Team Health is rarely on accident

The formula for a great team is easy – be a great leader – have great people, a great plan, and great execution – sounds easy, right? Not so much….

We all make hiring mis-steps, we add team members that have great potential but they just don't pan out, team members will (from time to time) have personal or interpersonal issues, and sometimes the reasons are difficult to diagnose. Leading to the realization that Team health, like personal health is rarely on accident. It is a matter and a make of up many choices along the way that add up to the sum of the whole. Team Health and productivity is from purposeful, consistent, and intentional diligence.

Continuing from earlier this week…. We have a team that doesn't perform to expected levels, I have looked at my leadership areas and worked to correct any short falls there, and my team is still not producing expected results – where do I go from here?

From here, means that we look at the two parts of the team – the team as an entity, and the individuals that make up the team.

One of my consistent 'ISMs' is,

"To lead a team, you lead them one by one – beginning with you"

Earlier in the week we have dealt with the back part of that statement – 'beginning with you' – now we transition to the middle – we lead our team – ONE person at a time.

It's difficult to say which we look at first – because it's more of a both/and scenario – we look at our team and the dynamics of how they interact and operate AS A TEAM - but that is almost impossible to separate from looking at the individual players on the team and how they fit into the mix. Are they adding the right value? Running in their position right? Pulling their weight? Contributing to team synergy or detracting from it?

For the existing talent my questions are more along the line of: "Skill and Will". Does this player have the skills need for the position or role that I need them to play? Do they have the WILL to succeed in their role and with the team? (The right attitude)

The skill part is capacity – can they do what needs to be done in order to perform at the needed level. Will comes into commitment – "Will they do what needs to be done?"

Start with evaluating individual performance – in other words, "Let's look at what we can measure and put our hands on, first."

Dialing down on individual performance means metrics and measurements. Here are the actions that we are going to measure your performance on - and here is how we are going to measure those. Throw in timing (for good measure) and they have the clarity on when, what, and the how. Short of that and they may not have the needed tools or clarity from you.

For today, invest a little time on clarity of desired performance and if you don't have any, yet, developing an appropriate set of performance metrics. Boil this down to the clarity of, "What do I want you to do daily?" Let the person know you'll be monitoring performance (daily for a while). Follow through! How can we expect our people to be – what we are not.

Team Health always starts with the Team’s Leadership, pt2

Yesterday we started the conversation about the Leader looking at himself or herself first, when it comes to analyzing team performance. Knowing that the team is usually a reflection of the Leader can be both sobering and affirming. Some additional questions to ask yourself about any potential negative or limiting effects that could be translating into less than desirable results are:

Is my team lacking direction? For a team to run at top speed, they will need clarity. Most of us would be, completely, unwilling to run at full speed while in total darkness and our teams are no exceptions. At times, stopping the team, increasing clarity, and establishing direction can tremendously boost speed and performance.

Have I over-driven my team? Even high performing teams are going to need a break. Pushing your team past the point of exhaustion too often can result in irreversible damage to physical stamina and mental focus. Knowing the right time to take a break is a mixture of intimately knowing both the team and the trail.

Knowing the team will clue you into them. Are they exhausted or just bored? Are they distracted? Does something have them spooked? Knowing the team will keep you from misinterpreting their energy or mental state.

Knowing the trail / terrain gives you valuable insight into where to push through and where to stop and rest. For instance, you may want to ask your team to continue on through a known difficult section before resting – that way when they are rested and fresh – they can run the next (easier) section with more energy and faster performance times. Again, knowing your team – gives you the insight to know if they prefer to push on through this area or prefer to be fresh and which choice will maximize productivity.

Is the sled overly burdensome? A team carrying twice the weight is unlikely to be the fastest. Saddle your team with a high degree of bureaucracy, regulation, emotional baggage, or wearisome corporate policies and watch the life drain from them. One of our greatest gifts that we can give to the team is to let them run with as little restriction as possible. The vast majority of players on the team want to run, they want to do the right thing and achieve the right results. Continuing to throw hurdles and obstacles in front of them will make the race more like a steeplechase than trail race! Look for ways to get out of your people's way and let them run!!!

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly:

Is the Team's attitude a reflection of mine? There is a very pointed dialog in the movie Remember the Titans, when one of the football players pushes back on the captain by saying, "Attitude reflects Leadership, Captain.

