Leaders as Team Builder

Nothing influences behavior more than your behavior at the top. You are the role model and your actions, not the slogans on the wall, will influence how others behave. A collaborative environment that encourages working together for a common purpose, within and among teams, is important to your organization's success. Here are some strategies that will make this happen:

Cultivate a cohesive team
- Know when to step in and when to stay out of team conflicts. A certain amount of disagreement is normal in any team. But if a conflict between two or more employees is polarizing the group, interfering with communication (for example, employees refusing to speak to or work with each other), or using up an unacceptable amount of time and energy, it may be time for you to step in. If you don't feel you have the skills to mediate effectively between employees (or if you feel that you shouldn't be involved), consider bringing in a skilled mediator.
- Plan occasional team events that let people get together without the pressures of work. These might be a monthly lunch to celebrate team members' birthdays or a semiannual off-site planning day that includes time to socialize. Be creative if you have budget constraints. Ensure that these are events that everyone can participate in.

Minimize the impact of a destructive team member.
If you inherit a problematic employee or hire someone who turns out to have negative effects on the team's morale, find out what is interfering with that person's ability to be a positive, productive worker.

- If the problem is solvable (for example, maybe the person would be happier transferring to another area), do what you can to resolve the situation.
- If the person must stay, make clear your expectations for improvement and, if necessary, what the consequences might be if no improvement is forthcoming.
- If you are simply stuck with a negative employee whom you can't terminate, do what you can to minimize this person's effect on others (for example, assign tasks the employee can do on his own).

Be loyal to your employees. Remember that loyalty is a two-way street.
- Be the voice of your team at the management table. If you don't promote their needs and give voice to their opinions, no one else will. However, ensure that your employees know it is your role to balance their needs with the needs of the organization.
- Share the credit with your team for its achievements and ensure that those above you know about its successes.
- Don't publicly point a finger when something goes wrong. If one or more team members have let the team down, address the situation with those people, but don't broadcast it at meetings or chastise the whole team for the actions of one or two.

Promote team problem solving
- Strike a balance between sharing with your employees challenges that they need to know about and burdening them with or dwelling on problems they can't do much about.
- Be accessible for consultation with your employees if problems arise, but don't micromanage. Encourage them to consult with each other for collaborative problem solving.
- Establish a guideline that whenever employees bring you a problem, they are expected to also bring you at least one possible solution.

Balance peak work periods with some rewards.
- Recognize when your people are putting in extra effort. Acknowledge and thank them in a way that seems appropriate. Many people appreciate handwritten notes from the boss.
- Give tangible rewards when it's practical and appropriate.
- Celebrate the completion of a demanding project. Acknowledge special efforts or contributions made by individuals, but ensure that the team is also recognized as a unit.

Source of Reference:
Bryn Hughes, The Leader's Tool Kit: Hundreds of Tips and Techniques for Developing the Skills You Need

Seven Communication Principles

To compose effective message you need to apply certain specific communication principles. They tie closely with the basic concepts of the communication process and are important for both written and oral communications. Called the “seven C’s”, they are: completeness, conciseness, consideration, concreteness, clarity, courtesy, and correctness.

Completeness

Your business message is "complete" when it contains all facts the reader or listener needs for the reaction you desire. Remember that communicators differ in their mental filters; they are influenced by their backgrounds, viewpoints, needs, attitudes, status, and emotions.

Completeness is necessary for several reasons. First, complete messages are more likely to bring the desired results without the expense of additional messages. Second, they can do a better job of building goodwill. Third, they can help avert costly lawsuits that may result if important information is missing.

As you strive for completeness, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Answer all questions asked.

• Give something extra, when desirable.

• Check for the five W's and any other essentials.

Conciseness

A concise message saves time and expense for both sender and receiver. Conciseness is saying what you have to say in the fewest possible words without sacrificing the other C qualities. Conciseness contributes to emphasis. By eliminating unnecessary words, you help make important ideas stand out.

To achieve conciseness try to observe the following suggestions:

• Eliminate wordy expressions.

• Include only relevant statements.

• Avoid unnecessary repetition.

Consideration

Consideration means that you prepare every message with the recipient in mind and try to put yourself in his or her place. Try to visualize your readers (or listeners)—with their desires, problems, circumstances, emotions, and probable reactions to your request. Then handle the matter from their point of view. This thoughtful consideration is also called "you-attitude," empathy, the human touch, and understanding of human nature. (It does not mean, however, that you should overlook the needs of your organization.)

In a broad but true sense, consideration underlies the other six C's of good business communication. You adapt your language and message content to your receiver's needs when you make your message complete, concise, concrete, clear, courteous, and correct.

However, in four specific ways you can indicate you are considerate:

• Focus on "you" instead of "I" and "we."

• Show reader benefit or interest in reader.

• Emphasize positive, pleasant facts.

• Apply integrity and ethic.

Concreteness

Communicating concretely means being specific, definite, and vivid rather than vague and general. The following guidelines should help you compose concrete, convincing messages:

• Use specific facts and figures.

