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#Leadership : Accelerate Your Understanding Of Teams With These 3 Facts… What are the Differences between a Group and a Team? Here are Facts you Should know to Accelerate your Understanding of Teams.

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If you don’t think teams are important, you’re living in a bubble . In the interdependent and technological world of today where the increasing pace of change is constant, teams are the lifeblood that drive better (read sustainable) business. Nobody is smarter than everybody, and while people certainly work beside others in the workplace, they rarely work with them. Here’s what I mean.

top view, group of students together at school table working homework and have fun

The difference between a group, where people work beside one another, and a team, where people work with each other, is this: there is no mutual accountability in groups, no shared purpose. Groups are essentially clusters of people with individual agendas who have their own definition of “winning.” There are no shared consequences and no accountability. Teams, on the other hand, depend upon each members’ efforts because they’re aligned toward a common purpose. Teams are guided by shared leadership and share a mutual understanding—and therefore accountability—of team roles, responsibilities, the scope of work to be accomplished and the purpose for which the team exists.

Here are three more fun facts you should know to accelerate your understanding of teams:

Teams adapt to circumstance. Teams are living, breathing organisms that change and morph over time depending on the task at hand. Not every team is—or should be—structured similarly, as the team’s mission will dictate team typology. If, for instance, a deadline is approaching and time is of the essence, then the team leader may assume a more “command and control” type of role where she goes point-to-point with each team member to ensure follow-through and timely delivery. If a team is in transition (i.e. rotating roles, new members) then there may not even be formal leadership as members try to figure out the best fit for 1) the team and 2) each member.

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Team dynamics are everything. What goes unsaid in meetings is oftentimes more important than what is. The challenge for organizational leaders today—and every day for that matter—is observing the social dynamics that fly beneath the radar—not because the leaders themselves are unobservant, but because running a team meeting and focusing on the agenda while also observing the unsaid intricacies of non-verbal communication is too much for the brain to ingest. If you’re running a meeting, for example, you’re focused on tasks and you simply don’t have the mental bandwidth to observe and reflect upon each members’ actions and how they impact the team as a whole. The problem is this: when social dynamics aren’t addressed then questions go unanswered and follow-on hallway conversations become the norm because there was either an unwillingness to address the dynamics in the first place or a lack of awareness to know they even existed.

Teams are valued, but rarely understood. Most companies claim they value teamwork but few really know what great teamwork looks like. If teaming was clear, then there would be more team-based rewards rather than corporate incentives that promote individualism. Here’s an example. While sales teams claim to be a “team” they’re typically incentivized as individuals. Meaning, that bonuses aren’t allocated based on the collective efforts of the team but rather the individual wins of each sales person, which only leads to sales reps encroaching on others’ territories, stealing others’ clients and doing everything they can do to promote themselves because that’s what they’re rewarded for.

If you want to understand how businesses operate, start by understanding the essence of teams.

Jeff is the author of Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations and former Navy SEAL who helps business teams find clarity.

Forbes.com | July 25, 2016 | Jeff Boss

#Leadership : Why We Seem To Be Talking More And Working Less — The Nature Of Work Has Changed….The Real Reason That we Communicate More is Because, Today, we Need to Collaborate More to Be Effective.

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Are communication technologies like Slack, Yammer and Skype actually helping us, or just getting in the way? Certainly, they have made it easier to communicate, share information and collaborate with colleagues, but what if all that extra communication is actually preventing us from getting important work done?

Free- Iphone with Gadgets

In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, Bain & Co. partner Michael Mankins estimates that while a typical executive in the 1970’s might have received 1,000 messages a year, that number has skyrocketed to more than 30,000 today and argues that we may “have reached the point of diminishing returns.”

I think just about everyone can see his point. Today, the amount of meetings, emails and IM’s we receive can seem overwhelming and it’s increasingly hard to find uninterrupted quiet time to focus and concentrate. However, the nature of work has changed. The real reason that we communicate more is because, today, we need to collaborate more to be effective.

 

Today, Machines Do A Lot Of The Work For Us

First, consider how different work was 20 years ago, when Microsoft had just released Windows 95 and few executives regularly used programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We largely communicated by phone and memos typed up by secretaries. Data analysis was something you did with a pencil, paper and a desk calculator.

Now consider how Mankins performed the study he described in the article. He writes, “My colleagues at Bain and I have studied these effects using people analytics and data mining tools.” It’s safe to assume that all that data was collected and analyzed electronically and shared instantly with the press of a button.

It’s also safe to assume that he and his colleagues spent quite a bit of time discussing what the results of all that analysis meant. 20 years ago, they would have had to set up a meeting or a phone call when they were all free, but today, they can toss around ideas between meetings, in airport lounges or even while waiting for an elevator.

As Mankins himself wrote in an earlier article, “Today, an algorithm can assemble many more facts about the accounts than any human being could easily process.” The truth is that we’re increasingly collaborating with machines to get cognitive work done and so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re taking more time to discuss that work with each other.

 

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Problems Are Becoming Much More Complex

Another thing to take into account is that the work we do today is far more complex. Would Mankins have even undertaken his study without the “people analytics and data mining tools” made available to him today? Possibly, but it would have been significantly more onerous.

It’s also important to note that the trend toward greater communication is not just visible in industry, but in academia as well, where we can assume that researchers have more options to work quietly and without interruption. Yet they are increasingly choosing to work in teams and those teams outperform solo performers.

