My contribution affects everyone on the team and without constant communication, we cannot move together. This becomes especially important when working against a deadline. My work is like a domino that must fall before another teammate can contribute. No news is never good news because it leads to surprise. That kind of surprise is never good when
I empower my teammates when I commit to clear and constant communication. My teammates are my teammates because they rely on me and I rely on them. When I choose to operate in a silo, I exclude the rest of the team.
I empower my teammates when… 1) I commit to constant and clear communication. 2) I maintain a high level of flexibility and an open mind. 3) I commit to forward thinking and never defend the status quo for the sake of comfort. 4) I commit to being considerate of the impact my action or inaction has on
A great teammate always acts for the mutual benefit of the rest of the team. A great teammate never worries about being empowered but realizes that personal empowerment comes when I empower others. I do not have to be a team leader to empower others. I simply have to let go of my personal rights for the
Teamwork is the ultimate definition of empowerment. When all teammates work together for a common purpose, they empower each other to accomplish more than they could as an individual. Empowerment is a great buzzword that requires specific meaning for a team. What does it look like?
How a team responds to success will determine its future success. If a team feels as though they have “arrived”, they will cease to innovate and it’s likely they will continue to use the same methods and practices they were using when they became successful. They may even be generous enough to pass on to others those
Every team today must recognize that past success was dependent on past sacrifice that led to past flexibility which resulted in past innovation and ultimately today’s success. Today’s success will be yesterday’s success soon. In fact, that transition happens while we go to sleep tonight. It’s not the method born out of past innovation that caused the
A great team leader spends more time looking for the right solutions than defending the solutions he already possesses. Being right and pursuing right are two entirely different endeavors. The pursuit of the right direction is constant and moves a team on a journey to the best paths. Being right is stagnant and limits a team to
Sports teams seem to cause as much adversity for their opponents as possible. So do nations at war. At every level, the team is in place for the purpose of dealing with adversity. To perceive it as anything but our job is simply to complain about the very thing that caused the team to exist. If, however,
My assistant coined the term “perceived misfortune” when she was nicely describing people who were complaining. Teams tend to complain when they perceive their circumstance as misfortune. Adversity is an opportunity to learn. A life without adversity would be a life without learning and self-awareness. A team is in place to deal with daily adversity.