Are you Productive?

Leadership is about providing solutions to society's challenges. It takes creativity and innovation to find these solutions. Today we are seeing a burst of creative ideas and innovations to solve Africa's challenges by our very own.  It is not without hurdles, but we are churning the solutions nevertheless. There are young people that have broken the barrier of limited resources, by thinking differently and collaborating with those endowed with the resources they need to live out their purpose. They have chosen to be productive. 

If you want to know the purpose of an iron box, you ask its manufacturer. When God created mankind, he commanded us to "… be fruitful and multiply, replenishing the earth and subdue it…" (Gen 1:26). Let's look more closely at being fruitful and multiplying (and no, I am not referring to child reproduction). You and I were created for a purpose - there is a talent or gift inside each one of us designed to enrich our lives by living our purpose. Productivity in our designed purpose requires us to be fruitful and multiply. 

When you plant an orange seed, you have an expectation that in a few months you will enjoy its fruits. The seed has everything it needs to grow to maturity and produce fruit when nurtured within the right environment. Imagine if the orange tree from this seed grew to produce only one orange fruit in its lifetime and in that fruit was only one seed. It would be meaningless to go through the process of nurturing the tree to maturity if our expected harvest was only one orange fruit with one seed in it! When planting the seed, you have an expectation that it shall not only be fruitful, but the fruits shall be enough for many to enjoy. The fruit from the planted orange seed will not be consumed by the orange seed itself - it is for others to consume and enjoy its fruit. 

Each of us has a seed inside us:  a talent, a gift, an idea. The seed will only realize its full potential of bearing fruit if its nurtured. An idea has to be nurtured and refined to a status of providing a solution to humanity. A leader identifies this potential when still in its raw form and nurtures it to blossom. He has the ability to see the end product from the raw material. Nurturing will involve mentoring, correcting, supporting and challenging the seed bearer, while remaining focused on the desired end product.  

Your talent, when nurtured to productivity, is meant for those around you to enjoy. You can profit from it, but only if you share it. If you are a musician, your talent is designed for others to enjoy your music. I am yet to meet a musician who goes through the grueling process of producing an album, just to be listening to the music alone. I am not ruling out that there could be such musician - this is the very reason we still haven't heard their music and I bet you they have made no profit out of it! 

The first step to productivity is to identify the seed inside you. What is inside you that is designed to provide a solution to humanity? What's that idea you've been pushing aside? Do you have a talent or gift that you have allowed to remain dormant? The second step is to nurture and grow your seed. If you have an idea, at least try it out. Forget the critics, just try. If you fail, you'll just discover another way that the idea won't work. Working on your idea refines it to become better.  

In the next article we'll look at the concept of multiplying - why it is important and how do you multiply?

Get it Done!

There is a task, a goal and a timeline to get it done. You and several others have been asked to leave everything else and get this done.  You look around and you only know two or three people in the group. You look again at the task at hand. Can it be done within the given timeline? Why is it so important that I have to leave everything else I am doing? How will achieving this task in the company of strangers and within an overly ambitious timeline bring value to me?

I have been drawn into several taskforces like this one. We had more questions than the project sponsor could answer. Nevertheless, I gathered invaluable lessons working in these teams. I learnt there are three categories of people in a team:

1.      Those who wonder how so much got done;

2.      Those who would rather watch things done than be part of the action; and

3.      The group that get things done.  

Let's have a closer look at the three groups.

How did you get so much done?

There is nothing as energy sapping as working on a difficult task with a bunch of “prophets of doom”. Before they even hear the strategy to get the task done, they are already convinced that it is humanly impossible to achieve such a thing. They will punch holes in your strategy, whisper doubts into the minds of the other team members and never make a suggestion to improve your strategy. They literally drain life out of the team. You can be sure they will taunt you with endless "I told you so!" mockery if you don't achieve the goal in the first few trials. But when you finally achieve victory, it is such an ego booster to see them baffled at your achievement. They even doubt that it has actually been achieved even when the results are tangible. 

Check out what they are doing!

Just like the spectators in a football match, this group makes the most noise and delivers no results. They diligently attend team meetings, but that's all they do! They are very vocal in the team, but hardly lift their finger to action. They take the form of super delegators - suggesting complex ways to get the task achieved and quickly volunteer the quieter team members to carry out the task. This is the lazy lot that wants to get all the credit from other people's sweat.

Let's get it done!

There is however a different breed of team players. A breed that is more concerned with acting rather than talking. They work in a highly coordinated fashion, consider the group’s ideas and agree a strategy. When they get into action, each one knows their role and plays their part. They know how important their small input contributes to the end result. They take pride in their workmanship and give their full focus on the project. It's not a competition, it’s a collaboration. When you work in such a team, you draw energy from the members because they will never let you give up. Their enthusiasm and positive attitude is infectious. You just want to keep going. In such teams, they get things done effectively and efficiently. 

It is in working with this third group that I have drawn some critical success factors for high performance teams:

a.       The Team Leader

A team's leader is not a task master. The leader has to effectively influence team members into action without coercing them. The effective leader has to sell the project vision to team members to own it. His communication skills are critical especially at the start of the project to set the right pace. Technical ability is not sufficient, they must possess soft skills of motivating others, planning, decision making and conflict resolution. The team leader will make or break the team.

b.        Buy Into the Vision

If you do not believe in something, you will save the team a lot of pain by removing yourself from it. When members buy into the project’s vision then chances of working effectively are higher. At the onset of the project, members must seek to understand the aim of the project. They have to be fully convinced of the need to accomplish the given task to be self-driven.

c.        Know your strength

A chain is as strong as its weakest link and so is the team. Each member must know what they are good at and stick to it. You performance will be as strong as the weakest member of the team. If you position them in the task that they are good at, you convert them into a strength for the team.

d.       See the BIG picture

It is possible to get so engrossed on details that you forget what you were trying to achieve. You have to be cautious with the perfectionists in your team. They can get carried away redoing their bit and forget the delay they are causing for the whole project. Everything must be done in the context of the bigger picture - the end goal. Are you delaying a process that is dependent on your output? Are you still within the budget in terms of time and resources? Are the modifications you are making compatible with other parts of the project? 

e.       Appreciate each team member

The painter standing on a ladder leaning on a high wall cannot despise the fellow holding the ladder on the ground. The display of the painter’s skill is made possible by the person at the bottom of the ladder holding it firmly. Even though they may not be skillful in painting, if they walk away, the painter will inevitably fall off the ladder. In a team there is no task too small that it should be despised. Everyone's role should be appreciated and respected. 

When you are part of the team, remember that you are not there to watch things get done or to wonder how they got done. You are there to get things done. Choose the right team leader, have a common vision, work in your area of strength, see the big picture and appreciate the roles played by others. Next time you are in a team, focus on getting the task completed. Just get it done!