This is a model that is taken from team sports but it can be applied in many other areas. The approach involves always maintaining high standards rather than just relying on moments of magic.
Different teams follow these approaches in different ways. Let’s explore how they may translate these into action.
Some Teams Maintain High
Standards And Add The Magic
Great teams often follow this approach. They have a motivating mission, maintain high standards and, when appropriate, add the magic. The people in such teams embody the following themes.
They Focus On The Team’s Mission
Great teams often have a sense of mission. People in them feel that they are working towards something worthwhile. Such teams therefore makes sure that their people know about:
The specific outcomes to achieve by pursuing the mission;
The specific strategies for achieving the mission;
The specific benefits of achieving the mission.
Imagine that you lead a team. If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
They Maintain High Standards
Great teams encourage their people to maintain high standards on the way towards achieving the mission. The standards that people will be asked to deliver will, of course, depend on the kind of work they are doing.
Bearing this in mind, however, many teams encourage their people to have a positive attitude and follow certain principles on the way towards delivering peak performances.
Some organisations, for example, aim to employ people who have the right character and competence. They then encourage these people to deliver consistently high standards.
Such an organisation may also produce a handbook that describes the professional standards people are asked to follow. Here is an example of the introduction to such a handbook.
They Sometimes Add The Magic
Great teams continue to deliver high standards. When appropriate, they may also add the magic that helps to achieve the mission. Different people do this in different ways.
A paramedic may do something extraordinary to help an injured person … A footballer may produce something special to score a goal … A service giver may go that extra mile to help a customer to achieve success.
Michael Murphy and Rhea White describe how athletes take this step in their book In The Zone. They quote Bill Russell, who played for the Boston Celtics, describing how the basketball team produced magic.
Bill explains how the process would start with three or four of the team’s top players acting as a catalyst.
The feeling would spread to the other guys and we’d all levitate. At that special level all sorts of odd things happened. It was almost as if we were playing in slow motion. I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be taken.
My premonitions would be consistently correct, and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart but also all the opposing players, and that they all knew me. These were the moments when I had chills pulsing up and down my spine.
Let’s return to your own situation. Imagine that you lead a team and want to encourage people: a) to maintain high standards; b) to, when appropriate, add the magic.
One approach is to invite them to do an exercise on this theme. You can introduce this in the following way:
“Great teams focus on the mission and keep maintaining high standards. This is mandatory. Sometimes they may also add that touch of magic to achieve the mission
“Good service providers build on the old idea of blending high tech and high touch. They get all the technical things right and also add the personal touch to help their customers achieve success.
“I would like you to do the following exercise. I would like each of you to write Post-it Notes describing the specific things we may be able to do:
“To maintain high standards … To, when appropriate, add the magic.
“I will give you twenty minutes to write your ideas – with one idea per Post-it. Then I will ask each of you come up in turn put your ideas on the relevant flip charts.
“We will then focus on how to do some of these things on the way towards delivering the mission.”
Here is the exercise on this theme. You can, of course, adapt it in your own way. Taking this approach helps people to continue to focus on the mission, maintain high standards and also add the magic.
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