The journal Nature recently noted that the average scientific paper today has four times as many authors as one did in 1950 and the work they are doing is far more interdisciplinary and done at greater distances than in the past. It’s hard to see how any of that could happen without the improved communication technologies we enjoy today.

Clearly, technology is enabling us to tackle problems we wouldn’t have dreamed of addressing a generation ago. To work on these challenges, we are increasingly collaborating in teams and our work has become more social and less cognitive.

The Value Of Sharing Information

In the past, communication was often just chit chat. Valuable information was locked away in file cabinets and, if we could find it, we would have to make a hard copy in order to share it with anyone else. Yet today, even teenager with a smartphone has more access to information than a highly trained specialist a generation ago.

For a typical executive, the effect has been even greater. The new technologies that make up the Internet of Things collect information automatically from a vast array of sensors embedded in just about anything you can think of. This data, in turn, is analyzed through the use of other technologies, like Hadoop and Spark, to help us make sense of it.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re discussing all of the information we now have access to. We can glean new insights, share them with others and they can reply with insights of their own. The result of this collaboration is often even more collaboration, as we pull people in with a greater diversity of experience and expertise to get their take.

That doesn’t seem like wasted time to me. The truth is that nature of work is changing. The office is no longer a place where we access information—today, we can do that anytime, anyplace—but rather a place where we access people. It’s where we can meet face to face, communicate non-verbally as well as verbally, build stronger working relationships and collaborate more effectively.

Collaboration Is The New Competitive Advantage

To be fair to Mr. Mankins, his greater point—and the subject of much of his other writing—is that we should put more thought into how we adopt and use our newfound communication assets. Surely, we all spend time attending meetings, getting pulled into conference calls, reading and responding to messages that could be used more productively. And that’s frustrating.

However—and this is a crucial point—we don’t know those interactions will be fruitless until we actually have them. Further, while it’s easy to remember the frustration of having our time wasted, it is not much harder to recall times when we have come across a random thread of information that we were able to capitalize on by sharing with colleagues.

It is also those chance encounters that often lead to bigger things, precisely because we are able to share them, get diverse viewpoints and mobilize the efforts of others. Increasingly, we live in a social economy with collaboration at its center. It is no longer just efficiency, but agility and interoperability that makes firms successful.

So, while I take Mankins’ point about the potential for new communication technologies to unproductively monopolize our time, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, the cacophony of the constant barrage of communication can seem distracting at times, but it can also open up new worlds of opportunity. That is, if we are paying attention.

Greg Satell is a US based business consultant and popular speaker. You can find his blog at Digital Tonto and follow him on twitter @DigitalTonto.

Forbes.com | March 6, 2016 | Greg Satell

 

#Leadership : 5 Signs Your Leadership Style Is Too Soft…There’s Huge Pressure on Leaders to Keep Employees Engaged & Inspired & to Create Workplaces that are Fun & Fulfilling. But Sometimes these Initiatives Go too Far & Bottom-Line Business Results Suffer.

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There’s huge pressure on leaders to keep employees engaged and inspired and to create workplaces that are fun and fulfilling. But sometimes these initiatives go too far and bottom-line business results suffer. Leaders turn overly soft and are so focused on making people happy that they forget to help employees be productive and efficient.

Free- Focus on Work

There are four fundamental leadership styles: Diplomat, Pragmatist, Idealist and Steward. Leaders can be effective or ineffective within each of these four styles, but one style in particular is at the greatest risk of being too soft—the Diplomat. (There’s a leadership styles assessment to determine your own style.)

Diplomats prize interpersonal harmony. These leaders are kind, social, and giving, and typically build deep personal bonds with their employees. They’re often known for being able to resolve conflicts peacefully (and for avoiding conflicts in the first place). Working for Diplomats has been described as being more fun and social than working for other types of leaders. Diplomats put less emphasis on challenging their employees, focusing instead on putting their people in positions that leverage their strengths so they can reliably achieve success. And traditional measures of employee satisfaction are often very high for Diplomats.

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Working for a boss with a Diplomat leadership style can be an amazing experience. (Read more about all the leadership styles in my Forbes article“Which Of These 4 Leadership Styles Are You?”) But if any of the Diplomat characteristics sound similar to your leadership style, you want to make sure you don’t go to extremes. Here are five signs that your leadership style has become too yielding…

1. A 5-Minute Conversation Turns Into 50 Minutes

Imagine you give an employee a highly specific bit of constructive feedback (e.g. “this report is too long, shave off 1,000 words”). It’s the kind of feedback that requires no more of a response than “I got it, I’ll fix it now.” Now imagine that even though the feedback conversation should be done within 5 minutes, you find yourself engaged in a lengthy conversation with the employee about why they fell short, how that makes them feel, and why you’re somehow to blame for their mistakes.

Has that ever happened to you? If the answer is yes, that’s a good sign that you’ve become too appeasing. It’s good to encourage dialogue with your employees and it’s great when they feel comfortable sharing. But when employees believe they can talk themselves out of being criticized or held accountable, that’s a problem.

There are times when an employee just needs to say “I’m sorry. I messed up. I’ll fix it immediately.” That’s not indicative of a dictatorial environment; it’s usually just a sign of an efficient and accountable operation. There are some conversations that should be five minutes and done. So when you regularly feel like five-minute conversations are turning into 50-minute therapy sessions, that’s a strong sign that you’ve moved from approachable to acquiescent.

