Good morning from Weymouth, England. I’m here for the 2012 Olympic Games, serving as Team Leader for the Olympic Sailing Team. (If you want to read more about it, I’m blogging daily and our team is posting daily race reports at olympics.ussailing.org.)
In my latest blog post from the Games, I wrote about limiting the distractions for our team here. If we want our team to perform, we have to create an environment where they have as few distractions as possible. When they have few distractions, they can focus on their primary role of performance. Limiting distractions is a big deal at the Olympic Games, and it’s a big deal for you and your team as well.
Think about your team in the workplace, and think about the things you need them to do for the team to perform well. And if you are the leader of the team, think about the ways you can use your role and your influence to limit the distractions for your people. If you want your team to perform at their best, the distractions need to be limited. What can you do to limit those distractions?
It is an often overlooked aspect of leadership. We live in a distraction-heavy world, and attention spans are microscopic. An important part of leadership in the 21st century is the “blocking and tackling” so that your people can simply focus on what they need to do to perform well.
Good leadership is not telling people what to do. Good leadership is about helping your people unleash their potential and their skill so they can perform.
Limit the distractions… that’s the message of the day.
At The Latimer Group, we believe that successful teams are built on honesty, open communication, and collaboration. For more on team building and team communication, look for Dean Brenner’s new book, Sharing the Sandbox: Building and Leading Great Teams in the 21st Century, on sale now.