TEAMWORK - CREATING TEAMS THAT WORK: Lasers or Losers?

TEAMWORK - Creating Teams that Work with Douglas Castle

Dear readers:

There are numerous dynamics associated with creating and operating a successful team, e.g., a team that achieves its specified mission. The one variable that invariably proves the most difficult, but should (at least intuitively) be the simplest, is FOCUS.

Part of a team leader's responsibility is to maintain the team's focus on the mission objective, and to avoid forays into any places or projects that could potentially diffuse the unified focus. Sadly, when we, as Human Beings become weary, needful or disenchanted, we tend to abandon focus and seek diversions...we fly off on tangents. This propensity for a diffusion of focus is the default state of most people's personalities. And, even more dangerously, the longer or more complicated the path to a mission objective, or the more "distant" the perceived benefit to each of the team members involved, the more likely the deterioration of focus.

Teams are either comprised of lasers or losers. Even a team that is brought together hastily to accomplish a mission which doesn't have any immediate gratification associated with it can be astoundingly successful if leadership is able to unify the team's focus. This requires several steps:

1. Defining the objective clearly;

2. Describing the benefit to all of the members if the objective is successfully addressed;

3. Persistently "herding" the membership back onto the direct trail to the objective;

4. Repetition - reminding every individual member of the team of the objective, and monitoring progress.

5. Capturing commitment - leadership must obtain the promise, from each individual member that he or she will proceed as promised. Commitment leads to cooperation.

6. Monitoring results and providing feedback ("progress reports" are excellent) to members - giving them a solid feel that their efforts (the cause) are yielding results (the effect).

7. Setting an example - leadership must maintain laser focus on achievement of the mission objective. Members are reliant upon leadership to play a bit of a parental role in this regard. A leader who is perceived as a hypocrite, or as an uncommitted individual is tacitly sanctioning his or her team members to wander off into the woods.

As a leader, you must be every bit as good as you require your members to be. Be the exemplar. Be the laser. Be the best, most consistent example.

A team can accomplish tremendous things if it is fashioned into a laser. Everything, from the American Revolution, to the launch of a space shuttle, to the collective bargaining process, to the takeover of a company, to the making of a media celebrity has been laser-powered.

There is no object that resists the power of a laser-focused team. There is no goal too grandiose or impediment insurmountable. The concentration of the laser focus can stop a comet, or it can bring a song to the top of the charts.

The team, when properly focused, has the potential to be the most powerful of all entities. No matter what the mission objective -- the right team and the right leadership can accomplish it.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

BRAINTENANCE - sharpen your mind

THE GLOBAL FUTURIST - prepare, plan and prosper

INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS - transform yourself at the speed of thought

WINNING THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS - subliminal enhancement to your messages

www.LinkedIn.com/in/douglascastle

___________________________________________________________

Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newsletter, go to http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free, continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/. You are also invited to click our buttons:

Forward/Share This Article With Colleagues And Social Media:

TEAMWORK - CREATING TEAMS THAT WORK: Lasers or Losers?