 

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2. Your Meetings Get Off Topic And Take Too Longg

Have you ever been in one of those meetings where a few of the big personalities just dominate the conversation? They talk louder than everyone else, including you. All you hear are their thoughts, their ideas, their yeas and their nays. The quieter employees feel totally shut out from participating. And even when you try to rein them in, they manage to barge right through and keep dominating.

Ideally meetings are value-adding forums where all invitees participate. Isn’t that why you called all those people into the meeting in the first place? Yet, when we struggle to control the loudmouths, when they don’t respect our authority (formal or otherwise), it’s a sign that we’re not being forceful or commanding enough.

Of course people should talk. Intense conversations can signal a healthy team. But there still needs to be someone in the room with enough power to keep the conversation on track, on time and thoroughly professional.

3. You Regularly Mediate Employee Conflicts (Instead Of Employees Solving Issues Themselves)

It’s troubling when a leader is regularly sucked into employee conflicts. In an ideal world, employees would act like adults and resolve conflicts themselves, reserving the boss-as-mediator for only the most serious issues. But when a leader has become too accommodating, employees quickly figure out that they plead their case to the boss and the boss will intervene on their behalf. It’s actually quite similar to the games that our kids play; whether it’s “ma, he’s looking at me funny” or playing one parent off another.

When the leader has a no-nonsense, ‘suck-it-up’ reputation, these manipulations are rare. But when the leader is seen as overly accommodating or appeasing, these games will be a frequent occurrence.

4. You See The Same Problem Multiple Times

There isn’t an organization on the planet that doesn’t have employees who make mistakes. That’s the price of doing business. But when you see employees making the same mistakes again and again, that’s often a sign that they haven’t gotten the message that they need to improve. And that’s often the result of employees believing that their gentle leader won’t really follow through on enforcing consequences.

I’m not suggesting that leaders move to the opposite extreme, where employees are risk-averse and paralyzed by fear of being fired. That’s every bit as damaging. Rather, the effective leader will find the middle ground of mistakes may be inevitable, but we all must strive to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly. Employees need to know if they don’t take their mistakes seriously, and work diligently and earnestly to improve, the consequences will be more than just a leader’s look of disappointment.

5. Employees Aren’t Learning New Things

One of the biggest leadership tests is: are your people learning new things? Because if they’re not, they’re not growing and developing and it’s a likely sign that your leadership style is too soft.

Making sure that people learn really isn’t that difficult. Once a month ask your people “Hey, what’s something you’re better at now than you were last month?” If they don’t have an answer, follow up with questions such as, “What would you like to get better at this next month?” and “What new skills are you going to have to develop this next year to reach your big goals?”

Give your people HARD Goals that challenge them and push them outside of their comfort zone and let them know that you believe they can do it. What’s interesting to think about is when you ask leaders, “What were the most significant goals you’ve ever achieved in your life, were they easy, or were they hard? The answer is always hard. And yet, those same leaders give employees too easy goals that are achievable and realistic and then wonder where the greatness is.

The best goals are not the ones that sit totally within your comfort zone. The best goals activate the brain and get the most neural activity going in a positive way. These are the goals that are 20 to 30 percent outside of your comfort zone, where you can look back on that goal and say, “Honestly, I wasn’t even totally sure I could pull that off. It was a doozy, but I’ll tell you what, I learned a ton.”

Conclusion

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestselling author, founder of Leadership IQ, aleadership training speaker and creator of the leadership styles assessment.

 

Forbes.com | February 11, 2016 | Mark Murphy

 

#Leadership : True Grit: How My Team Learned To Thrive In The Face Of Adversity…Business is a Game of Dramatic Ups & Downs, Especially for Teams that are Trying to Create Something New or Bring about Meaningful Change in a Stagnant & Complacent Market.

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It’s easy to feel a bit bipolar at times. Some days you’re on top of the world, and other days you’re just trying to stay alive. How a team manages these swings, and the periods of adversity in particular, is what separates successful businesses from failures.

Free- Stones stacked on each other

Every business encounters adversity. It’s one of the few constants that you can count on and it can be all too easy to allow these setbacks to get you down, discourage your efforts, and extinguish the fire that keeps you going. Good leaders recognize this fact but find the courage and wherewithal to help their teams avoid these pitfalls.

I’m not an expert on many things, but one area where I have plenty of experience is dealing with adversity. At BodeTree, my team and I have had our fair share of failures, strikeouts, and unfair situations. Despite these setbacks, however, we always keep moving forward. We’ve learned to use adversity to our advantage, and it all comes down to one trait: grit.

Remember that character is king

Grit is just another word for strength of character. An individual or team who displays grit is someone who can take a hit and just keep on going, no matter what. It’s this resilience that enables successful teams to avoid the pitfalls of depression, lethargy, and apathy that people tend to run into when faced with adversity. It may seem like grit is an innate virtue that people people either are born with or not, but this isn’t the case. Grit can be developed, just like any other skill.