• Put action in your verbs.

• Choose vivid, image-building words.

Clarity

Clarity means getting your message across so the receiver will understand what you are trying to convey. You want that person to interpret your words with the same meaning you have in mind. Accomplishing that goal is difficult because, as you know, individual experiences are never identical, and words have different meanings to different persons.

Here are some specific ways to help make your messages clear:

1. Choose short, familiar, conversational words.

2. Construct effective sentences and paragraphs.

3. Achieve appropriate readability (and listenability).

4. Include examples, illustrations, and other visual aids, when desirable.

Courtesy

Courteous messages help to strengthen present business friendships, as well as make new friends. Courtesy stems from sincere you-attitude. It is not merely politeness with mechanical insertions of "please's" and "thank-you's." To be courteous, considerate communicators should follow these suggestions regarding tone of the communications.

• Be sincerely tactful, thoughtful, and appreciative.

• Omit expressions that irritate, hurt, or belittle.

• Grant and apologize good-naturedly.

Correctness

The correctness principle comprises more than proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. A message may be perfect grammatically and mechanically but still insult or lose a customer and fail to achieve its purpose. The term correctness, as applied to a business message, means the writer should:

• Use the right level of language

• Include only accurate facts, words, and figures

• Maintain acceptable writing mechanics

• Choose nondiscriminatory expressions

• Apply all other pertinent C qualities

Source of Reference:

Herta Murphy, Herber Hildebrandt and Jane Thomas, Effective Business Communications McGraw Hill

8 Qualities of Success Person

1. Desire

The motivation to succeed comes from the burning desire to achieve a purpose. Napoleon Hill wrote, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great results.

2. Commitment

Integrity and wisdom are the two pillars on which to build and keep commitments. This point is best illustrated by the manager who told one of his staff members, "Integrity is keeping your commitment even if you lose money and wisdom is not to make such foolish commitments."

3. Responsibility

People with character accept responsibilities. They make decisions and determine their own destiny in life. Accepting responsibilities involves taking risks and being accountable which is sometimes uncomfortable. Most people would rather slay in their comfort zone and live passive lives without accepting responsibilities. They drill through life waiting for things to happen rather than making them happen. Accepting responsibilities involves taking calculated, not foolish, risks. It means evaluating all the pros and cons, then taking the most appropriate decision or action. Responsible people don't think that the world owes them a living.

4. Hard work

Success is not something that you run into by accident. It takes a lot of preparation and character. Everyone likes to win but how many are willing to put in the effort and lime to prepare to win? It takes sacrifice and self-discipline. There is no substitute for hard work. One cannot develop a capacity to do anything without hard work, just as a person cannot learn how to spell by sitting on a dictionary. Professionals make things look easy because they have mastered the fundamentals of whatever they do.

5. Character

Character is the sum total of a person's values, beliefs and personality. It is reflected in our behavior, in our actions. It needs to be preserved more than the richest jewel in the world. To be a winner takes character. George Washington said, "I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most valuable of all titles, the character of an honest man."

It is not the polls or public opinions but the character of the leader that determines the course of history. There is no twilight zone in integrity. The road to success has many pitfalls. It takes a lot of character and effort not to fall into them. It also takes character not to be disheartened by critics.

6. Positive believing

What is the difference between positive thinking and positive believing? What if you could actually listen to your thoughts? Are they positive or negative? How are you programming your mind, for success or failure? How you think has a profound effect on your performance.

Positive believing is a lot more than positive thinking. It is having a reason to believe that positive thinking will work. Positive believing is an attitude of confidence that comes with preparation. Having a positive attitude without making the effort is nothing more than having a wishful dream. The following illustrates positive believing.

7. The Power of persistence

The journey to being your best is not easy. It is full of setbacks. Winners have the ability to overcome .mil bounce back with even greater resolve. Persistence means commitment and determination. There is pleasure in endurance. Commitment and persistence is a decision. Athletes put in years of practice for a few seconds or minutes of performance.

Persistence is a decision. It is a commitment to finish what you start. When we are exhausted, quitting, looks good. But winners endure. Ask a winning athlete. He endures pain and finishes what he started. Lots of failures have begun well but have not concluded anything. Persistence comes from purpose. Life without purpose is drifting. A person who has no purpose will never persevere and will never be fulfilled.

8. Pride of performance

In today's world, pride in performance has fallen by the wayside because it requires effort and hard work. However, nothing happens unless it is made to happen. When one is discouraged, it is easy to look for shortcuts. However these should be avoided no matter how great the temptation. Pride comes from within, which is what gives the winning edge.

Pride of performance does not represent ego. It represents pleasure with humility. The quality of the work and the quality and the worker are inseparable. Half-hearted effort does not produce half results; it produces no results.

Excellence comes when the performer takes pride in doing his best. Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it, regardless of what the job is, whether washing cars, sweeping the floor or painting a house.