from Michigan State and others. Each of these coaches demonstrate what he calls a PEAK profile to develop unified teams.

Persistence – in the classic book Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill spends an entire chapter discussing the importance of persistence in success in any area of life. When an individual has persistence combined with a burning desire to accomplish their dream they can attain great accomplishments.

Empathy – one individual who brought this concept to the front of our minds was Daniel Goleman in his books on Emotional Intelligence. This is the ability for us to not only understand our own feelings, but also the feelings of the person we are relating to. Davis states it as “feeling whatever that person is feeling.”¹

Authenticity – the ability to be appropriately genuine and honest with those we lead helps increase trust and therefore builds greater cohesion among the team. The individual leader’s style may vary because some are intense while others are more relaxed in their style. No matter the leader’s style, if they are consistent, honest, and transparent in the right ways this will demonstrate authenticity.

Knowledge – no one follows a leader who does not know what they are doing . . . at least not for long. Davis reminds us that even if the doctor is really empathetic, persistent, and authentic if they do not know what they are doing there is no way we will let them operate on us. Without an appropriate level of knowledge leaders will not be able to maintain the credibility that will keep the team unified.

When you look at the four principles in Davis’ PEAK profile where do you need to grow? Do you easily give up as the climb gets challenging? Do you take time to understand and feel what those you lead feel? That may seem unproductive in the short term, but I wonder if the return is exponential in the long term. Are you authentic with your team members and continually growing in your expertise of the industry you are in whether through formal or informal education? At times I have found people need a coach to help them think into this process so they can see what they may not have seen on their own similar to what these sport coaches do for their athletes. Whatever you need to grow in, take the first step so you can become a better leader both at work and home.

Davis, Seth. Getting to Us. New York: Penguin House, 2018 p.3.

Feb

2018

Three Keys To Leading a Team

I am writing this on the day of arguably one of the greatest sports spectacles known . . . Super Bowl Sunday. This is a day where the top two teams in the NFL compete to be world champions. This is a day where leaders get to prove themselves. Leaders on the field who make great comebacks and plays. Leaders on the sidelines who coach their teams to victory and challenge them through the struggle of this final battle. Even leaders behind the scenes who support and assemble the teams.

Since I knew this day was coming I gathered some information for today’s post. I have the privilege of being in contact with many individuals who have coached teams for years. Specifically sports teams. Since this is Super Bowl time I asked these coaches one question: What are three keys to leading a team?

The coaches graciously replied with a wide array of responses. Some of the responses were: being flexible and adaptable, creative, willing to learn and grow, passion for what you do, serving, dedication, attitude and more. Out of these responses and more, I want to highlight the three responses many of these coaches agreed were key elements to leading a team.

Clear Vision. One coach put it this way: “starts with a vision for what he wants for himself, those around him, and his team to become.” Whether the team you lead is a small youth sports team or a multi-million dollar organization, you must have a clear vision. Notice this coach said the vision is not just for the team, but for where he wants to be as well as those directly supporting him as the coach. As is evident with any championship caliber team nothing happens without a clear picture of where they are going and high quality co-leaders and team members to make it become a reality.
Lead by Example. Multiple coaches stated this as critical and one even put that as his three keys “example, example, example.” I recently had a situation where this principle clearly applied. I was leading a meeting and the goal was to provide feedback for some content we were creating. One individual had put together the first draft and I requested participants to provide feedback on how we could improve the content. I am comfortable with silence, but the silence I felt in those moments after was the silence of people thinking “I don’t want to be the first person to be critical” so I stated the first observation to get us rolling. You see I was the one in charge and I had to be the example. If a leader expects their team to do something, they better be willing to do it themselves and if they are leading others will follow that example.
Relationships. Although I have put this last, this response more than doubled the other two answers. Why is this? Leadership is about people and helping them along the path to get to the goal. Management is dealing with systems and processes which people follow. Leadership is influence. How do we have influence? We must develop relationships. Two words that came up often were: love and know. In order for the team to follow the leader they must believe they are loved and known more than just as a number. This takes time and intentionality in the fast paced world we live in. Find out about your team beyond their performance, do you know when their birthday is or what their favorite activity to do in their down time is? Do you know what gets them really excited? Take time as leadership expert John Maxwell states “walk slowly through the crowd.”

These three principles are easy to understand, but not always easy to implement. What do you need to do to grow in these areas? Do you need to think into what exactly your vision is for yourself and your team? Do you need to adjust your life so you are demonstrating what you expect of your team? How can you be more intentional about developing relationships with those you lead? Write your thoughts below and in the meantime continue to lead well at work and home.