6 Keys to a Winning Team

1. Strong Leadership

Most important key to a winning team is ... Strong Leadership. Why what is leadership? Dictionary says, position of a leader, ability to lead. Leader: a person who leads, directs commands or guides. So what is strong leadership? What qualities must they have?…Passion and Responsibility. Why? Passion to inspire others to act. Like a high I, excited enthusiastic. Responsibility so they take it for their actions so will always keep trying and admit mistakes. If you aren’t willing to handle failure you will never succeed.Imagine there were 16 cylinders to a person. How many do you think body and mind make up? 3 each. Is that most important? What about heart and spirit? How many for these? 5 each. Which is best to hire on? What do councils hire on? Just the body! If you have heart and spirit will you strive to learn and grow as a person? So will they learn the skills necessary even though they may be less than they need to be? So what do you think the difference is. Ones a manager and ones a leader. People will always follow a leader but not always a manager.Perturbation. People simmer like water. People hit the wall. Need pressure to go through the wall. Then can handle more pressure after it. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. To get a championship team to perform there must be pressure. How often have you seen it in sport. Need to have pressure to get them through the wall. May let off steam in emotion.Cycle of Business. What’s the normal cycle of business? Which way is the cycle? In a great business this is how it works. Leader looks after team etc. otherwise customers are looking after the team.

2. Common Goal

2nd Key to a winning team is…. Common Goal. Why? Often in business every team member has a different vision of the team. So it’s a bunch of individuals doing their own thing pulling against each other.Goals give a vision for the business. With no dreams the business can die. It gives no focus of where the business can go. It enrols and inspires. The team needs to have a sense of where the business is going so they can get inspired as well. You want the team to have their heart and spirit involved. So need to be… Setting Goals. Why personal goals for the business and ourselves? They give us… direction and focus. Movement and momentum. It’s about the person you want to … become. A bit about goals. They need to be…. SMART.

3. Rules of the Game

3rd Key to a winning team? Must know the rules. Who must? Everyone! You must know the…Standards to work live up to and work to. Must know what’s normal practice. Must be written down. If not why not? Everyone in the team needs a standard. What’s the normal thing in the business? (It’s the CULTURE you set up.) When the standards start to lift people don’t keep up to them and drop off. Like the old rotor at Luna Park that spins around. After a while there are only 2 people left. For a business to improve what really has to improve? The people! People are the business. Therefore for it to improve it must change. For it to change people must change. Some people don’t like change or resist it. They will be left behind. Sometimes you have to help people to leave. You must always keep raising the standards. Which sets up a…Loose Tight culture. People are loose and have room to move and grow, which means can make mistakes and not blame others for it. Take responsibility. So content of the game is loose. The rules are tight which is the context. If you were dropped onto a playing field with a helicopter and were blindfolded and told to start running with the ball what would you do? Why? Is that similar to business in that the team doesn’t know the goals or where they are so they can’t start running. Same happens when a new person starts, they don’t know what’s normal or standard so it takes them a long time to get going. And team can just amble about looking at each other. So you need to know the goals for the business. It either grows or dies. Which leads to the…

4. Action Plan

Next Key to a winning team which is… An Action plan. Which is about…Your Action Plan… Who Does What by When? Which leads into more specifically…Your Action Plan… Positional Contracts, Systems Manuals, Your Plan and so on… You need to have them for the team as well as the new people coming in. Then they can get up to speed very quick.

5. Support Risk Taking

Next key to winning team is? Support Risk Taking. Why? Go to expect to lose a few. But is success about trying one thing or many? Be allowed to make mistakes, only way to learn because… a break through can follow a break down, break apart, break with and break up. So after a defeat can come victory. The greatest athletes have failed more than anyone else.There is a Japanese word for it… KAIZEN, which means, constant and never ending improvement. If you look at growth under s microscope it looks like, growth plateau, growth plateau etc. you must always be trying to improve by taking risks, stretching the comfort zone setting goals every week. If you don’t take risks you don’t improve. You need a loose culture.

6. 100% Involvement\inclusion

6th key to a winning team is… 100% involvement and inclusion. If one person loses you all lose. Must be win: win. It creates… NO COMPROMISE and RESOLUTION