Nicholas Bate

How To Totally Disorientate & Demotivate Your Top Technical Team 7

1. Deprive them of sleep.
2. Tell them it's 'just for this client'. 'Just this once'. 'Really'.
3. Over-load them with caffeine.
4. Force-feed them pizzas at their screen at well past midnight.
5. Put small boxes in their pockets and on their desks which vibrate at frequent but random intervals just when they need to think. Call them 'smart' phones.
6. Insist they sit in over-heated rooms with people they don't know discussing virtual projects to which they are virtually connected and partly linked to the US team via a virtual conference system which needs an upgrade when they are virtually exhausted.
7. Tell them 'just one more thing and you will be made a team leader'.

Leadership Dozen

1. Leadership is 99% mindset, 1% job title. Act as you wish to be perceived.
2. Leadership is a verb. Walk the talk.
3. Model the behaviours you seek.
4. Give clarity, check clarity. Of task, of responsibility, of standards.
5. Thank and give praise. Catch people doing things right.
6. Be loyal to your team.
7. Leave 'like' out of it. Win and give respect.
8. Support and allow a person to evolve. Respect difference but accept no excuses.
9. Invest in your people.
10. Have a development plan for each of them.
11. In essence: ensure they understand what they are doing, are supported and feel they are growing.
12. Start today.

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7 Paradoxes of Great Business Relationships

1. Invest time, just when you want to ignore them. One more conversation may be all that is needed to bridge the gap.
2. Push, just when you feel afraid. Don’t allow them to bully you.
3. Ask, just when you feel intimidated. You need a decent brief-insist on it.
4. Teach, just when you want to delegate. The time invested will be repaid many times over.
5. Listen, just when you think you have heard it all before. The deepest human desire is to be understood.
6. Thank, just when you think 'its their job'. Catch people doing things right.
7. Show humility, just when you feel anger. Model the behaviours you seek in others.

Leadership 2

If you only do two things:
1. Show, illustrate, model, demonstrate the behaviours you seek from your team by doing them yourself.
2. Spend time developing your team ensuring they know what they are there to deliver. They are your results.

On Leadership.

It's actually pretty easy to spot your up-and-coming leaders. You don't need a complex assessment centre, just good observation skills. Notice those who:
1. are on time every time and never blame the traffic nor the weather nor their baby.
2. have a note-pad with them at all times.
3. ask great clarification questions.
4. dress as they wish to be perceived not what they can get away with.
5. are loyal to customers and colleagues (never mind king and country).
6. have time and respect for support staff.
7. deliver to promises.
8. invest in relationships.
9. have always got a leadership book on the go.
10. realise they can lead even though nobody has given them the job title nor grade nor salary nor car (yet).

Ask the Team

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is dire/miserable/awful and 10 is outstanding, ask the team to give a number for:

-themselves as a High Performance Team (10=perfect)
-you as their leader (10=perfect)
-quality of team meetings (10=no improvement possible)
-service provided to rest of the organisation (10=no improvement possible).

If anything less than a 10 is given, ask what needs to be done to close the gap? Then close that gap ASAP.