What’s in Your Tool Belt… That Will Move Your Team Forward?
A leader once told us: “Before the Pathways to Leadership process, the only leadership tools I had in my belt for working with others was a hammer and a screwdriver.” This resonates with many people – and recently a man named Charlie added, “You missed the third tool a lot of leaders have in their leadership tool belt.”
What is that?
“Duct tape. With all the re-structuring, leaders need tape to keep teams together.”
We laughed and the point was made: When it comes to ensuring teams are aligned and operating with trust, most organizations use “wish management.” A few teams get to play on ropes, and thus feel inspired for a couple of weeks; but painfully, not many teams acquire tools they can use to ensure a fusion, a strength of bond, that grows tighter each business day.
What tools are you using today to ensure your team becomes stronger as it works? Your competition may just be applying a screwdriver and “screwing” things up by focusing on all the ways the team is not performing well. Consequently, this inappropriate use of focus only ensures the team has its weaknesses reinforced and its confidence diminished.
By studying your failures you become an expert at failure – not success. Accordingly, this approach means the team will require duct tape in the days ahead.
The 3 Mind Factors (page 139 in Stomp the Elephant in the Office) is a powerful tool many readers know that, appropriately applied, can have a profound effect at ensuring teams perform at higher levels. The Mind Factors are: 1) You can only focus on one thought at a time. 2) You can’t avoid a “don’t”. And 3) You go toward your focus.
Apply this tool today with your team by focusing on and acknowledging where your team is doing well, where it is performing with excellence. And, as proven by thousands of teams around the world, you will guarantee that your team improves even more in those areas.
What’s in your tool belt?
