Team building is a popular topic for seminars and conferences. Great leaders want to keep growing their ability to lead and build great teams. Inexperienced leaders look for a way to get better.
I have been fortunate to attend many of these events and I have also run some myself. One of the universal criticisms from attendees is that the ideas and motivation seem to fizzle out over time. They leave motivated but then find themselves back into their normal routine without lasting improvement.
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Everyone wants to be perfect. We all want the world to fit into our idea of perfection. This causes us to view the world in a very biased way and makes it challenging to take action when things are less than perfect.
But in the real world this idea of perfection doesn’t exist. There will always be multiple variables and layers of complexity. There will be connectedness to other elements and people and we have to stop trying to define perfect in the traditional way.
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In order to accomplish a goal we have to take action. We have to understand the work involved and make a consistent effort towards that goal.
Yet time and time again we miss that crucial part. We get caught up in the results we hope to achieve.
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I was reading an article the other day that talked about leadership. It said that leadership is a set of principles. It argued that if we just know these, then we would be instantly transformed into a great leader.
But this is terribly misleading and incredibly irresponsible advice. It certainly fits with the mindset that says we can sit around and do nothing and success and riches are just something that will be handed to us because we somehow deserve it.
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Striving to achieve a goal relies on addressing the underlying aspects of our lives. We have to be aware of, and improve, the systems and habits that drive our behaviors, our thoughts and our decisions.
When evaluating systems and habits, I use three criteria. First I want to see if a system is simple. This doesn’t mean there isn’t any complexity but it does mean that it is not unnecessarily overcomplicated. Are the aspects of the system as simple as possible? Without simplicity, it is extremely difficult for a system to be effective.
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Team building is something most of us are familiar with. We tend to think of some group exercise or training to discover our strengths and then working together collaboratively to solve problems.
But most of us don’t look at team building systematically. We might attend a training session or read a book about leadership but we have a difficult time going from lesson to implementation.
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Yesterday I decided to take advantage of the nice spring weather we are having and I took a walk on my lunch break. Being in downtown Cleveland, there are a lot of places to walk to and see and it makes for a relaxing break from work.
As I was walking down E 9th street I saw a man walking with a dog. I see quite a few dogs downtown on my walks but I noticed that this was a working dog. The man was blind and the dog was helping to guide him around the city.
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When we want to improve in an area or reach a specific goal we have to set goals based on the process of reaching that goal. In other words, we don’t just pick a random number to shoot for; we investigate what it will take to make progress and then work to implement small systematic steps to get there.
There are various ways to look at systems. In product development it can be common to look at interdependent or integrated systems and contrast that with modular systems.
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My natural tendency when I start to slack off on my goals is to feel guilty. I used to use this to try and motivate me to get back on track.
I assumed that feeling guilty would push me towards my goals and that I needed this extra motivation if I was going to stick with it enough to achieve whatever metric I set.
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One of the advantages of taking the slow, systematic approach towards improvement is that it allows for flexibility. By utilizing the principles of systems and habits we can account for life’s natural ebbs and flows.
Flexibility is very important because no matter how much planning we do, there will be things that change. Unexpected obstacles and competing priorities make it difficult if we have too rigid of an approach.
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One of the areas of improvement that can easily derail my efforts is to spend too much time judging my progress. Because we tend to set goals based on the outcome we hope to achieve, we want to have metrics and analysis to show that we are heading towards success.
The focus shifts from making slow progress towards our goals, to judging if we are getting there fast enough. The times when I have been caught up in this were times I failed. I would abandon what was working because it wasn’t working fast enough, and switch to something that I thought would work quicker but didn’t actually work at all.
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The other day I was reading an article that talked about how startup tech companies have gone mainstream. The article pointed to these and tried to make the argument that more startups need to be able to scale to succeed.
The article used typical examples such as Facebook and Dropbox. It tried to make the argument that if we can help more companies achieve this level of success, then we can significantly improve the economy.
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Recently I grabbed a new book to read from the library. I read the title and thought it could be an interesting look at graphic design elements of big brands.
The book is called Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility, by David Butler. Instead of a basic overview or even an advanced look at design, the author takes a deep look at systems and explains the systematized elements of the Coca-Cola brand.
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When I was younger I had a bad tendency to avoid difficult tasks. I would try to find a shortcut or any easier way to do something.
It didn’t matter if the difficult situation was one that was good for me long term and teaching me a valuable lesson, the only thing I could think of was to try and get rid of the uncomfortable feelings of being outside of my comfort zone.
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When we strive to reach new heights and accomplish new goals, we can usually define our goals and visualize the rewards for achieving our goals. We can understand what it will mean to be successful and find examples of times when others accomplished similar goals.
But time and time again we overlook the work necessary and the lifestyle changes we will need to make in order to succeed. When setting goals we have to realize that the invisible drives the visible.
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The value of positive thinking is well documented. Recently I was having a discussion with a friend about presidents. He shared with me that there are a large number of presidents that died on July 4th.
Initially I was skeptical so I did a little research and found this to be true. Throughout the history of the United States, there are numerous presidents who died on July 4th.
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There is a famous quote by Helen Keller that says, “Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” This quote has a lot of meaning in my life and I have referred to it quite a bit for motivation.
But I think the simplicity of this quote leaves a vagueness and openness to interpretation. At times this seemed to provide me motivation to take a chance on something. Other times it seemed to follow the discontent mindset that always needs more in order to be happy.
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The other day I overheard someone say “it’s always darkest before dawn.” I missed the majority of the conversation but caught enough to catch the meaning. They were insisting that the bad times they were experiencing were going to lead to good times.
We have all probably heard that saying. We can even go online and find the origin and criticisms of this quote. We can even find myth-busting websites evaluate it scientifically.
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f we need change in order to grow, why do we avoid change? We all know that we need change and we need challenge in order to improve and grow. But it isn’t as simple as just seeking constant change.
The reason change is often uncomfortable is because change tends to involve stress. If we start changing major aspects of our lives we will start to feel an increase in our stress levels.
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