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4 Team-Building Steps
- Leadership isn’t singular. No one leads alone, Krzyzewski says. When he was building the team that won gold at the Beijing Olympics, he relied on Lebron James, Jason Kidd and Kobe Bryant as the team’s “internal leaders.” They had tremendous sway on the rest of the team. “If they said it, it’s pretty much going to go,” he says.
- Soaring egos need a higher purpose. Talented players often have outsized egos. It’s not Krzyzewski’s style to break them down, but he has to keep ego from blocking improvement. To get them working as a team, Krzyzewski first meets with each player individually, lays out what he expects from him and instills in each a common purpose. Fellow panelist Pete Carroll, head football coach at the University of Southern California, said it best: No matter how huge the ego is, a star player needs to feel he is part of something bigger than himself. “You have to look every one of them in the eye, respect that they’re unique and figure out where they’re coming from,” Carroll said. “You have to give of yourself to figure them out.”
- Great players learn best from each other. When Krzyzewski met with Lebron James before training for the Olympics began, James told him that he wanted to learn the secret of Jason Kidd’s excellent passing, and how Kobe Bryant, whom he considered the best player in the sport, prepared off court. James forged close relationships with both men and has become a better player because of it, Krzyzewski says. The trick for the coach, he said, is to create an environment in which the players learn from each other without having to expose vulnerabilities. “The guys who are really good in our sport don’t want to show weakness,” he said.
- Love them after they leave you. College players, like rising young executives, will move on. Fulfill your commitment to them by maintaining your ties, Krzyzewski advises. His players have gone on to play in the NBA, to coach at influential colleges or to new endeavors. “We maintain a relationship of being a friend and part of their family for the rest of their lives,” he says. It’s a form of networking that he finds particularly rewarding. He suggests looking for ways to make it easy for former protégés to ask for help without losing face.
212 degrees: The power of a little extra
4 Steps to Know the Next Step
How to Launch Your Leadership Momentum
– Mark Twain
How to turn Passion into Purpose
It’s rare that we find ourselves instantaneously in love with an idea, concept, or new occupation and this is where finding what we’re passionate about is key. Our passion is what allows us to open those doors we otherwise wouldn’t touch and test new ideas or challenge our preconceived notions.
While it’s a good practice to set out short-term goals to help determine your progress and effectiveness, it’s equally important that we have a clear understanding of what it is we want to accomplish through these efforts. This is a critical point to distinguishing the short-term, frenetic energy we often associate with our passions, from that steeled and unwavering determination we see in those who have a clear sense of what the purpose is behind what they do.
Let’s face it – no one achieves success by going at it on their own. While we tend to associate the accomplishments of athletes and inventors like Thomas Edison to a single individual, the reality is that their accomplishments were the result of having a supportive network of people helping them to not only succeed, but to keep them on track toward what it is they want to accomplish.
In our drive to find success in our professional and personal lives, it’s only natural that we look to where our passion lies to help us find some direction. However, while we might rely on our passions to light the way, it’s important that we not forget that our passion can only provide us with the kick start we need to get going. It’s only when we make the effort to develop our passions into a sense of purpose that we can create something that is truly enduring and meaningful, and subsequently attain that feeling of success we all aim to reach.
Managing the "Big Rocks"
“I don’t believe in ‘time management’ because you can’t manage time….it’s always going regardless if you try to ‘manage’ it. You CAN manage priorities and your energy.”
– John Maxwell
Sometimes, the most important thing about a day is an activity or set of activities. If you’re an athlete, you may prioritize exercise; if you’re a salesperson, you may prioritize making calls. In either case, you are prioritizing the activity over the desired end result.
One of the most potent things you can prioritize are your goals. What’s the difference making something a goal and making it a priority? Goals are rarely within our direct control – our priorities always are.
Sometimes, the most useful thing for us to prioritize is neither an activity nor a goal, but a way of being. These intentions carry on in the background as we engage in activities and pursue our goals. Some useful intentions include “staying present”, “enjoying whatever it is that I am doing”, and “listening and speaking from my heart”.
As oxygen is to the body, attention is to the spirit. When we make a person our priority, we are committing to give them greatest yet simplest gift we posses – the gift of our full, undivided attention.
One of the simplest ways to prioritize something is to begin with it – to put it right at the top of the agenda and stick with it until it’s done. This approach works particularly well with activities and “mini-goals” – i.e. goals that can be completed within the course of a few minutes to a few hours.
