Pointing in the Right Direction

If you’ve ever had the joy of coaching T-ball, one of your first jobs was to explain the rules of the game to these young kids. Inevitably, some of them have never seen (or at least never paid attention to) a baseball or softball game. So you describe the concepts of outs and runs. You tell them that runs are scored when someone goes around the bases without being put out. And if you’re not careful, one of the kids will enthusiastically run the bases – the wrong way. I hope that every person on the team that you lead is equally enthusiastic about his or her role and about “winning” at your mission. But enthusiasm doesn’t mean that they’ll always run the correct way. As the leader, it’s your job to point them in the right direction. Doing this requires you to: –       Be clear about the mission. You must know in your own mind what a “win” looks like for your organization. This means that you must have clarity about the vision and have meaningful metrics to indicate whether you’re making progress. –       Communicate effectively. Vision and metrics aren’t enough – they must be communicated clearly to the rest of the team. One of the challenges for the T-ball coach is explaining the game in a way that 5-year olds can understand it. Your team members are older and more mature, but the communication burden remains on your shoulders, just as it does for the coach. –       Redirect team members. Despite the coach’s best efforts, T-ball players still run the wrong way sometimes. The wise coach knows the results of saying nothing (they’ll continue to run in the wrong direction) or erupting in anger (you end up mopping up tears). Leaders let their teams down when they’re unwilling or unable to have these challenging but essential “performance redirection” conversations. (The newest offering in my consulting is PerformanceCompass^®, an interactive seminar that equips you to do this effectively.) I’m sure that you want to have a winning team. As you think about these three requirements, how are you doing as their coach? It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>