Teamwork | All About Being "Emotionally Agile"

November 7, 2017

Make Minor Adjustments

Last Sunday I found myself at an unlikely place. I spent the day at Texas Motor Speedway and got the chance to meet Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, and Tony Stewart. One thing that I knew going into the event was that some of those guys more than their fair share of fans and “haters.”

Part of the race experience for me that day was the opportunity for a very intimate question and answer period with Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer who would strap in and race later that afternoon. We also got the chance to listen to Tony Stewart tells stories and talk about his life in retirement from NASCAR racing. I am not a big NASCAR fan. But I really enjoyed the Q&A session and it provided a leadership lesson that I don’t think Kevin Harvick intended to provide. He just provided a bit of an inside look at the complex nature of modern racing and the importance of making minor adjustments.

The need for getting the best out of ourselves and our equipment

Kevin Harvick discussed his qualifying runs earlier in the week and how he felt the #4 car was performing. After his final qualifying run, he felt that he was about two and a half tenths of a second from where he needed to be to be competitive on Sunday afternoon. He said, “I told Tony (Stewart) that I have one-tenth of a second still in me and I can squeeze that out on Sunday. And after we tweak the lubrication (the Mobil 1 oil) I know we can get at least another tenth and a half from the oil.”

The importance of two and a half tenths of a second

Something about that “two and a half tenths of a second” kept bouncing around inside my head on Sunday. I thought about it all the way home from Fort Worth to Houston. So, I did a little math. Here is what that two and a half tenths of a second means to a professional race car driver like Kevin Harvick.

Harvick’s average speed for the race on Sunday was 187.415 miles per hour.
At that speed, he is traveling 277 feet per second.
In .25 seconds he travels 69 feet.
The race was a 500-mile race.
500 miles is 2,640,000 feet.
69 feet represents .00002614 percent of the total length of the race.

Do you see that? Harvick is concerned about only 69 feet of a race that is more than 2.64 million feet in length. But .00002614 is the difference between winning and coming in somewhere else back in the pack.

What is the Leadership Lesson?

Continue reading “Make Minor Adjustments”

March 23, 2017

The Value of Team Briefings

We have many communication options these days – phone calls, faxes, emails, text messages, and so on. You can even communicate with just a single emoji. Who hasn’t sent a message to someone that was just a single emoji? (And, I bet it was probably the little “poop” emoji. wasn’t it?) Sometimes it seems as though traditional, face-to-face meetings are disappearing. In fact, it looks like the more options for communicating that we have available, the less real communication occurs.

The Value of a Good Team Briefing

I often say, “I am a B.A. guy in a B.S. world.” By that, I mean that I am probably one of the only individuals at my place of employment without a Bachelor of Science degree. Most are engineers. My degree is a lowly Bachelor of Arts degree. And it is in Mass Communications. And, finally, it is from a fairly unknown school. However, I have leveraged that little degree fully throughout my career. And one of the things that I recall about the communication process is that it has 3 parts and not just 2. We often think of the “sender” and the “receiver”. But we often forget the all important “feedback”. And unfortunately, feedback is extremely hard to discern outside of face to face communication. And even then it is hard to discern its real meaning.

So, for today, let’s look at Team Briefings and what role we have as leaders in that setting. And let’s consider the characteristics and benefits of well-run team briefings. Continue reading “The Value of Team Briefings”

March 15, 2015

Three Circles of Leadership

A few weeks ago I took a look at the ancient roots of strategic leadership. In case you missed that article, click here and you can get up to speed with my stream of thought that leads us to today’s article.

Socrates observed similarities between businesspeople and generals. Socrates was convinced that a meaningful parallel existed in a businessperson’s focus on profit and loss and the military general’s focus on victory and defeat.

