Paul's Update Special: Paul's Update Special 1/12

The Extraordinary Team Creation Manifesto – Innovation Excellence

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At one time or another we’ve all been on a really great team. When you’re on this sort of team you believe you can overcome any obstacle. It’s just plain magic, and once you’ve been there you forever look for a way back.

Well, there’s a name for that state of mind, it’s called “flow” and a good friend of mine, Dr. Judy Glick-Smith, has been studying it for years. She recently wrote an article about it that captures perfectly what flow is all about and how to create teams that sustain a flow-state.

To build an exceptional team and to achieve flow with your team:

Lead by example. Demonstrate your commitment to service through servant leadership.
Communicate your vision and a sense of purpose.
Establish and maintain an infrastructure that supports the work of the organization. Poor systems will pull an individual out of his or her flow state in a heartbeat. Provide your team with tools to get the job done and then let them figure out how to do it.
Create trust with rituals and storytelling.
Honor individual creativity. What happens to ideas in your organization? Are people fearful of submitting new ideas because they simple expect them to be shot down? Or do new ideas have to run a gauntlet course to be heard?
Use positive motivation. What would your work environment look like if you had people whose sole purpose it was to give encouragement to others?
Learn what gives people joy and give them the opportunities to do it. Ask people what they love about their work. Then, listen. Most of us try to identify a person’s weaknesses in an attempt to help in areas where he or she is weak. Try instead providing training that magnifies his or her strengths. People find flow in the tasks and activities where they are strongest.

Creativity and innovation are the inevitable results of unfettered team-flow. If all of these components are in place, each individual in the organization becomes a leader.

Ways to Grow Your Team’s Curiosity

As a leader, how can you take a step back and get curious? And how can you build curiosity on your team? It star...

“Holding a curious mindset is a great starting point when you're leading your team or organization. If you're in a truly new space, you won't always know the answers. Your team won't either. You're going to venture into the unknown together. Curiosity is a great way to lead that charge.” Tim Brown, IDEO CEO

Here are 6 techniques you can use to explore with curiosity:

Seek inspiration

Inspiration is the fire that keeps teams seeking, building, and pushing—it prevents them from getting complacent or bored. Seek it out by looking beyond obviously-related contexts, fields, and networks. Consider both how you’re approaching problems and what you’re working on.
Adopt a beginner’s mindset

Expertise and experience are valuable assets. But they can be roadblocks to making new leaps because of their strong connection to what is and what has been.
Challenge your assumptions

Assumptions guide the way we think, our ability to generate new ideas, and the filters we use when weighing whether to share those ideas. They can be a serious creativity block. When your team gets stuck, start asking two key questions—“why” and “what if.”
Frame problems as questions

Questions are a critical component of setting strategic priorities and directions. Whether you’re starting a strategic initiative, or looking to elevate the way you accomplish your daily tasks, try framing your project with the phrase, “How might we…” It’s an invitation that allows your team to participate, and creates the space for them to surprise themselves and discover the unexpected.
Get uncomfortable

To explore with curiosity, you have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone. Spend some time thinking about what that means.
Practice immersive empathy

So HOW do we do that? How do we learn about what lies beyond what we know? We believe that real empathy is critical to understanding the people a product or service might serve. If step one is having the courage to acknowledge what we don’t know, step two is taking action to explore it.

3 Simple Rules to Increase Your Leadership Communication

Formulate a Winning Argument: Simply Put, Less ACTUALLY is More

It takes confidence to simplify. Einstein said that the "highest level of intelligence is SIMPLE." Coach John Wooden often said, "The biggest mistake coaches make is they over-coach."

Once we become expert on a subject, it is difficult to remember what it was like to be a novice. It is incredibly common to make the mistake of trying to sway others to your argument by educating them on the complexities, thinking they will follow your logic and reach the conclusion you want. This mentality might seem to make sense, as it is beneficial for others to know that you have a deep level of understanding on a topic, but trying to bring others into too deep a level is a losing battle.

Follow these three simple rules to increase your leadership communication:

Stick to the Rule of 3. Specifically, allow yourself to cover no more than 3 major points, and the less the better.
Highlight the "1 Must." Once you have your 3 main points, clarify the 1 most important point of the three that your audience must take away from your interaction.
When In Doubt "Delete." The more you say, the less believable you become. Highly successful people work on being precise with their words and their arguments. Forcing yourself to simplify your presentation will allow you to understand it more deeply yourself.

Dizzy Gillespie and His Bent Trumpet