Tag Archives: teamwork

March 3, 2014 · 12:18 pm

That Won’t Work

Since Mondays are days of new beginnings (“does the work week actually ever end?” you ask), let’s begin with some thinking on starts.

Not just start-ups, since there are starts everywhere in business. A project, a deal, a meeting – they all represent new beginnings.  As we start whatever those journeys may be, we need a few things. Most important, we know to have some sense of where we’re heading and how: objectives and strategies in business-speak.  We need to understand that there may be detours along the way that will require us to adjust some things – maybe a delivery date, maybe tactic, maybe even the entire place to which we’re heading.

Where many businesspeople get into trouble is when they maintain a firm determination to get to wherever it was they set out disregarding the detours.  That’s silly.  So is the opposite – seeing all of the possibilities and refusing to firm up one’s focus.  If the purpose of the enterprise or project can’t be expressed clearly and definitively, there’s a problem.

As a leader, your job is to define the mission, assemble the team to accomplish it, instill confidence, and provide whatever resources your team requires to get to the destination.  If you project an attitude of determination and success, your team will as well.  If you’re unclear or scared, your odds of success drop dramatically.  You don’t need to have all the answers; you do need to believe that the answers are within the team’s grasp.

One of the hardest things you need to be able to do is to say “Stop the car – we’re lost.”   Telling the team “that won’t work” feels like a loss since it’s an admission that something has gone wrong.  Not true.  “That won’t work” can mean the situation has changed or that you’ve learned enough from what you’ve done so far to recognize adjustments are required.

The leaders and businesses that fail are the ones afraid to admit something won’t work out loud and then to adjust.  Great leaders see the need and explain it to their team clearly.  Which will you do?

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February 28, 2014 · 9:46 am

Pickles And Pizza

At last it’s Foodie Friday Fun time.  Today I want to contemplate pickles and pizza and how they relate to your business.  I’m a fan of each of those foods although I will admit to being rather fussy about the latter.  That stuff they serve in a pan in Chicago isn’t pizza.  It’s good, but it’s not pizza.  I’m careful when I choose to eat one – thin crust, great sauce, and whatever I choose to put on it needs to be fresh and/or of high quality.  I’m less fussy about pickles although I don’t really care for sweet ones.

Since you’re already wondering about the business point it’s this.  Even if you got your perfect pizza and a jar of your favorite pickles, you probably wouldn’t put the pickles on the pizza.  I’m told that in some parts of the country people do but pickles are probably not the first pizza topping that comes to mind.  Business is like that.

We do our best to find the best ingredients – great staff, a fabulous product or service, a superior business model – but we don’t often think about if they’ll go together.  Moreover, there is a tendency that once you realize that you have pickles and pizza to panic.  Maybe even to start over.   I think that’s a mistake in many cases.  Am I advocating a pickle pizza?  No.  I do think, however, we need to broaden our thinking.  Pizza is basically a grilled cheese sandwich with the tomato soup in which they’re often dunked already on the sandwich.  You’d eat a pickle with that, right?

We can also think about the pickle.  One can pickle any vegetable pretty easily – pickling liquid is just a spiced brine, after all.  Why pickled cukes?  Maybe peppers – you have those on pizza all the time.  Or cabbage – kimchi is a pickle and I have seen that on pizza.  That’s how we need to think in business.  How can I change whatever frame of reference has my business not performing optimally?

Business isn’t about looking at pickles and pizza and throwing your hands up in disgust.  It’s about rethinking each piece  – dough, sauce, seasoning, pickle – and finding a way to make it work.  How can I make things or people or markets that just don’t seem to fit work together to make something in which the flavors mesh and everything is balanced?  That’s how I see it.  You?

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December 11, 2013 · 11:17 am

Winter Driving Can Help Your Business

We had our first significant snowfall yesterday and it’s very cold (26 degrees as I’m writing this) here.

photo by mark(s)elliott on Flickr

It’s going to be cold and icy the next few days so it means switching into winter driving mode.  Unless you live in a place that’s warm year ’round, you should probably be aware of some winter driving tips offered by the AAA.   Of course, as I reviewed them, they seemed like pretty good business tips as well, particularly with respect to operating in adverse conditions.  Let’s see what you think.

Avoid driving while you’re fatigued. Getting the proper amount of rest before taking on winter weather tasks reduces driving risks.  How many of us come to work exhausted when we’re under the gun?  As much as we can we need to get away from work and recharge in times of crisis.  That might seem counterintuitive, but how much we don’t work in a crisis can impact how effective we are during it.

Never warm up a vehicle in an enclosed area, such as a garage. Many of us tend to shut down or closet ourselves away when stress hits.  Bad idea.  When we’re working quickly, a fresh set of eyes can help catch the errors we don’t.  Be open, seek help.

Make certain your tires are properly inflated.  How many times have you needed to get something done and a critical system such as a computer goes on the fritz?  The quiet times are when we need to make sure our support systems are working.  When was the last time you defragged that hard drive anyway?

Never mix radial tires with other tire types.  This is about team building.  Just as mismatched tires won’t function together to keep you safe, a team whose members are incompatible with one another won’t perform well under stress.

Keep your gas tank at least half full to avoid gas line freeze-up.  Little things like running out of printer paper can kill you.  Do the checking long before you need to print those 30 copies of the deck (unless you like a mad dash to Kinkos in the middle of the night…).

Do not use cruise control when driving on any slippery surface (wet, ice, sand).  Don’t assume that you can let your team, which has always performed well, run on their own during a crisis.  Conditions have changed.  You’re the boss – drive the car!

Always look and steer where you want to go.  That sounds silly – where else would you look?  But it’s imperative that we avoid distractions and stay on task in a difficult business situation.  Think about the last time you were in one and got off-track with a silly side issue.

Use your seat belt every time you get into your vehicle.  When conditions are becoming adverse, we need to be sure that we’ve protected ourselves before those protections are needed.  Lawyers would tell you that’s why you document everything, even with partners with whom you have great relationships.  I’d tell you that communicating with your team, making sure they’re trained, and developing accurate reporting systems are the business equivalents of seatbelts.  Use them!

What other winter driving tips can you think of that might help in a business situation?

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