Developing grit in yourself is difficult; trying to develop it in others is even harder. It takes equal parts understanding, compassion, and dedication. Over the years at BodeTree, I’ve learned that grit starts with intellectual honesty and the ability to face your fears. Leaders looking to foster gritty teams can start by fostering an environment of transparency and trust. When team members know how they’re being judged and what the expectations are, they’re more willing to be honest about shortcomings and face their fears. If team members feel as though their next mistake will be their last, anxiety sets in and people tend to crumble in the face of adversity. Leaders must create an environment that encourages grit and resilient thinking across the board.

 

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Turn anger and frustration into something productive

If you’ve developed a gritty team,  you can use adversity and challenges to your advantage. There are only two ways to handle bad situations; you can accept what happened and roll over, or you can get mad. I’ve found that turning the other cheek is rarely productive in business. Instead, I like to work to focus the collective anger and frustration of my team into something productive and transformational.

We’ve faced some difficult situations at BodeTree over the last few years, including deals and partnerships falling through at the 11th hour. The news can be devastating at first, but it can also be motivating. We’ve learned to let our feelings of self-pity give way to righteous indignation. We channel our anger into productivity and let it renew our passion to bring about change. For us, succeeding in our space is no longer a matter of business or strategy; it’s personal.

I’m fortunate to have such a dedicated and gritty team. The adversity we’ve faced could have derailed us, robbing the team of its drive and dampening our will to move forward. Lesser teams would have crumbled, but we’ve managed to turn adversity into an advantage. Our anger and resilience pushes us forward and gives us purpose. We’ve become a team hell-bent on advancing constantly, uninterested in anything short of total market dominance.

I hope that our experience can serve as an example for other teams. You will face adversity in your endeavors no matter what they are, that much is certain. Just remember that success isn’t determined by whether or not you encounter challenges, but rather by the way you respond to those challenges. Leaders of teams must work to developing grit, both in themselves as well as the people they lead. The resilience that results will enable individuals and teams to transform anger and frustration into a powerful motivator that can you forward, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

 

Forbes.com | February 15, 2016 | Chris Myers

 

 

Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a web application designed to help small businesses manage their finances.

#Leadership : 8 Ways to Not Only Survive But Prosper Around Negative People…To Be an Manager/Entrepreneur, you Have to Have a Thick Skin & Not be Defensive to Customer Feedback & Constructive Criticism. On the Other Hand, No Manager/Entrepreneur should Tolerate Negative Vibes & Complainers on their Own Team.

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The challenge is to understand the difference between these two situations — and to respond effectively to both. You can’t reinforce negative thinking and stay positive.

Free- Locks

Related: People Hating on You? Here Are 4 Ways to Use That Negative Energy to Your Advantage.

Even active listening to negative team members and partners, as you would with customers, will perpetuate the toxic habit. In addition, the other members of your team may become infected with the same negativity and will erode the passion and innovation that you need to compete and survive. In my experience, good entrepreneurs proactively minimize negativity as follows:

1. They stifle their own occasional negativity in front of the team.

We all get frustrated when the economy turns against us, investors can’t be found or a customer turns into a nightmare. In these cases, you must keep your thoughts to yourself, and be the role model for positive creative solutions. Your team will practice what they see and hear.

2. Extract and highlight potential positives from every negative.

If your team is struggling with quality problems before shipment, remind them that it’s great to have found these problems before customers could be impacted. The alternative is that everyone, including yourself, will eventually feel defeated and de-energized.

 

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3. Turn responsibility back to the complainer and ask for solutions.

Sometimes, team members are frustrated and just want to vent, so asking them to bring you solutions, not just problems, will set a more positive tone and may circumvent future negative outbursts. For those who don’t learn, it’s time for swift job reassignment and performance counseling.

Related: Stressed at Work? Ditch the Drama Already.

4. Don’t accept excuses for any negative outcomes.

Excuses are a way of not accepting full responsibility for actions, if there is a negative outcome. Even worse, some people believe negativity is a way of impressing everyone with their wisdom. Make sure that complainers understand from your reward system that excuses don’t mitigate failures.

5. Restrain from engaging complainers at their level.

If none of these approaches work, it’s better to defer the discussion to another time and place with no emotion. Trying too hard to convert people to the positive view will likely result in you becoming the target, or permanently breaking the relationship. It’s better to listen in silence.

6. Remove yourself physically from a toxic environment.

Presence without engagement may be taken as tacit concurrence, so it’s best to exit the situation to somewhere neutral and quiet. The last thing you need is to be brought down to the same level, and lose your ability to provide positive leadership to the team.

7. Overlook occasional lapses in yourself and others.

Even the best professionals and leaders find themselves being negative occasionally. It’s human nature, in times of stress, when people are physically or mentally exhausted, or multiple deadlines loom. The challenge is to make lapses less frequent as a habit rather than more frequent.

8. Build a personal negativity shield from your confidence and passion.

All business leaders as well as innovative thinkers learn to deflect negative energy with an invisible cloak that allows them to move forward despite negative feedback from the crowd. They continually remind themselves of their vision to make the world a better place.

When negativity is positioned by team members as constructive criticism, be sure to ask for the constructive positive part of the message, offered in a friendly manner. Living with complainers in any business is a burden you don’t need, and it impacts everyone’s performance and mindset. Just as a positive mindset is infectious and brings the whole team up, a few negative ones will sicken your whole team and jeopardize your business. You can’t afford that kind of help.

 

Entrepreneur.com  |  February 2016 | Martin Zwilling

#BestofFSCBlog : #Leadership – 7 #LeadershipMistakes To Avoid. Great REAd!