As leaders, our attitude and even our body language can transmit to the team. The "vibe" they get from us can either be contagious (if it's good) or infectious (if it's bad). Our team is, almost always, a reflection of our stress level, our relational interaction, and our attitude. Nothing can poison the team's will to run like a leader with a poor attitude or negative mind set.

As I've said before, none of our talks on how to make the team's performance better is meant to knock you down or depress you. My heart is to help call some of these things to your attention – so that you become response-able. Your team's performance is within your realm to inspire and improve! Goodness knows, I've not always been as good of a leader as I am today – and there are days that I still drop the ball for my team – but that's leadership – we are human – we're not going to get it right every time.

That's why, "Great Leader's strive for Excellence, not Perfection!"

Team Health always starts with the Team’s Leadership

If, as my mentor John C Maxwell quotes, "Everything rises and falls on Leadership" then I have to accept that wherever the team's health is today can be attributed to leadership decisions of the past and their health tomorrow rests on the leadership decisions of today. So my first question when attempting to diagnose the reason behind a team's health (or performance) issue is, "Am I the problem?"

We'll mush through part one of the questions that I take in the discovery process today and cover the second part tomorrow:

Is there something that my team has needed that I have not provided?

This can be detailed into many different sub-categories such as financial provision, training, empowerment, opportunity to provide feedback, and even to my interpersonal responsibilities of affirmation and connectivity. So I walk down more detailed questions:

Have I built my team strategically? Teams that are built with purpose and players that are placed with purpose (with the insight of interpersonal team dynamics) are much less likely to fight 'Team Health' issues. Creating a team full of superstar, individual performers may prove to be no match for a good, cohesive team. The superstars may spend so much time fighting each other or fighting for the limelight that they fail to remember the mission and the PURPOSE behind the race.

Have I trained my team for the journey? A rag-tag, undisciplined, untrained team usually only wins in fairytales and children's movies. Sled Dog teams are trained canine athletes – that are trained just like any other top tier athlete in the world. If they have not been trained for the situation – we cannot expect them to perform at the professional level. One of my favorite sayings is, "Amateurs practice until they get it right, professional practice until they can't get it wrong!"

Have I invested the time to create team synergy and buy-in? We can't, always, operate a team that we have a long and purposeful relationship with but, over a period of time, we can't neglect the immensely important factor of relationship and buy-in. When they buy-in to you and when they buy into each other – they buy into the race and will run with greater purpose, greater commitment. We'll unpack more on Buy-in in a latter blog.

Have I empowered my team? Nothing frustrates and de-motivates a team of highly trained, highly capable athletes more than an insecure leader that either tight-reigns the team or won't set them free to run with the liberating communiqué of, "Hike!"

Have I resourced my team? The team is going to need to eat – to feed on the right fuel physically, mentally, emotionally and they are going to need the right equipment. Malnourished dogs can't run – and it they don't have the right footwear or outerwear they are going to suffer injury or hypothermia and the race will be over!

Questions can be painful – but they can also be insightful and beneficial to leading us to a higher level of performance and achievement!

Here's to team health – that starts with looking at us, as leaders, first!

Team Health

Overcoming obstacles and facing down the storms is mission critical for successful teams. However, not all teams are successful and many are downright sickly. It is one of the musher's top priorities to create and maintain a healthy team.

In Chapter 6 of IDITAROD LEADERSHIP, there is a female, professional musher(Lizzie) that is giving instruction to the novice mushers and going through a time of Q&A. The exchange picks up with Lizzie answering a question around team performance. She responds:

“Adjustments with me and/or my plan are going to relate to conditions on the trail such as bad weather, is the trail icy or snow covered, or even is there a lack of snow. In recent years, we’ve had a lack of snow in some parts of the trail. The condition of the team, also, impacts the strategy. Some dogs might be fighting illness, do I need to drop them? Are there dogs not pulling their weight or who are causing problems with the other dog? Is another competitor pushing me? If you have any of these conditions and you don’t evolve your plan of action, you won’t win. Pure and simple. In some cases, you may not even finish the race.

Now my interest was piqued(Michael thought) and so he asked, “So, wait a minute. Is it hard for you to drop a dog?”

Lizzie replied, “Make no mistake about it, I love my dogs. I’m committed to my team. But if a dog’s not performing or it’s in their best interest health-wise to drop them, I have to drop them. I’m not willing to sacrifice the rest of the team, or the race, for one dog. I have to make the hard decisions and it’s just a part of mushing.”