I have yet to meet the person who isn’t blown off course during the course of a day. In fact, no matter how many post-it note reminders you stick on your computer, fridge, and dashboard, I guarantee you’ll forget about your chosen priorities again and again. The solution? When you remember, shift your focus and do it now! This approach is particularly useful when you are prioritizing intentions, and people.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you prioritize a goal? By coming back to it again, and again, and again. This approach is equally useful with activities, goals, intentions, and people.
Four Keys to Leadership and Personal Fulfillment
For years, I’ve sifted through the existing literature on discovering, uncovering, or creating your life mission, trying things out in my life and wondering why I wasn’t as fulfilled as I believed possible. However, along the way, I’ve made four critical distinctions that have led me to explore deeper levels of meaning, purpose, and satisfaction.
Many people already know what their gifts are – those things in your life that come naturally to you, without any undue personal effort or struggle. However, in a society which places a premium on hard work, it’s easy to overlook and underestimate the value of what you were “born with”. A good way of identifying your gifts is to think of those skills, abilities, or personality traits you exhibit which are so much a part of that you can’t remember learning them and can’t imagine not having them. If you’re still not sure, grit your teeth, ask those people closest to you, and if you’re like most of us, prepare to be embarrassed!
In the old days, it was the most natural thing in the world to hear someone talk about being “called to the priesthood” or “called to be a doctor”. (As with reincarnation, where no-one ever seems to recall a past life where they were “third guy on the left in ancient Egypt”, people never seem to talk about being “called to be a garbage collector”, but I’m sure it happens!) Your calling is what you are continually drawn to, no matter how impractical or impossible it seems to “make a living at it”. In the same way as you choose your work, your calling chooses you, and for many people it is difficult to remember a time when they did not want to do something related to their calling, even if they never have (yet!).
There is a great deal of contention about whether your mission in life is something you create or something you discover. As you’ve probably guessed, I weigh in on the side of creation. In it’s simplest form, you create your mission by deciding how you want to use your gifts in the service of your calling. Do you need to have a mission? Absolutely not, but if you don’t, you are probably missing out on some of the joy, energy, and fulfillment that comes with clarity of purpose and surrender to a higher goal.
If you’re lucky, your work, i.e. what you do for a living, is merely an extension of your mission and you spend each day joyfully using your gifts in the service of your calling. On the off-chance this doesn’t describe you :-), you now have a clear set of criteria for choosing meaningful work.
1. Take a few moments to identify your gifts and clarify your calling. If you’re not sure, simply set the intention to become aware of your gifts and calling and prepare to be amazed as life conveniently drops daily hints and reminders into your life.
(If you already have a mission statement, think about re-evaluating it in the light of what you now know about your gifts and your calling).
The Yoda Principle
– Believe
– “Do”
Make Your Leadership Come Alive
I love seeing teams focused on the mission, committed to the big picture and loving what they are doing. When the “team” is flowing, not just “working.” There’s PASSION and MOVEMENT. That’s when leadership is fun and life-giving.
But I’ve been on the other end, when I was sick of being leader, tempted to leverage authority rather than influence, and was ready to punch someone if they complained about another petty issue.
Good leaders understand that influence is power and that how they handle power will affect their impact and results. The more you understand influence, the better you are able to maximize it for the benefit of those you lead—which in turn benefits you as well.
- Aim high. If your team thinks that the goal of your organization is to make money so that you can buy a second home, they will not do their best work. People want to work for larger visions than bank accounts—especially your bank account. Instead, aim high and aspire to make the world a better place to energize everyone.
- Be for others. People want to know you have their best interests at heart, too. The problem is that many leaders are primarily for themselves. Or, at least that is what they show. Employees ask themselves if you are for them or only for yourself. Once they think that you’re only looking out for No. 1, they will label you and changing that label is difficult.
- Lead yourself. The starting point of effective leadership is to lead yourself; it is called self-awareness. To lead yourself you must know yourself—your tendencies, capacity constraints, strengths and weaknesses. When people see that you can lead yourself, then they will trust that you have the ability to lead them.
- Be intentional. Accidental leadership is not a good strategy. Being intentional means that you have a plan to achieve the organization’s goals. In particular, being intentional with relationships takes time, so think about how you want key employees to grow. Think about what you want the team to be focused on at the next meeting. Make intentionality a part of your culture.
- Look at the big picture. When we teach ourselves to think big, we enable ourselves to gain perspective. Then we can look at the big picture and make decisions that benefit the entire team. If we only look at one issue at a time, then we miss the benefit of seeing things from a different perspective. When we think bigger, we benefit ourselves and others.
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