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It’s that time of year again—time for everyone, young and old, to make resolutions to better themselves in the upcoming year. And, taking a look at the resolutions lists we write, a lot of people tend to focus on positive “dos”—actions to take or new habits to form so that their health, attitude, or workplace is better in 2016. But undertaking a new action isn’t always quite enough to net a positive change. Think of it this way: just because you’ve resolved to take the stairs every day doesn’t mean you’ll lose very much weight if you don’t ditch your afternoon Snickers bar.

So we’ve got a different take on resolutions. What if you focus on breaking old bad habits instead? We’ve compiled a list of mistakes you won’t want to make next year if being a better leader is on your list of resolutions, and we challenge you to avoid these seven leadership mishaps throughout 2016. Your team (and company) will thank you.

1. Only focusing on the big picture

It’s true—great leaders communicate the big picture vision. It’s how they inspire people to strive for goals that are far off into the future, or still somewhat vague. But the best leaders also know that it’s a rookie mistake to fail to outline small goals for their people to achieve along the way. Creating smaller milestones helps leaders measure progress and reward results as the big picture comes more into focus. Don’t make the mistake of only communicating the high-level vision. Instead, plan out a path to success so your team has a roadmap instead of just a destination.

 

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2. Not delegating the work

This one’s a classic. Everyone’s had at least one micro-managing boss who is overly absorbed in small details and too controlling to allow team members to take the reigns. Avoid this pitfall by delegating work smartly. Give team members assignments according to their interest and expertise—or, even try letting them volunteer for tasks themselves. It will communicate your trust to the team, and alleviate tensions that result from heavy-handed management.

3. Failing to applaud small wins

Every big win is an accumulation of many smaller wins. So why would you let those everyday successes slip by unnoticed? Keep a stack of cards at your desk so you can write a thank-you note when someone goes above and beyond for you. Bring in a treat for the team when you know they’ve been pulling some extra weight. Your appreciation will go a long way. In fact, research shows that timely, meaningful recognition is the no. 1 thing that empowers employees to do great work.

4. Communicating poorly

There are a lot of ways to fall in this category. Wordy emails, lack of transparency and oversight, not having an open door policy…these are all surefire ways to be a bad communicator. Work on your communication skills—from your management style to your attitude—and you’ll see a transformation happen within the team. Leaders who are good communicators inspire action and innovation, and foster the kind of teamwork and creativity that drive results.

5. Setting yourself apart

The worst leaders are the ones who believe they’re better than everyone else—and they don’t bother to hide it. To avoid giving this impression, take the time to get to know teammates. Learn about who they are, their families and passions, and what drives them. Organize team lunches and team building activities. You could even simply move out of your corner office so that you’re closer to the team in the work environment. When teams know and trust one another, great things happen. And the first step to getting there is leading by example, and showing that teamwork and camaraderie are priorities.

6. Discouraging innovation

Maybe you try to be supportive of creativity, or you encourage team members to weigh in on important decisions. You may think that you’re fostering innovation. But if you’re not giving people room to tinker, try things out, and make mistakes, then you’re not really opening the door to true innovation. Be vocal about which projects your team can take their time on and really try to innovate new solutions for—and when (not if, since occasional failure is inevitable) things don’t work out, be supportive instead of upset. Your team will see that you’ve got their backs, and they will bring their best knowing you support them.

7. Forgetting to celebrate the milestones

Given the hectic schedule of 21st century professionals, you may think it’s not a big deal to forget a birthday or work anniversary here or there. But it is. In fact, it’s inexcusable, especially given the whole suite of organizational tools and apps you can use for reminders. If you’re still not on the tech train, write the important dates on a team calendar and post it somewhere everyone can see it on a daily basis. Research shows that milestones are important occasions to celebrate and appreciate your coworkers—employees of all generations around the globe agree. Learn how to show your appreciation appropriately, and you’re well on your way to becoming a fantastic leader.

Becoming a great leader isn’t all about the resolution list of “dos”. Eliminate these “don’ts” first to see the biggest impact. You may be surprised at how effectively they boost your team’s ability to collaborate, innovate, and deliver great work throughout 2016 and beyond.

Learn more about the NYT Bestselling book Great Work: How to Make a Difference People Love.

 

Forbes.com | January 8, 2016 |  David Sturt and Todd Nordstrom

#Leadership : Why this CEO Makes his Executive Team Climb a Mountain that has Claimed more Lives than Everest…CEO Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani Has his Leadership Team do Something More Adventurous than Gathering at a Cushy Resort.

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Like a lot of big companies, the Japanese internet giant Rakutenused to host annual offsite retreats where all the executives would meet at a golf course to connect and talk strategy. About seven years ago, that tradition changed radically.  CEO Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani tells Business Insider that he now has his leadership team do something more adventurous than gathering at a cushy resort.

Rakuten Tanigawa 4

CEO Hiroshi “Mickey” Mikitani.

Instead, execs now meet on Mount Tanigawa every year, a Japanese mountain that hasclaimed the lives of more climbers than Mount Everest.

Despite that jarring death toll, Mikitani decided to change the company offsite after hiking the mountain with his young son. Although the climb is difficult, some trails, including the one Rakuten employees take, are less dangerous than others.

Mikitani sees the tradition as the perfect way for execs to get to know each other better through a non-conventional bonding experience. Even more importantly, the struggle to make it to the top altogether symbolizes the idea of working through company difficulties as a team.

