Find the Discipline

It takes discipline to discover what is otherwise not available.

-- doug smith

How do you find the answer to building your best team? Is there a magical formula?

Teams take work and the work is never done. For a leader to find the time to talk to each team member one-on-one frequently it takes the discipline to set a schedule and THEN to follow it -- even when your boss tends to pull you away and even when you get distracted by other urgencies.

Your team members deserve your time and they need your time. Even when they do not ask for your time, they need it to connect, to calibrate, to collaborate. Give your team members one-on-one time and the payoff will be great (even if it takes a while to notice, hang in there.)

The answers to your problems, the solutions to your challenges, the magic secret sauce that differentiates your team from dozens of others that are otherwise similar, hides in the discipline of doing the work.

It takes discipline to discover what is otherwise not available. Find the discipline and the rest will come.

-- doug smith

Comments

Trust Requires Truth

When you catch someone in a lie, how quickly do you trust them again? What if they'd lied to you before, maybe even many times? How much would you trust them then? Trust requires truth. To be trusted you must tell the truth. Not everyone will comply, but if you do -- if you always tell the truth -- you will be greatly trusted. -- doug smith

Upcoming Public Virtual Training

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Necessary Conflict

Avoiding a conflict does not make you neutral. It may be healthy at times to avoid conflict, but if your team or someone you love is suffering because of that conflict, you've got responsibilities. What do you do when conflict is necessary? High performance leaders have a plan because they've practiced sensible strategies over and over again. Maybe consider that aching conflict another practice opportunity. -- doug smith

When We're Wrong

Have you ever noticed that people can't seem to realize it when they're wrong? That makes it frustrating for both the person who is wrong and the person who is quite certain that they're wrong. We get stuck. We dig in. It happens in conversations, in conflicts, and in relationships. When we're really wrong, we're really wrong, and we don't even know it. As long as we're wrong we don't see that we're wrong. How do we fix that? (Here it is worth it to pause and wonder, hmmm, how do we?) Pause. It's worth a try. Stay open to possibilities. Listen as if we don't already know the answer, because even if we do the answer might have (probably HAS) changed. When we're wrong we've got to pause to figure that out. And when we're right, we've got to pause to see if that's still true. There's no shame in being wrong. But, it's a total shame to stay that way. -- doug smith

Hard Work

Collaborative problem solving makes conflict resolution just and fair. Resolving conflict and solving problems are not the same thing, but they do share much in common and can unify efforts toward better solutions. Work together. Talk about it. Share concerns. Consider (always) the needs of others. It's not magic, it's hard work. -- doug smith

One Way

It can be frustrating when people don't see it your way. What if you know what you're talking about? What if you've already optimized that process, that method, that protocol? This helps me - to wonder if maybe there is also another way, maybe even many other ways. Your formula for success may be unique but it is not the only productive path. The possibilities are endless. -- doug smith

A Better Miss

Missing a goal can still have a positive result if it sets you up for your next goal. Take what you learned, forget what you burned, and earn another achievement. -- doug smith

Emotional Options

What's the strongest emotion for you? What's the one emotion that more often than not seems to run you instead of you running the emotion? If the answer is "none" then good for you, and maybe share how you got there because it sure is hard for most of us. Emotions once activated send all the right chemicals thru our bodies to keep us in that elevated emotional state. When we need that flush of energy it's worth experiencing the rush. When we don't, it gets in the way. We can choose. We have the ability to take emotions out of problem solving if we are willing to. Are you willing to? -- doug smith

Complicated

You could think of it as the ostrich effect - putting your head in the sand to avoid a danger. You can't see it anymore, you don't notice the discomfort, but it's still there and you're still exposed. Overlooking the complexity of a problem does not simplify it -- or solve it. As uncomfortable as it may be, we need to face our problems with courage, deal with them using our creativity, focus on our goals with clarity, and show compassion for anyone effected by our course of action. When problems are complicated we need not hide. It's better to rise. -- doug smith

More Smiles

How much time do you spend keeping score? Our clients, our customers, our employers, even our families expect us to keep score. At this point there probably isn't any stopping it. But, it's not always the most important thing. What if you stopped keeping score when you're enjoying something just for what it is: a sunset, a low tide, a bird on the wing, a team member who smiles when they see you...we are not always competing with each other. Sometimes, we're all in this together. What if that could happen more often? As a leader, what kind of world are you trying to create? How about a world with more smiles? -- doug smith

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