The Great Eight: Chemistry
Chemistry is the last of our eight characteristics of great teams. This is the most difficult of the eight characteristics to write about as it’s the one I understand the least. I believe we can teach you how to grow the other seven characteristics how to pursue clear...
The Great Eight: Grace
Grace is a unique aspect of great teams. It’s also something that is seldom talked about by experts in team performance. Do you remember what we meant we used the term “grace” at our offsite where we explored the eight characteristics of great teams? The definition we...
The Great Eight: Knowing Yourself and Others
If everyone were just more like me, the world would be a better place—or at least my organization would be—or at least my team would be. Besides being an entirely narcissistic statement, it would not be the case that if our teams simply had more uniformity, they would...
The Great Eight: Talent
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) In order to be a great team, there are specific tasks that need to be done very well. The word “talent” describes what is required in order to achieve each of these tasks with...
The Great Eight: Trust
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) As I write this post, there are 6,289 books on trust available under the Business and Money category on Amazon. What can we possibly add to all that wisdom? Maybe nothing. But please...
The Great Eight: Communication
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) Communication is truly one of the key characteristics of great teams. Effective communication is rarely identified as a strength in the teams I’ve had the privilege to observe over the...
The Great Eight: Commitment
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) In Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he lists five characteristics of a dysfunctional team. One of those five is “the lack of commitment.” When people have not had...
The Great Eight: Common Goals
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) Imagine you are running a race. All the runners gather together, stretching muscles, bouncing on the balls of their feet to warm up, drinking a last few sips of water, popping in their...
The Great Eight: An Introduction
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) Throughout our year together in LEAD 365, we focused on three "buckets" of leadership—three areas that great leaders need to focus on: Being a person worth following Creating clarity...
Shaping Culture Again and Again
(This post is written for alumni of LEAD 365, although all are welcome to read it.) We’ve just spent time taking our sixth and seventh cohorts through our session on shaping culture. We took one group to one of our favorite places to teach this, Feyen Zylstra. We took...