Being a great teammate Archives - Greg Harrod

How to Create Great Teams with Two Powerful Questions

Greg Harrod — Sun, 24 May 2020 22:34:14 +0000

These two questions can help any leader who wants to create great teams.

Who do I want to be as a teammate? and Who do I want on my team?

You’re reading this blog which is focused on connecting people and mobilizing them to deliver results so I know you want to create great teams as much as I do.

In today’s post, I’ll share some practical tips and resources to apply these powerful questions to achieve that goal.

This post is part of a series based on The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni [affiliate link]. If you’re new to this blog, check out my last post, Discover How to be a Better Teammate to get more background on this series.

You can also subscribe to my weekly email newsletter to stay connected with me.

Who do I want to be as a teammate?

In The Ideal Team Player [affiliate link], Lencioni describes three virtues.

Humble
Hungry
Smart

As defined in the book, these three characteristics capture how I want to live my life. They describe the kind of teammate I want to be.

I want to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart.

If I want to create great teams, I need to be a great teammate. And, being Humble, Hungry, and Smart is the framework I follow.

I’ll share my perspective on each of these attributes in separate posts.

For now, I want you to pause and think about your answer to this question.

Ask yourself, Who do I want to be as a teammate?

This is critical. We all need to understand our core values.

If you can’t answer that question, I strongly recommend that you invest some time thinking about it.

You may not want to be Humble, Hungry, or Smart. That’s your choice.

Of course, I recommend you reconsider if you want success when you’re on a team or you’re trying to create great teams.

While you’re pondering the first question, let me move to the second.

Who do I want on my team?

I know what it means for me to be true to myself when I’m on a team. My core values are clear. I hope yours are too.

I want to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart. Teams with people who have this same goal are inspiring to me. I want to be around them.

When I get to pick the people on my team, I will pick Humble, Hungry, and Smart people every time.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be on a team full of people just like me.

I am an active proponent of diversity and inclusion. A variety of backgrounds and differing perspectives are critical factors when I form teams.

Humble, Hungry, and Smart come in many different forms. In fact, these virtues actually promote diversity and inclusion.

You decide who’s on the team. Be ready.

You may be in a position to directly select your team members. You have the final decision on who gets hired or selected for the team.

You’re the coach. The hiring manager. The decider.

That’s great!

You can apply the Humble, Hungry, Smart framework immediately.

Check out my last post and take a look at The Ideal Team Player Interview Guide. This resource from The Table Group is useful, practical, and free.

Chances are, however, that most of us aren’t in a position of authority with formal decision rights.

What about us? Can we still have an impact?

Absolutely!

You will be deciding who is on the team soon. Get ready.

Most teams are not created through a formal process. Adding a new staff member or signing a new recruit is a relatively rare event.

Still, teams are formed all around us every day. You can influence who is on the team.

You’re probably doing that already even if you haven’t looked at it from that perspective.

Think back to our broad definition of a team from my post, How many teams are you on? More than you think.

A team is “a number of persons associated together in work or activity“. We’re all on countless teams.

Whether you’re forming an executive level business leadership group or signing up volunteers to help organize snacks for your child’s field trip, you are picking team members.

You want to have the right people on the team. That can be the difference between a smooth and pleasant experience and a nightmare story that you will make you cringe when you tell it twenty years from now.

I said earlier when I get to pick the people on my team, I will pick Humble, Hungry, and Smart people every time. I encourage you to do the same.

How can we do that?

Decide on the traits you want in your future teammates

Become familiar with the Humble, Hungry, and Smart virtues. Even a basic understanding will be beneficial.
Read these posts. Review the referenced resources.

Identify your future teammates

Observe the people around you. Who is Humble, Hungry, and Smart? Or maybe just one or two of those virtues.
Who do you think would want to be more Humble, Hungry, and Smart if they were given the opportunity?

Invest in the your future teammates

Cultivate your relationships with those who are living some or all of these virtues. Talk with them about these concepts.
Share these posts. Recommend the referenced resources. Buy the book The Ideal Team Player [affiliate link] for them.

Do these three things now before you are in a position to select your teammates.

