A recent study at MIT confirmed that many of you reading this need to speak up!
I agree. In my experience working teams made up of scientists, MD’s, engineers, and researchers, many of these leaders were talkers to the detriment of team performance. They are often articulate and captivating, naturally adding value when they speak. But over time, when they lead the conversation, others just check out. The team sits in silence and the result is one-dimensional results.
This is a leadership problem, of sorts, that can be resolved.
Great leaders have one thing in common. They take a winning idea/product/innovation and rally people around it to create exceptional levels of success.
You can give credit to the innovations – but the roadside is littered with seemingly genius innovations that went nowhere–often because the geniuses behind the innovations could not rally people to make it into a feasible business. Based on my experience coaching and advising leaders for two decades, the ones who can successfully inspire their people to greatness, have one competency before all others: cultivating mission critical thinking.
To many, “capitalist” has a negative connotation: greedy, only thinking of their money and not people. Yet, I have found that bottom line capitalists are in fact often not only enlightened leaders, but extremely generous, to the point of being humanists.
When I started in this field in 1993, I considered myself a humanist. I was guided by the principle that if employees concerns are ignored, it will negatively impact the company. I still think this principle is the foundation of strong leadership, yet I am surprised by how often over the years I have heard myself asking clients,… Read the full article >
When people talk about sports analogies in business, no one ever talks about crew teams. And the term that never gets talked about in great teams is “swing”.
79 years ago this week, an underdog US Crew Team astonished Hitler and the world by winning the 1936 Olympic Gold in Germany. This story of true teamwork is told in recent best-seller Boys in the Boat. In the book, “swing” is described this way:
“There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find… Read the full article >
Most leaders’ natural reaction to low team performance is to take charge. They view this as their job: to set direction and lead. However, in many cases, this is actually the completely wrong approach. Sometimes the strongest and smartest approach is to sit back, stay silent and say nothing.
Being the strongest voice in the room is a typical success strategy. Leaders have a way of getting heard, above all others, even when they are not formally in charge. And this is not bad. There is a place for setting direction among the many… Read the full article >
You sense something is wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. You know the team is stuck, and results are suffering. You hear people here and there talking badly about others. You have subterranean conflict, conflict gone underground and causing a ripple through all that is going on. Here is what to do.
This 2 minute video is a quick summary of what to do, filmed right after a team breakthrough session to address subterranean conflict. More details on… Read the full article >
Fact: email conversations usually do more to divide team members than to bond them
Fact: web meetings are often a waste of time, creating stress and bad feelings
These are but a few of the elements that reveal the importance of what we have discovered as The H Factor.
When we are physically together with people, our bodies produce hormones that make us nice. This is the same biology that bonds mother and child, and it occurs in all people at a smaller level whenever… Read the full article >
Leaders’ first reaction to their team not performing how they want is to take charge. Of course you would say, that is their job: to set direction and lead. However in many cases I have seen first-hand, this is actually the completely wrong approach. Sometimes the strongest and smartest approach is to sit back, stay silent and do nothing.
Metaphorically, the Euro Zone could be considered a ‘team’. But rather than functioning as an elite, high performing Team of Distinction, it displays the truth of the old saying that a team is as strong as its weakest link. Today’s Europe is comprised of many underperforming, uninspired silos swiftly on their way to becoming a Team of Extinction. Here’s why:
Mission Critical Thinking
The European “Team” consists of 28 states with 24 languages (of which 19 are… Read the full article >
When Jack Welch ran GE, one of the rules he introduced was to trim the deadwood from his organization by systematically and consistently firing the bottom 20 percent of GE performers every year. That was Jack’s way of saying I want a team composed of the best and the brightest, and I am willing to take what some view as ruthless and unpopular action to achieve it.
Similarly,but on a much more modest scale, when the small group of Microsoft founders told Bill, “We have 12 great people now but the time has come to recruit the next 12,”… Read the full article >
