Teams - Success Begins with the Selection

As an avid follower of football (soccer), this summer has been enjoyable with the COPA America Centenario and the Euros being played and broadcasted in the United States. The focus is often on the players, like Messi, Dempsey, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, and any Spanish player, but the real leaders are the national team coaches and managers. The ability of the coach/manager to create a unified team of players that are committed to the same goal with each player bringing their talents and passion to the team brings about success. When it is done correctly, the team like Iceland moves on in the tournament, but when done incorrectly you have a team like Mexico, that loses 7-1 and gives up during the match.

I was recently at a conference where Jim Leavitt, the defensive coordinator at the University of Colorado-Boulder, spoke about leading during crisis. At the conclusion of his talk, an attendee asked what the most important aspect of leading during a crisis is for him and his answer was hiring the correct team at the beginning. This aspect of leadership/management is often forgotten during discussions about organizational leadership. How often is the success of the team determined by not promoting the best candidate for the position and the team?

When looking at building a team there is usually a list of skills, knowledge areas, and temperaments that we look for in an individual. However, three items that can be difficult to discern but are essential for an individual to possess to build a successful team are self-motivation, confidence, and passion. These three attitudes are a foundation element to the success of an organization as evidence by its customers' satisfaction or products and services received. I was able to experience these attitudes at work in two individuals I recently encountered.

The first happened while I was at the aforementioned conference during dinner. I had the privilege to dine at Brasserie Ten Ten in Boulder, Colorado. The first thing I noticed when entering the restaurant was the energy in the space. People were in conversation, enjoying their meal, and their time together. What made the meal memorable was not the incredible food I had, although that was certainly enjoyable (contact me if interested in hearing more about the food). The foundation to the success of the establishment was the wait staff at Ten Ten and specifically Scout who took complete care of our entire night. During our meal, Scout exemplified an employee that was self-motivated, confident, and passionate about what she was doing. Her attention to detail of service ware, which was replaced after each course, to asking the chef the specific ingredients in a sauce for my dessert course were outstanding. Her presence, which was not overbearing or suffocating but rather responsive, made the evening fantastic. 

The second experience happened at another restaurant, Spencer's Restaurant at the Mountain in Palm Springs, California, while on a extended family vacation. Spencer's had been recommended as a fantastic spot for lunch or dinner, so in the 125 degrees of the day, we headed out for lunch. What is the importance of the temperature being mentioned? If anyone that has encountered the heat will know, you can become very unpleasant as an individual as a result of the extreme heat. However, in the midst of the heat, our table was served by Michael, who like Scout, brought self-motivation, confidence, and passion that made the fact of the heat outside vanish while enjoying the outstanding food. His attention to specific dietary needs of the table, working with changes even after an initial order, and finally his knowledge of the coffee service and answering question about the coffee producer evidenced these traits. 

Scout and Michael personified the attitudes, self-motivated, confident, and passionate, that contribute to successful organizations. The meals and the products at both Brasserie Ten Ten and Spencer's were outstanding, but the service provided by our two wait staff were foundational in our exceptional experience. I would suspect that the other members of both of these teams have similar attitudes and that is what makes them successful. We know that there was training involved with the creation of the team but the initial creation/hiring of the team was essential. Each organization found the individuals with the attitudes that drove the success of the organization. Additionally, those individuals that do not have the skills and attitudes to push forward need to be replaced for the betterment of the organization and the individual. 

As a leader in your organization, what is the attitude of your team? Do you have a team of individuals that are self-motivated, confident, and passionate about the team/organization or do you have some that seem to drag the team back? The question is, what will you do to resolve the situation to bring about success? If you need some help, go visit Scout and Michael. You will love it!

Organizational Identity the Foundation for Organizational Culture

Much has been written about culture and how it plays into the DNA of an organization. As a student of organizational structure and leadership, I have read and studied how culture becomes a foundational piece of an organization. Whether it is John Coleman’s article for HBR about the six factors of vision, values, practices, people, narrative, and place to Keith Richards’ piece about value alignments necessity in corporate culture, I have felt a piece missing.

This was until I read Andres Hatum and Luciana Silvestri’s article about FCBarcelona.  The interest in the article came from my love of football and reading about the business behind one of the largest and most successful football clubs in the world. However, what I read turned my thinking about organizational culture on its head. The basic premise that Hatum and Silverstri put forth is that culture comes from identity of the organization. They state:

While culture tells us how to behave, identity tells us who we are. That services two purposes. By serving as a lens, identity helps make sense of the environment. It also informs action by guiding employees’ responses. Together, these dimensions allow organizations to maintain a sense of balance between “who we are” and “what we do.”

Even though this concept hit a new chord in my organizational thought, Stephen Downey wrote about this idea in 1986 for Public Relations Quarterly in his article “The Relationship Between Corporate Culture and Corporate Identity.” Downey was remarking that the identity is not the brand or image of the organization, instead the identity was the “why” of the organization. This is still an issue that permeates organizations, and specifically leadership.

Current understanding still views identity as coming from culture. It is in the creation of culture in an organization that identity, or image, can be realized. However, this can lead to an organization operating in a manner that is counter to its true identity. A leader must help define and create the “who” of the organization so the behavior of the organization is in unison. If the “who” and the “what” do not become synced then mission and vision can become confusing and lead to a dysfunctional and poorly operating organization.

As many organizations continue to build on their success or, on the other hand, deal with issues, leadership should re-examine the organization’s identity. When identity is realized throughout an organization, beginning with the executive leadership and weaving through the entire structure, that is when the “real culture is understood. This leads to better processes, products, and ultimately revenue for the organization.