This exchange leads the discussion to Team health and it’s many different areas. Is it the team? Is it players within the team? Is it team dynamics? Does it relate to the Mental, Physical, or operational components of the team?

If your team pulled into a checkpoint and were, immediately, evaluated for their health – where would the negative reports come from? What would be positive?

Underperforming teams come in many shapes and sizes. If your team falls into this category – are you aware of the why? It may be easy to see the symptoms, easy to look at the numbers and tell the team they are not measuring up, but do we know why?

The position of the Musher (being behind the team) is an incredible place to monitor the health of the team. From their vantage point they should be able to discern, not only the effect, but the cause. Discernment becomes a key leadership competency.

Is the team lazy? Are the mentally fatigued? Are they undertrained or improperly trained to handle the conditions of the race you're in today? Is the team in complete disarray? Are they resistant to your leadership? Or are they simply bored and lack purposeful motivation.

I would like you take some time to just consider you team - have you thought about their health? I know (or at least hope) you've looked at the performance numbers, but if the performance numbers are not where they are supposed to be – how do we trail back to the causes of the less than desired results?

This week we unpack the health of the team and work to increase your skills of discernment, care taker, veterinarian, and finally, performance coach. It's going to be a great week.

The Psychological Power of overcoming

Whatever you yield to – is what you give power to… Yield to the obstacle or difficult situation and you give power to it – stare it down and overcome it and the power becomes yours – not just for the day – but for your entire future – it is a stake in the ground that you will continuously point back to and say – on such and such date – in this situation – I faced down the giant and I won.

Every situation builds on the previous. Failure and defeat can lead to more of the same – every time you give in – you shrink – every time you endure or conquer – you grow!

In the historical Chronicles of the leaders of Israel, as well as children folklore – they tell the story of David. You have probably heard the tale of David killing Goliath. This Teen had the courage to take on someone purported to be towering over all other men in the Israeli Army – and was not even being confronted by the King. What gave David the courage to confront this enemy?

David was a mere shepherd boy – a kid who watched his family's sheep. What did he know about being a warrior?

What he knew – was how he grew!

While watching the sheep – a lion approached the herd to kill and eat a sheep. David confronted the situation, grabbed his sling, put in a rock and flung it directly at the Lion. The rock hit the target and the Lion was defeated. At another point – a bear attacks in a similar manner and David – growing from the situation of overcoming the Lion – leaned on that victory and defeated this Bear. So when faced with this Giant (Goliath) – David had grown to the point of being able to point back to previous (lesser) successes and say with all confidence – I defeated the Lion, I defeated the Bear – this is just another similar adversary – that will fall to the ground. And just like what we talked about earlier this week – he faced the storm. In fact, the records say that he ran TOWARD Goliath.

The rest (as Paul Harvey would say) is history…

Step by step – one obstacle at a time – feed your inner power – feed your inner energy and face down the obstacles and enemies.

What gave Lance Mackey (3 time Iditarod winner) the courage to overcome his obstacles? What gave Dee Dee Jonrowe courage? What gave Lance Armstrong power? They overcame disease and the rest could seem like child's play.

What do you need to face? What can we help you face? You need to overcome this obstacle – face down this enemy – because it's not just an enemy of your path – your race – your day –it's an enemy of your future – an enemy of your soul!

Fight the good fight – stay in the battle – kick this obstacle in the teeth – and stand with those that have slain Giants in the process!

Turning on the light

When you're running the race and darkness has closed in around your sled – you can stay on the sled and worry about the darkness, think about the darkness, talk about the darkness – or you can turn on the light!

When running the race at night, mushers will turn on their headlamp. It allows them to see things they would not otherwise see AND allows others on the trail to know they are there. In business, part of moving from fear to persevere is to move things from the unknown to the known. This process is "turning on the light" where there are only shadows and where fear or discouragement is running high.

When fear and uncertainty grip us, we need to move as quickly as possible to unraveling the mystery and revealing the trail conditions. As leaders, this process is rarely pleasant, but it's our sled, our team and our responsibility.

When moving to turn the light on a "dark situation" pull over to a checkpoint or create a camp site and walk through the following:

Look for the 'You are here' circle on the map.