Rakuten Tanigawa 3RakutenCompany executives climbing through the fog. “Rakuten always goes to the peak,” Mikitani grins.

 

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One other exec who has climbed Mount Tanigawa several times gleefully told Business Insider that he almost died last year when he started sliding on the rocks under his feet. He almost careened off the side of a cliff before managing to grab onto a rock. His teammates and their guide then threw him a rope he used to climb back onto the path.

Rakuten Tanigawa 2 (1)Rakuten

Although the offsite is all about team building and pushing boundaries, another exec jokes that it also acts as a good way for employees to stay in good physical condition through the year.

“The fear keeps you fit,” he laughs, saying that he would remind himself to go to the gym more often in the months leading up to the retreat.

Mikitani recalls one particularly memorable climb where he invited a journalist who planned to profile the company to join the expedition. After a grueling ascent and witnessing how execs continually pushed themselves and each other to the limit to make it to the top, the journalist, between his own tired gasps, apparently said, “Now I finally feel like I understand Rakuten.”

Rakuten Tanigawa 6Rakuten

 

Businessinsider.com | September 21, 2015 | 

 

#Leadership : We Don’t Need The Best People, We Need The Best Teams…Having the “Smartest Guys in the Room” Won’t Do you Much Good If they Can’t Work with Others Effectively. We Need to ReThink How we Approach Talent.

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All of this Points to a Major Change in How we Need to Recruit, Train & Manage People.  Many long-held practices, such as individual performance assessments and compensation will have to be reassessed. The best performers are no longer the hard driving executives that can impose their force of will, but those who can engender trust and encourage others to contribute.

 

The Navy SEALs, one of the world’s most elite fighting units, emphasizes teamwork over individual performance in its training and evaluation (image credit: Wikipedia)

In 1997, in a landmark article, McKinsey declared the war for talent.  The firm argued that due to demographic shifts, recruiting the “best and the brightest” was even more important than “capital, strategy, or R&D.” The report was enormously influential and continues to affect how enterprises operate even today.

Companies were urged to identify specific traits they were looking for, aggressively recruit and retain the very best performers and move quickly to weed out those who didn’t measure up.  Some companies, such as General Electric, instituted a policy of stacked ranking, routinely firing the bottom 10% of their workers.

Yet in a new book, Humans Are Underrated, longtime Fortune editor Geoff Colvin challenges this notion.  As it turns out, what it takes to compete in today’s world is not the best individual performers, but the best teams.  Having the “smartest guys in the room” won’t do you much good if they can’t work with others effectively.  We need to rethink how we approach talent.

 The Increasing Dominance of Teams

In the aftermath of 9/11, the CIA commissioned a study to determine what attributes made for the most effective analyst teams.  What they found was surprising.  As it turned out, what made for the most effective teams was not the individual attributes of their members, or even the coaching they got from their leaders, but the interactions within the team itself.

Managers have long sought to stock their organizations with great performers.  Hard working people who went to top schools, scored high on aptitude tests and had a proven track record of getting results were highly sought after.  Compensation schemes and retention practices were similarly geared to top performers.

However recent studies show that high value work is increasingly done not by individuals, but teams and those teams are increasing in size. Moreover, other research demonstrates that diverse teams outperform others that are more homogenous even if the more uniform units are made up of people with higher ability.

In fact, almost everywhere you look there is evidence that belies the central premise of the “war for talent” approach that McKinsey promoted and that so many organizations have adopted.  What’s increasingly becoming clear is the focus on individual performance was misguided. We need to shift our focus from individuals to teams.

 

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What’s Driving The Shift

At first, the new emphasis on teams, rather than individual performance, can be a little hard to swallow.  We’ve all seen great performers at work and marveled at their effectiveness, just as we’ve all seen real buffoons in action who can’t seem to tie their own shoelaces.  It seems far fetched, to say the least, that the former do not outperform the latter.

Yet in truth, very few people are stars or dolts, most sit somewhere in between and cognitive ability isn’t as consequential as it used to be. Consider the fact that an ordinary teenager with a smartphone has more access to information than even a genius working in a high-powered organization a generation ago and it becomes clear that talent is overrated.

So just as the industrial revolution devalued physical power, the digital age is reducing the importance of cognitive power.  Increasingly, we’re collaborating with machines to get work done.  Further, as the world grows more complex, expertise is becoming more domain specific, so we need to work with others to get things done.

The effect of teams is even becoming clear in fields that have long been considered in the realm of individual performance.  The National Transportation Safety Board, for example, found that 73% of fight incidents happen on the crew’s first day together, before they had a chance to build a team dynamic.  Another study showed that surgeons perform markedly worse at unfamiliar hospitals.

Building A Team Of Teams

Just as the individual capabilities of team members isn’t nearly as important as how they work together, overemphasizing individual team performance can hinder the performance of the organization as a whole. As he describes in Team of Teams, that’s what General Stanley McChrystal found fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004.

Although as the Commander of Special Forces, he led some of the world’s most capable teams, the interactions between them left much to be desired.  Commandos would capture valuable intelligence, which would often sit for weeks before a team of analysts would get to it.  Insights from analysts, on the other hand, often weren’t getting to the soldiers on the ground.

