Today was practice with the builders. The real builders. These guys build really cool stuff. After practice, Mark took me back to his “office” and showed me his latest creation…some of the coolest magazine racks you’ve EVER seen. Pure cherry too.
Today we practiced solving the right problems and built a bunch of trust. We started, of course, with the trust piece and worked our way forward. This is simply the way it has to be.
Today Maury reminded this team of why they are here and why their customers, excuse me, CLIENTS buy.
Doug and Johnny joined in the fray and I brought a little clarity with a couple stories about Coldplay, why the American led Allies won World War II, Gandhi and burning passes, what makes word of mouth epidemics spread like a wild fire, and why Quinnermanwithaplan’s being “unproductive” in NYC was the key to flipping that teams performance.
We relearned some things we’ve practiced before. We got some more clarity around this teams vision and “why” it’s sooooo important. We played with some 7&7 and remembered the power of translation. We covered a couple pages in the 8 and a couple more in the 12. We laughed. We laughed a lot. Very cool.
And…we played some 5 on 5 hoopage out back AND remembered what it FEELS like to be a kid again.
Stinkin’ AWESOME.
ballin’ with the builders…CHET
BUILT TO LEAD 
Do you remember the commercial “I liked the razor so much I bought the company?”
Maury loved the “work” (e.g. magnum opus) that this team did so much on his house he JOINED the company. The clarity he brought the team on WHY clients buy is not only going to make this team better, it taught me something new about teams that are becoming “magic”.
Here it is. If the key for a leader becoming BUILT TO LEAD is building a strong INDIVIDUAL CORE, the key for a team becoming MAGIC is building a strong TEAM CORE. A strong TEAM CORE gives CLARITY on the big questions like:
“Why do WE work and live? What is OUR worldview? OUR purpose? OUR passion? OUR process? OUR strengths? OUR legacy?”
Of course if our TEAM CORE is out of whack with individual cores, more ALIGNMENT is needed. But where there is alignment, building a strong TEAM CORE fosters a culture where individuals have the CLARITY AND the CONFIDENCE to make man-on-the-spot decisions that serve the client and team. Especially when those decisions don’t appear to make $$ sense on their own!
Let me give you an example. I met Chet for coffee last week and while I was placing my order, Chet went up to the counter to get some more jelly to put on the other half of the bagel he’d been enjoying. The attendant “Tim” quickly and courteously gave Chet what he asked for — BUT, as Chet said thanks and started to walk away, Tim stopped him saying “by the way I have to charge you $.25 for the jelly packet.” Tim was almost embarrassed as he said it. Tim didn’t really believe it, and neither could Chet. “You can’t be serious, you’re kidding,” said Chet. “No, I have to charge you $.25 it’s the rule” said Tim, now all the more embarrassed since I and other customers and employees had turned their heads to watch.
So Tim got the quarter out of Chet’s pocket. BUT it’s the LAST quarter he’ll be getting from us. And we will be talking to a lot of people why!
As Chet and I wondered about who made the rule and how that decision got made, the ONLY thing that was clear is that Tim’s team wasn’t! We wondered whether the CEO of Tim’s knows they even have that rule — or if “CEO disease” which works like leprosy to isolate leaders from their teams & the realities of customer interactions had struck again. That fear of not making that “quarter’s” numbers had resulted in some manager in a suit making a fear-driven policy.
Is your team fear-driven, or CORE driven?
Does your team have a strong TEAM CORE? Is it in alignment with YOUR core?
Are you repeating the VISION to the point that your TEAM can repeat it to you?
After Tim gets tired of collecting quarters from unbelieving customers, I think Tim will be looking for a new team he can believe in.