Dreams Come Alive

Last week a senior executive client shared his experience building and driving teams in the corporate boardroom. His key lessons echoed the sentiments of an ultra endurance athlete whose team placed second in the Sahara Race 2009.

It starts right at the forming stage. Identifying individuals to make up a team is critical. Their respective strengths and weaknesses as well as their shared values underline the nature and potential of the relationship. Under stress, the team can breakdown if respect for one another is non existent. The same result occurs when any one person lacks the toughness of the others.

Once the team has been put together, a common purpose needs to be established. Clarity of goals gives a team direction and is a beacon upon which decisions are based and actions taken. What a team is setting out to achieve allows for clear demarcation of duties and elucidates the extent of operational scope. Expectations are set and roles and responsibilities delineated.

The project lifespan cannot do without clear and authentic communication. The information circuit can be made up of both formal and informal means of communication. The aim is to raise awareness of all involved in the project and present apparent means of resolving conflicts and dealing with problems in an atmosphere of openness and trust.

So how do we apply this to our daily lives? Well we work in teams more often than we think we do. Beyond the obvious teams at the workplace and on the playing field, teams include your family and your primary intimate relationship.

These questions may act as pointers: Who have you chosen as your significant other? Why has he/she picked you as a lifelong partner? What is your vision for yourselves as a couple and what are your shared values? How do you contribute to the relationship? What does love mean to you? How often, how deeply and how do you communicate?

Your fortunes are tied closely to that of your team…