As a leader, do you know your organization’s identity? Or, do you operate in a culture that might be contrary to the true nature of “who” the organization was created to be? If you do not know the identity of your organization or its relationship to the organizational culture as a leader, then it is time to discover the identity of the organization you lead. Discovering the identity might set the organization back on to a path of success and growth that you have been to trying to find. You owe it to your organization.

Leadership by Influence or Authority

Leadership is often defined by the impact that an individual has on an organization and their ability to influence others to engage and own the vision of the organization. This can be accomplished through several methods, but it is partnered with the authority to put programs and ideas into processes. However, what happens when you move from having authority to another role?

To some leaders, this can be a death call to their leadership opportunities. To the true leaders, the opportunity to lead through influence becomes a role that becomes significant in being a part of the success of an organization. Influence leadership can be difficult to cultivate but a true leader is still sought out by others for discussions about ideas, processes, and strategy. Even for a young leader, influence leadership provides an opportunity to be a mentor or teacher to others as they discover their gifts and talents. Experiences and knowledge in a leader can be shared and used to assist others to make significant and substantial contributions to their organization.

The positive part about being an influence leader is that senior leaders in a healthy organization will recognize the contributions that are being made and look to place that leader in a more significant role. In an unhealthy organization, the leader might be viewed as being disruptive or envied by senior leaders because of the influence the person might have on others. If the influence leader is operating in the best interest of the organization by providing support to others, in the end, even in an unhealthy organization, they will be recognized and provided with other opportunities.

It is easy to lead with authority and learning to lead with authority is necessary in successful leadership. However, it is the individual that masters the art of leadership by influence that is given additional opportunities to make significant contribution to organizations.

Loss of Passion and Focus

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."

Aristotle Onasis

How often do we lose focus or passion in our lives? We become stuck in a rut or become under-appreciated within our organization. As a leader, the absences of focus and passion can dangerous. The symptoms cannot only affect the leader but the entire organization. Worse, the lack of focus and passion could ultimately ruin an organization. It is in these dark times that a person, especially a leader, is shaped.

However, these dark times are often a common experience for many people. This could be the result of failed or unmet expectations, personnel issues, or poor business decisions and outcomes. It is a part of our personal and professional life that marks our journey and can feel like a “death blow” to our hopes and dreams. To some, it provides an opportunity to bounce back and learn from the experience by refocusing, reevaluating, or reenergizing but this provides only temporary relief. Often many decide to let it consume them and it leads them to a life of mediocrity and stagnation.

To those individuals that do recover the passion and focus, their success does not come from refocusing, reevaluating, or reenergizing. It is in the reengagement and recommitment to the core principals and values of their original vision. It is often easy for us to move on when we lose our passion and focus to a “new” vision but it can lead to a loss of passion and focus again. The successful individuals realize their core principles and values and begin to reengage and recommit to their vision. The learning in the dark times brings about the biggest success in our lives. Failure is not a “death blow” to a personal or organizational vision but an opportunity to learn and grow to succeed.

The question for each of us is what “re” will we use to regain our passion and focus?

"That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."

Richard Bach

Rest and Recharging – What leaders sometimes forget for themselves and their teams

 

“Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.” Thomas Aquinas

In the constant hustle and bustle of our ever-connected world, it is easy to stand on the lie that we need to be continually working. The thought of vacation is just a distraction, or worse an aggravation, to the primary goal, which is to work harder to do better. This thought process is a result of a Puritan mindset in our country that said hard work leads to prosperity and self fulfillment, so vacation would be useless to reaching this goal.

This has lead directly into the leadership and executive suite where leaders feel that they cannot afford to go on vacation.  Their belief that with them being gone, the organization will fall apart because they are not there to keep it together.  This philosophy filters down to those employees underneath them and can cause an environment of burnout.

I would suggest that a work environment that leaders looks negatively on vacation deal with lack of innovation and burnout within their company more than organizations where vacation is valued. Leaders especially need to reenergize. Michael Hyatt found that rebooting for a leader is essential to the success of the person and the organization. Andy O’Connell of the Wall Street Journal wrote about a company, FullContact, whose philosophy of vacation involved providing financial assistance to employees to plan a vacation.

I just returned from a long weekend vacation and I realized that the reboot was exactly what I needed as a leader. During the time away, I experienced four important pieces to an ideal reboot:

1. Spend time with special people – I was able to spend the time with my incredible wife and our two close friends.  These individuals allow me to unwind and be myself. For you, it can be immediate family, extended family, and friends.
2. Participate in enjoyable activities – I enjoy cooking and do not cook as often as I want because of busy schedules. During our time away, I was able to cook and enjoy the time in the kitchen creating some delicious dishes. (I will tell you about lamb pops some other time)
3. Be flexible with your schedule – As someone that operates with a full schedule daily, the opportunity to plan very little and to be flexible is refreshing. During this time away, the only plans were lying around the pool and cooking.
4. Find time to exercise – This might seem contradictory to vacation, but I find it a necessary part of refreshment. For me, it could be a run with a friend or just taking a long walk to a local eatery or coffeehouse. 

These are areas that I will continue to focus on when it comes to time to reboot as a leader. These items are not only important for a leader but for an entire organization that values vacation and refreshing. The leader that can instill this value into the ethos of the organization is one that has the opportunity for success.

A healthy organization understands the need for their teams to be relaxed, focused, and creative. An ethos of rest and recharging brings about the greatest opportunity for innovation and success for an organization.

If this is what you desire as a leader for your organization, then take time off! Go, relax and recharge! Then let your teams do the same without them feeling guilty!

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen." Leonardo Da Vinci