The image above is from a flight I piloted earlier this year.
If you don’t speak “pilot,” let me highlight what’s going on in this photo: We are level at 5,000 feet with an airspeed of 118 knots (center instrument, left) and the engine is loafing along at 22 inches of manifold pressure (lower right).
The unusual thing? Our ground speed is 148 knots.
Yes, mother nature provided a 30 knot tailwind which shortened our trip by hours.
The topic today is how to manufacture your own tailwind for your strategic programs in 2022.
To create a truly robust plan, I’m going to share a framework with you that will allow you to see your current team environment and context more clearly. These insights will help when you have the opportunity to choose team members and also facilitate your talent effectively.
Done well, this “last mile” planning and enabling of talent can make the difference between pushing into a headwind or making the financial breakthrough that your plans call for.
Step 1 – The Key Growth Competencies
You know in your bones that each team member is unique – yet without a common set of vocabulary and framework, it’s very hard to build a productive team environment.
However, when these differences in your team members are brought forward in a way that allows growth and positive team interaction, powerful results can occur. Miss this step, and it’s highly likely you’ll get sub-team performance, which (at best) will slow your time to cash. And at worst, will derail the team entirely.
I use a four icon set of competencies to help teams quickly learn about themselves, and most importantly, their natural interface patterns. To get started on this journey, you can check out this article:
Step 2 – Breaking Away: Building Multiple Teams That Execute with Excellence
Once a group has found its feet, a frequent next question is about multiplying our individual and team capacity for adding value. Frequently, I have a client who has one world-class team (i.e., “Michelle’s team knows how to get it done, they consistently exceed our expectations.”)
Gains that are anchored on an individual level are fleeting. The problem, is that when Michelle moves on to a new role (perhaps during the great resignation), the team moves backward to its initial (pre-Michelle) performance level.
A much better path is to intentionally build a team that transcends the performance of the individuals by equipping them with skills that make the output more than the sum of its parts.
This article provides some tools for both individual and team growth:
Step 3 – Next Level Coaching
The next steps on this journey is about how we do the alignment and engagement work at the next level: How do we become aware of those differences and blind spots and engage in honest and authentic dialogue that creates extraordinary fresh gains by the group?
This last piece takes the application up a notch (it’s the “501” class, if you will) and will give you a glimpse into how to see and utilize these insights to find personal and team blind spots, along with some coaching on how to begin removing them:
Wrapping Up
Discovering and putting team insights to work is some of the most challenging and rewarding work that a team is capable of doing.
If you are interested in becoming the most effective leader you can be for your team, please take advantage of my 20-minute, no strings coaching call where we can connect and help you find the resources that will make this next year amazing.
If you’d like to talk more about how to complete the valuable work of developing powerful individual and team development, I’d be happy to talk. Please reach out to me at 847-651-1014 or use this link to set up a short call.
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