doug smith training

Do you try to do everything on your own? If you're part of a team, and especially if you are leading a team, it goes better by collaborating. Working together. Helping each other.  People like to be connected. What better time to strengthen your connections than when you have a problem? You don't need everyone in the world to help you solve a problem but you probably do need someone. Find out who that is, and get them involved. Besides, it is way more fun that way, too. -- doug smith  

Like most team behaviors, motivation is contagious. When people look around and see team members energized, charged up, focused, and engaged, it tends to spread.  That's not a shortcut, though. Leaders still need to do the work by creating an environment that supports and challenges the team members. Leaders also need to develop relationships with individual team members and help those team members develop cooperative, cohesive relationships with each other. There's no quick fix, but it helps to start doing something that does work. One thing is talking with your people. Lead with questions long before you offer any answers.  What motivates your people? Ask them. -- doug smith  

People are motivated by their own individual needs, but also powerfully by what motivate those people nearby. Behavior, and motivation, is contagious. Winning leaders create environments where motivation is widely shared. It's not a contest, it's a team.  -- doug smith  

Create the kind of team that everyone always wanted be a part of. -- doug smith  

No matter how important goals are to us, we get busy and if we're not careful the urgent outflanks the important. Schedule time to work on your goal to make sure that you do work on your goal. The urgent stuff will still be there. It's the important stuff that you'll be remembered for. -- doug smith  

Great goals are tough. We don't remember the easy goals, but the tough goals change us.  Set a tough goal and then run with it hard.  The pursuit of a tough goal requires relentless dedication. Isn't that what you've been preparing for? -- doug smith  

This is probably get some disagreement. We've come to rely so much on one particular trait of business, probably even more than price. Convenience. We make so many decisions based on how EASY a transaction is. It's so much EASIER than ever before and we've all been spoiled by click-and-ship that anything with any friction whatsoever gets passed over. That's an understandable decision, but not always the best one. Convenience is great, but no substitute for quality. Hamburgers are convenient but wouldn't you rather eat a steak? (please excuse me my vegetarian and vegan friends.) Social media is convenient but how about the depth and richness of a long face to face conversation with a dear friend? I advocate that we consider other measures in our important decisions. Measures other than convenience: Quality Durability Care Beauty Drama What would you add to the list? Convenience is a poor measure of quality.  Let's consider everything else that makes business -- a...

Do you remember the first team that you served? All of the bright spots, a few of the duds? How about the next team? And the next? If we're leading at our best (not perfection but our best) and accomplishing wonderful things with our teams we should remember them forever, Maybe not every name and face, but most and in some clear detail. My best teams have felt like family. Some team members I'm in touch with thirty years later. Do teams right, and they'll change your life. You are going to remember your current team forever -- what will you do to make those memories satisfying? -- doug smith  

Maybe you inherited your team. Maybe your team just lost a key player. The game goes on. You've got to keep playing, keep producing, and keep developing your team.  Work with the team you've got. When you do, they will astound you. -- doug smith  

You can organize a team around your goals and you can also organize your goals around your team. Both are essential moves to your team's success. -- doug smith  

Can you solve every problem? Of course not. Some problems need more time, more resources, more miracles. Sometimes the best we can do as a leader is not to make things worse. Even if you can't solve a problem there's no reason to magnify it. Look at that problem from the viewpoint of someone who just doesn't care. Does it look different? Is it really a mountain or simply a molehill (of course, if you've ever had moles you know what kind of problem that is). Will any of it matter a year from now? If yes, get busy. If no, breathe? -- doug smith