When the opportunity arrives, you will be well prepared to select Ideal Team Players and create a great team that delivers exceptional results.

Let’s do something great.

Greg

Discussion Questions

What teams will you be creating in the future? List the people you would like to invest in now and ask to be on those teams.

How can you share with them the things you’ve learned to help them be an Ideal Team Player with you?

I would love to know how you are putting this information into practice. Please share your input in the comments section so we can celebrate our successes together and encourage one another in our struggles.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

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The post How to Create Great Teams with Two Powerful Questions appeared first on Greg Harrod.

Discover How to be a Better Teammate

Greg Harrod — Sun, 17 May 2020 21:51:00 +0000

If you read my last post, How many teams are you on? More than you think., you realize you’re on a lot of teams. Today, I want to help you discover how to be a better teammate.

In my earlier post, I provided some tips. I also suggested you could read my blog and subscribe to my weekly email newsletter to improve.

Those recommendations are a good start, but I’ve got another one that will help you even more.

It’s simple and it doesn’t take much time.

While it’s not complex, it could, as the title suggests, take you to the highest level as a team player.

Ready to hear the magic, rock-your-world solution?

Let me share a not-so-secret secret with you first.

I don’t have any truly original material

What I’m going to share with you isn’t material that I created on my own.

In fact, that’s true of all the content in my blog. I gather information, synthesize it, and present it in my unique style. In that sense, it’s original.

At the core, however, all of “my” thoughts and ideas are a collection of outside inputs that entered my brain at some point in my life.

Sometimes I can identify how I came up with a thought or an idea. Most times I can’t.

In today’s post, I can definitely point to a major influence of how I think about being a better teammate.

That’s my disclaimer before I share “my” solution. It’s not really “my” solution.

Read “The Ideal Team Player”

What’s this rock-your-world solution?

Read the book The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni.

Seriously. That’s it.

The picture probably gave it away didn’t it?

You can stop reading this blog now and just go get the book if you want.

I won’t be offended.

Don’t like to read books? You’ve got options.

The book is short and easy to read, but maybe you aren’t a reader. I get it.

If reading a book is a barrier for you, here are some other great options. Most are free!

Buy the audio book [affiliate link]
Watch Patrick Lencioni’s 13 minute TEDx talk
Download the free summary provided by the author (an exceptional resource to keep handy)
Explore the many resources offered on the official website for The Ideal Team Player
Listen to this Coaching for Leaders podcast – How to Get the Ideal Team Player, with Patrick Lencioni (one of my favorite podcasts and episodes)

I highly recommend that you do all of these. Or just one of these. You won’t regret it.

Of course, if you’d like to hear more of my perspective, keep reading.

Why am I such a fan of The Ideal Team Player?

Why all the hype for this book?

Is Patrick Lencioni a close personal friend of mine?

I wish. He’s one of my favorite authors and seems like a great guy.

I hope to meet him someday.

Maybe I’ll even have him on my podcast when I get it started (dream big, right?)

But, I’ve never met Mr. Lencioni or Patrick or Pat. Maybe only his close friends call him Pat?

See?

I don’t even know what to call him.

Am I making money off this?

Well, to be transparent, I hope so.

As I disclose openly per FTC guidelines (see the note in small print in the footer down there?), I use affiliate programs to help fund what I do.

What’s an affiliate program?

Basically, if I have a link and you click through and make a purchase within a short time period, I may get a small commission.

You don’t pay any more if you use the link, but I get a little income to pay for things like a website hosting service.

For example, if you purchase The Ideal Team Player through this link, I will earn a small amount. You pay nothing extra.

So the answer is I might be making money. But not a lot.

And that’s not why I’m writing this post.

Do I believe in the message of the book?

Ding! Ding! Ding! That’s my motivation.

One of my main goals is to connect people to useful information and resources.

The Ideal Team Player is extremely valuable and I want you to know about it.

I’ll explain why I feel so strongly about the book’s message in a short series of posts covering the 3 Virtues of The Ideal Team Player [affiliate link].

Be watching for those posts in the next few weeks.

While you’re waiting, I encourage you to take advantage of the resources I’ve listed.

Trust me. If you apply The Ideal Team Player concepts, you will be a better teammate.