Assemble the team and list out all knowns on a white board. This is probably not the time for the timid to hold their peace. From a personality stand point, those with the greatest knowledge through analysis are, also, usually introverted and may dislike confrontation. This means that you are going to need to give them permission to be rigorously honest and work to draw the information from them. Use communication that lets them know that their honesty and communication are vital to save the team from harm and they are not hurting the team – but may be providing life-saving information.

Don't "Beat the dogs"

Reacting negatively or exploding on the team as they are giving you vital but unpleasant information will only serve to hurt you long term. The rest of the team will certainly withhold their opinions and the next time there is negative information they will let you take the hit, instead of being beaten for trying to help you.

List out the trail choices.

With the help of your team, run through all the possible scenarios (trails), follow each to their natural conclusions, consider best and worst case.

MUSH!

Pick the best trail, given the existing knowledge and start running. If you stay put, you'll freeze to death. If you choose a wrong path, but you start soon enough, you will discover the error and make the needed correction! And if you get it right – you've saved valuable time and options. Problems rarely work themselves out and delaying decisions only limits the options. Great leaders make decisions timely and change them quickly if need be. Mediocre leaders change their decisions so slowly, they reduce their probability for success.

OWN the choice.

You are responsible for your life and your team. What that means is that you are Response-able. You are Able to Respond to whatever the situation is and work to yield the best results possible. When I say you're responsible – I'm not discussing whose FAULT the situation is – only that you have the power, the ability to respond in that situation to work and move to the best possible outcome!

Be open, honest, collaborative, and empowered. When the storms hit (when, not if) we have more safety in numbers…As the Proverb goes, ".. in the counsel of many, a ruler's throne is made secure"

Turn on the light! You are Response-Able!

Owning the right perspectives on problems and obstacles

No one can affect your thoughts on a situation or event, unless you let them…

So now we are to the "How?" question. If the problems and obstacles are there to help separate the tenacious competitors from the casual competitors, how do we own the right mindset?

1. Check the mindset

When you are in the middle of a battle, pause and ask yourself "what am I thinking about this situation?". It seems silly to ask you to do this – but the purpose of the exercise is to give you momentary pause to "check your thoughts". It will interrupt your thinking about the situation and allow you to think about your thinking. What am I thinking? Are they the right thoughts?

2. Keep the sled light

Keeping the sled "light" means I don't pile other events on my sled. The times that I have the most trouble with my "mental game" is when I find myself connecting unrelated events. I have an obstacle or fail to meet an intended result and I, immediately, start to fight thoughts that tie every other failure in my life to this situation. This situation is THIS situation. If the thoughts attempt to spiral you into rehearsing of all previous failures and short comings, try to arrest the process – STOP THE RUN AWAY SLED!!!!

IF (and it's a big if) you discover through looking at the situation that there are some bad patterns or choices that do connect some dots – then work to identify the pattern. That's it – Identify the pattern and work to correct that pattern. Your "lot in life" is not to ALWAYS be the losing sled. Start owning the mindset that you can win – even if you've never won before – there is always a first!

3. Evolve

If you remember, the Evolve stage is where we look at the lessons learned, understand the needed course corrections and immediately work to implement the changes into our daily running. John C Maxwell has an incredible book called Failing Forward and it is, absolutely, recommended reading. One of the take-aways from this book is that when people fail – they usually forget the lesson that they should have learned and hold onto the emotional pain of the failure. He goes on to counsel that we should forget the emotional hit from the failure and work to remember what the failure will teach us. This has led to an internal mantra for me that echoes – "Learn the lesson – forget the pain"

This doesn't mean that we don't remember the hit – we just don't allow it to become emotional baggage that weighs us down – remember point # 2 – keep the sled light! I am a firm believer in pain being one of the chief teachers in life – we want to avoid the pain – so we don't do whatever action caused us the pain last time. It doesn't mean we choose not to race again – it means we improve – we get better and we try not to make the same mistake twice.

4. The Champion's mindset

What would the top competitors be thinking in this same situation? In order to change the outcome – we have to change our action. In order to change our actions – we have to change our thoughts and beliefs.

Consistently asking yourself, "What would the best leaders think and do in this situation?" can lead you to an elevated thinking, action and outcome.

But the first step is to take ownership of this area (your thoughts are your thoughts) and a thought cannot be removed – it can only be replaced with another thought. Whether that thought is good or whether that thought is self-defeating is up to you.

Choose with me to "Own" the winning mindset today!