McChrystal saw that his forces had fallen into an efficiency paradox.  In their zeal to field the most capable teams hell bent on accomplishing their specific missions, interoperability suffered and the shared mission of the organization was being lost.  They were winning every battle, but somehow still losing the war.

So McChrystal took steps to network his organization, even if that meant slowing the individual teams down slightly.  For example, he took top soldiers out of the field and made them liaison officers—usually a role for those past their prime.  He also embedded analysts in commando units and vise versa.  The result was that overall efficiency increased by a factor of seventeen.

What Makes A Great Team?

Managers have long relied on assessments such as the IQ test to identify high performers and those scores do correlate highly with individual achievement.  However, the work we do today demands greater collaboration and the same individual skills don’t necessarily transfer to a group setting.  In fact, some high performance traits, like assertiveness, negatively affect teams.

To understand how to create more effective teams, scientists at MIT and Carnegie Mellon have identified a collective intelligence factor that predicts group performance.  Rather than hard driving “A personalities,” it turns out that high performing teams are made up with people who have high social sensitivity, take turns when speaking and, surprisingly the number of women in the group.

Another study found that successful groups exhibited behaviors that engender trust, such as facing each other while talking and making eye contact.  Colvin also pointed to further research, still unpublished, which suggested that team performance was hindered when people believed that their work was being individually assessed.

All of this points to a major change in how we need to recruit, train and manage people.  Many long-held practices, such as individual performance assessments and compensation will have to be reassessed. The best performers are no longer the hard driving executives that can impose their force of will, but those who can engender trust and encourage others to contribute.

 

Forbes.com | September 5, 2015 | Greg Satell

#Leadership : The Daily Habits of 19 High-Achieving CEOs …Success in Business & Life is All about Being Intentional About How you Use your Time.

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Think about the Most Successful People you Know. Chances are they Didn’t get Where they Are Because of a Lucky Break, but rather possess characteristics or a state of mind that sets them apart from people leading average lives.

 

Check out these quotes from 19 successful CEOs who credit simple daily habits for helping them get ahead in business and life.

1. Take a few 30-minute breaks to walk around the whole company and talk to people.

“Often I’ll overhear a problem that I didn’t know about that we’ll need to solve some day. And while [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][it may be] a bit nerve-racking to have the CEO running around asking questions at first, [you’re more] approachable over the longer-term as long as you don’t over-react.”

–Suhail Doshi, CEO of Mixpanel, an analytics platform for mobile and web that tracks 50 billion actions people take in applications per month to help companies gain insights into user activity.

2. Talk to at least one customer.

“I try to never let a day go by where I don’t speak with at least one of our current customers. No one is better equipped to let us know where our services are succeeding and failing, and where we can improve. This is also why we have a client success team, but hearing it directly from the horse’s mouth can provide greater context.”

–Michael Ortner, CEO of Capterra, a web service that has helped companies such as Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Home Depot find and purchase business software.

 

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3. Limit meetings.

“I never have more than five meetings in the average day and usually only two or three. The reason is I believe you can create a daily work life where you are too busy to grow. I spend much of the day just thinking about the business–the product offering, the sales and marketing strategy, the industry. Taking time to think about your business gives you the best chance of growing [it].”

–Matt Godard, CEO of R2Integrated, one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the country.

4. Don’t leave things for later.

“We tend to save the more complicated tasks for later, but that’s an efficiency killer. Solve things right away. This goes for emails too. Email still is the most used tool and by far preferable to phone calls. It has, however, the most undeveloped functions. Try to use the basic set of filters and sorting on your next batch of emails. It helps.”

–Serban Enache, CEO of global stock photo site Dreamstime.com.

5. Run to work and back.

“I bookend my day with exercise by jogging to the office and back. It’s a great way to clear your mind and get the creative juices flowing. Naturally you need a shower at work to pull this off and a reasonably short commute. It means exercise is built into each day, and it beats sitting in a car or a bus. Plus, audiobooks!”

–Jay Simons, president of software company Atlassian, which offers team collaboration products including JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, and HipChat, which are collectively used by more than 48,000 companies worldwide.

6. Wake up an hour early and stay up an hour late.

“I find that I have the most time for myself to think during the hours of the early morning as well as late at night. During the early morning, I often think about the priorities for the day ahead and what communications to the team I must relay in order to ensure everyone continues to be fully aligned and on the same page. Then, at night, as everyone else goes to sleep and the distractions of email and phone calls dissipate, I allow my mind the freedom to be fully creative and think bigger picture, exploring our organization’s vision for the future and the overarching path we will take to get there.”

–Tiffany Pham, founder and CEO of MOGUL, an award-winning technology platform for women.

7. Be willing to meet with anyone at any time.

“I meet with people–usually via phone and computer–at all times of the day and night. [It might be] 5 in the morning for meetings in India or Sunday night for meetings in Singapore. I find that without doubt the harder I work and the more flexible I am about meeting someone’s schedule, the more people I reach and the luckier I get.”

–Eric Frankel, founder and CEO of AdGreetz, a cloud-based SaaS platform that empowers brands such as Intel, NBC, and Toyota to deploy relevant, personalized video messages.

8. Work your to-do list.

“In the morning or the night before, I write down a to-do list, a sort of priority of what I intend to accomplish that day. As the day progresses I scratch off items completed and open room for others. I find this helps me keep focused on the most important goals and not lose sight of what I primarily intended to accomplish that day.”

