Yesterday.
Great practice with a really cool team that is coming together nicely. Yesterday they “adjusted their mirrors” and eliminated some blind spots. Yesterday they learned that building a strong CORE doesn’t always mean we’ll be the good Samaritan. We still need time, don’t we.
We saw first hand the “fundamental attribution error” as I quickly denounced those that didn’t stop as having a “character flaw” while giving myself the “benefit of the doubt.” We learned how mentally healthy it is to get busy learning about and fixing our own character and give the benefit of the doubt to those that wrong us. Funny, huh.
We learned a ton about how “predictably irrational” we humans really are, how rationalizing we tend toward; rational thinking, not so much.
We experienced major flowage together in groups of three and felt the enemy of interruption, time pressures, distraction, and the outsider. Very, freakin’ cool.
We noticed how much more comfortable we’re all becoming in our new, shared language and how much stronger too. We all sat in amazement with guys interacted with their bosses as if they were peers, peers treated their peers as if they were people, and bosses treated their teams as if they were equals. What is up with that?
We were reminded that tolerating mediocre performers is the enemy of flow. We were reminded that clarity of vision is all of our jobs as leaders and that without it there’s no “umbrella.” Without clarity, we’re just a crazy team running around in the rain, getting soaked, getting tired, getting nowhere fast. AND, clarity of vision takes lots of rinses and too much time. Time we don’t have. Oops, that’s starting to sound like more of that predictable stuff. Moving on.
Yesterday was a great practice that has been in the works for awhile. All great practices, like all great performances take time. They don’t just appear because a collection of individuals, teams, and leaders show up for a meeting. In fact, meetings are, for countless teams, the slow death of their high performance.
Great practices happen after lots of good ones, which come after lots of mediocre ones, which follow lots of not so good ones where everybody’s not sure it’s really safe to play, to participate, to bring their whole heart, to really hit the boss, and really trust the crazy facilitator’s ways. Great practices are the seeds of great performances because habits are habit forming. Habits that form in our heart don’t require us to burn cycles thinking when we’re in a “kairos” moment with a customer. Great habits of the heart are the heart of high performers. Great habits formed in great practices are the building blocks of chemistry, the go juice of great teams.
Yesterday’s practice was full of go juice. Great work team. Thanks for embracing more and more of your productive actions, for converting your practice time into performance time. You inspired me. You are becoming ONE.
You really are a “kick ass” place to work.
Yea, BABY…
BUILT TO LEAD 