"Make your team work!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Much of my work around trends and tomorrow involves the skills of the team that will help take you there.
Many organizations have a big problem in this context. They don't have the right type of people who will open up opportunities, chase big ideas, and implement change. That's why I sometimes counsel that they need to fire the folks who are barriers to the attitudes and actions that will define success in the context of rapid change - the whiners, the complainers, the naysayers. They need to hire more of the people who provide the oxygen of initiative and the spark of action - the dreams, the doers, the innovators!
In other words, succeeding tomorrow becomes a team-building exercise. They need to make their team work.
This brings me to my good friend Scott Kress - a fellow Canadian who has summited Everest, conquered the ‘7 Summits,’ and is the only guy I have ever had to call to tell him that his ski chalet was burning down! (True story.) Scott combines his message of daring mountaineering with an inspirational storyline and spins into it useful messages on team building, leadership strategies, forward-oriented planning and so much more. His book, “Learning In Thin Air,” would stand on its own as a leadership tome even without the fascinating (and scary) stories on his expeditions.
It's the teambuilding part of what he does that has always fascinated me. His work delves into what makes for an effective team above 29,000 feet, at the summit of Everest, when every single decision of a team, but which can be a life or death determination. He talks about such things as the circle of influence and the circle of control, and what the active strategies are to build an effective and cohesive team in that context. It's fascinating stuff and speaks to the power of what makes for an effective team, on and off the mountain.
But team-building in our modern economy goes beyond issues like that - we've got to make sure that we've got the right attitudes, ideas, and mindsets that will help to take us into a faster future. That's why a careful audit and rebalancing of your team might be in order - because, in a world in which the future belongs to those who are fast, you've got to make your team work!
Futurist Jim Carroll and his wife Christa helped Scott publish his book, and his son Willie designed the cover. It's a fascinating read and well-recommended!