–Payman Taei, CEO and founder of Visme, a DIY online tool that has empowered over 200,000 businesses and nonprofits create better presentations and infographics. He is also the founder of HindSite Interactive, an award-winning web agency that helps companies improve their online presence.

9. Work out hard every day.

“I’m driven when it comes to sports and fitness. I have a regular 5 a.m. workout consisting of Insanity, Asylum and a five-mile run regardless of where I am in the world and the time zone. Since so much of my job is unpredictable, the workout helps keep my mind and body fresh and at least I have a predictable start to my day.”

–Don Joos, CEO of global telecommunications company ShoreTel.

10. Be a servant.

“Once you get to any reasonable size, the team is running the company. Your job is to be a servant–to make sure people have the resources to do the job, to eliminate friction, and to drive the strategy that sets everyone up to succeed.”

–Greg Schott, CEO of MuleSoft, a software company valued at $1.5 billion.

11. Don’t be afraid of failure.

“The biggest mistake any leader can make is to avoid taking risks because they are afraid of failing. It’s best to fail fast, quickly learn and re-do versus wasting years in trying to perfect and losing a key opportunity. And, sharing the failures with your team is even more important as you build a culture that fosters out-of-the-box thinking without obsessing about the worst-case scenarios.”

–Faizan Buzdar, CEO of Convo, an enterprise-mobile messaging and collaboration platform used by 15,000 businesses and 25 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.

12. Leverage all of your staff.

“Understand that you and your sales personnel don’t necessarily have all the knowledge in the world. Constantly ask the company staff and external advisers, ‘How else can we be bringing value to prospective customers?’ There are always new clients and revenue models that can be explored and a holistic approach to BI and BD can provide substantial results.”

–Joel Zamel, CEO and founder of Wikistrat, which operates a global network of more than 2,000 subject-matter experts specializing in national security and geopolitics, operating on a virtual platform to conduct wargaming simulations and data modeling for enterprise clients.

13. Be a collector.

“I have always had a love for one-of-a-kind collectible action figures. It’s a great passion of mine. Maybe it’s something I do subconsciously to connect to my inner kid. It’s a great reminder to maintain a degree of levity and balance.”

–Moshe Hogeg, founder and CEO of Mobli Media, a technology company that creates products leveraging crowd-based activities that benefit people through content sharing and social media.

14. Exercise during your break.

“Science has told us countless times that sitting at a desk all day will doom our bodies to eternal suffering and not only will getting up and moving around during the day significantly lessen the damage, it also boosts productivity. Instead of simply taking my lunch break to eat food in another chair, I make sure to duck out at least three times a week to get my limbs stretched and my blood pumping. My personal favorites for this are a 45-minute spin class or cross-fit training.”

–Shaul Olmert, CEO and co-founder of Playbuzz, a free online content platform that enables publishers, marketers, bloggers, and brands to create, distribute, and embed quizzes, polls, lists, and other content on websites, social pages, or mobile apps.

15. Have pointless conversations.

“Especially when it comes to the fast-moving tech industry, it’s easy to fall into a trap where urgency takes over and every conversation, interaction, or meeting has to fulfill a particular purpose. While staying focused and effective is important, I’ve found it’s equally important to take the time to have pointless or no-action-item conversations with people about how they are doing and what’s going on in their lives. This is key in building a strong bond with the people in your company, but equally important, it allows you to learn more about the people you’re working with, and knowing what makes them tick will make you a more successful manager.”

–Tomer Bar-Zeev, co-founder and CEO of ironSource, a global technology company that helps developers connect with users across devices and platforms.

16. Cross things off the to do list, but don’t delete them.

“I was keeping a Google doc and just deleting things of the to-do list. However, it was difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment, especially on days when the list actually grew longer. I find that when you cross items off the list, and don’t delete them until the end of the day, that you see the progress and feel the satisfaction of moving forward.”

–Eric Narcisco, founder of Effective Coverage, a national online renter’s insurance site that recently launched a mobile platform for buying renters insurance via a partnership with Traveler’s.

17. Meditate every morning.

“I begin each morning with an hour of deep meditation. I’ve learned to remain calm when the world strikes a stressful blow, which happens frequently as a businessowner. It’s amazing how much easier it is to lead a ship through stormy seas when the captain is calm and confident. I can’t imagine my life or running a business without meditation.”

–Jeremy Hallett, CEO of online term life insurance company Quotacy.

18. Go out for coffee several times a week.

“I don’t even like coffee but it’s a great excuse to go out and meet people I can learn from, and hopefully, who I can then help in return. My network is the most important asset I have, but I have to work it by getting out of the office and meeting people. It’s how I raised $1.2 million in funding and met some of our big-name clients.”

–Kristi Zuhlke, co-founder and CEO of KnowledgeHound, a market research data retrieval and visualization technology that serves large consumer brands like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble.

19. Listen to podcasts.

“Every night I listen to podcasts that feature ideas on entrepreneurship, interviews with successful founders, or industry news. I’m a huge believer in lifelong learning, and I find these podcasts to be incredibly helpful in sparking new ideas, inspiring me to improve, and learning from the mistakes of others.” (His favorite: The Startup Podcast.)

–Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of online IT recruiter Hired.

What daily habits help you succeed in business and life?

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
PUBLISHED ON: SEP 2, 2015

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