In order be successful as a strategic leader, you must first understand your responsibilities as a strategic leader. Picture, if you will, three interlocking circles: “Task, Team and Person.” Each circle represents an “area of need” that you must master, and each skill contains proficiencies that overlap with the others. Consider these three: Continue reading “Three Circles of Leadership”

August 10, 2013

Do it, ditch it, or delegate it

Here is one of those great little maxims that I heard many years ago and I solemnly avowed and affirmed that I would live by it until my dying days.

But, as I look back on it and examine how well I adhered to that little maxim . . . It seems like not so much.

The principle expressed in this pithy little statement is this.

When presented with a choice, a document, a task or a decision – handle it immediately in one of the following manners.

Do it! — That sounds simple enough. But procrastination is something that comes naturally to the human species. This is especially true for those choices or tasks that have particularly unpleasant undertones.
Ditch it! — This also sounds simple. But many of us suffer from bouts of indecision. We often times cannot make up our minds that this just isn’t important to the overall goals and therefore should be jettisoned for the more important tasks.
Delegate it! — Another simple sounding thing. For those of us who have a staff that we can actually delegate something to, we often choose to handle the task ourselves.

So, what are the leadership implications of this little phrase? Continue reading “Do it, ditch it, or delegate it”

March 20, 2013

Courageous Teams

We recently took a look at the collective courage or cowardice of a team. And we noted that much of the collective courage of a team is drawn from the leader. But we would be incorrect in assuming that courage is inbred. It is a developed over time and through withstanding hardship and challenges.

Unfortunately, many brave leaders convey the impression that this is how they’ve always been. Whether or not they were born brave, bravery seems to come naturally to them. Even if it does not, it appears to be so.

For teams it is no different. Teams, like individuals, have to learn to be brave and to stand strong in tough times. It is imperative that they can communicate with each other about what this developing shared bravery looks like. And the courage must be communicated in terms of what it looks like within the context of that team’s experience.

What is the leadership principle here? Continue reading “Courageous Teams”

March 12, 2013

Collective Courage or Cowardice

When you list adjectives that describe a leader, what words would be on that list?

For many of us, words like strong, determined and courageous would probably be near the top of the list, don’t you think? We like our leaders to be brave and strong and determined. Everyone loves a heroic character.

When you list adjectives that describe a highly functioning and successful team, what words would be on that list?

Are they the same sounding words? Continue reading “Collective Courage or Cowardice”

November 13, 2012

On Any Given Sunday

I am doing something this year that I have never done before. I am participating in a fantasy football league. It is an odd thing really. I don’t particularly care for professional football. But that is the subject for another time.

Currently I am in sixth place out of a league of ten teams. I am diligently trying to set my roster in such a way as to give me the greatest chance of success. A very good friend is managing another team. He is in last place.

And here is the odd part. One of the teams really isn’t being managed at all. In fact, the team was selected randomly and the roster has not even been tweaked since the opening weekend of football. He has made zero, zilch, nada changes to the roster. And that guy’s team is in seventh place! So you see, I am only slightly better than a team that was picked at random and is running on autopilot.

Now what does this little story have to do with leadership?

It has to do with a certain saying or cliche in our culture and in the football world. The saying in professional football is “On any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team.” That is a paraphrase. But it is close enough. The thrust of the saying is that it is quite possible for even a less skilled or talented team to beat a better team. Mostly that is due to some random acts of weather and referees and how the ball tumbles and fumbles. And my little fantasy football league at work certainly bears that out. In fact the totally random team has a better record than 2 other teams that are trying very hard to compete and win each week.

So, as coaches, managers and leaders do we just let things happen by the luck of the draw? Do we just stand on the sidelines and watch the game as though we are spectators? If we do, we may not be in first place, but clearly we aren’t in last place.

No, I think this situation with the fantasy football is a bit of a statistical anomally. I firmly believe that studying the opponent, fielding a well trained team and exploiting any opportunities or mistakes that the other guys make is a better formula for success than idle randomness. And leadership is all about assessing the situation and leading a team to victory in an active and deliberate manner.

So, what do you think?