What is the experience of a new team member? Is there training on vision? Tasks? Values? Boundaries? Most teams don’t train well on any or all of these important topics. Most people fail to develop replacements before they are needed and therefore, the need creates an urgency to start that prevents proper training from taking the prioity
Even leaders are teammates. More could be written about how leaders can be better teammates from a teammate perspective. Leadership doesn’t have to be lonely. I think that happens because leaders too often buy into the fact that they are somehow separate from the team. This cannot be the case if the team has any hope to
What happens when things get uncomfortable? Most people spend a lot of their energy avoiding discomfort. That makes it a high priority. When comfort is a high priority it will compete with all the other priorities. This is likely why people have “commitment issues”. The level of discomfort passes a threshold that is set by the level
As I have watched sports, I have come to admire those athletes who prove to be true competitors. These are the athletes who have stories told about them that focus on all they have overcome. The other athletes are not remembered because they settled on the excuses. I find myself cringing when people complain after a loss
There is no amalgam of best and less than best. That’s the siren call of mediocrity and it is seductive. There is no best of both worlds when it comes to choices that demonstrate our quality. Do we want to be our best self? A better question is are we willing to do what it takes to
I struggle with my diet and I want the irrational reality where I can eat all the cookies and lose weight. This is the struggle everyone deals with at some point. We all have to make choices and teams must constantly choose who they want to be. Do they want to be the version of themselves that
Those who chronically fall short have learned that it is acceptable to fall short. They have learned all about excuses and justifying compromises and disappointment. They have learned that people will understand what they were up against and that the reasonable response to their challenge was to disappoint the team because challenges are hard. They might have
Once I have accomplished a certain objective, I can fall into the trap of relaxing without a care for possible unknowns. That attitude isn’t worried about the high standard. That attitude is more concerned about completing what has become a boring task. A commitment to a high standard must come with a willingness to not be entertained
Our circumstances are not completely within our control, but we do have responsibility for the chosen level of effort we put forth. The main reason we lower our standards in the midst of our challenging circumstances is because we failed in our preparations prior to the event. This could be due to lack of experience or procrastination
I have noticed our circumstances affect our standards far more than our stated values and convictions. This doesn’t make us phony because we all believe that we have higher standards but we may not be aware of how much the pressure of our circumstances causes us to aim much lower than we would ever care to admit.