The One Shift That Changes Everything
Do you want to crack the code for success?
Then I’ll ask you to reframe this whole idea of success.
You need to understand that it is not something you can achieve alone.
You need to team up. Team up with those who share your aspirations.
It’s this basic idea of life. You don’t exist in a bubble. Your life is connected with many others. It’s a team sport.
Take a look around at successful households, you’ll notice goal congruency among parents working together as one unit.
Take a look around at successful organizations, you’ll notice they’re all about high performing teams. Not individuals!
You need to make alliances and build strong teams.
And once you have a team, you need to consistently put the team’s interest over yours.
One may question the logic of letting your individual success play second fiddle to the team’s.
The key to remember is that you can only win if your team wins. No amount of individual brilliance will translate to anything substantial if the team fails to deliver.
This logic holds ground in both our personal as well professional relationships.
In our personal lives, we often find ourselves battling alone. We create these narratives where the entire focus of the story is on our own individual entity.
“I’m not able to live life the way I want”
“I’ve failed myself”
“I’m misunderstood”
As long as our mind is consumed by such self centered thoughts, we suffer. And we cause more suffering to other in return.
Unless you start seeing things from the other person's perspective, no matter how opposing it might seem, you won’t be able to find break through.
The focus must shift from me to us. That can’t happen in a silo. For that to happen, you need to show that you care to address unresolved issues. You care to ask what you can do better. You care to sit and listen. You care to engage.
Now analyze this in our professional lives. Early on in my career as a manager, one really bad advise I got was to limit my competition in the team. Why? So my job and position could be secure. “This will be keep you in demand”, I was told.
In fact if you are to grow you need to do the exact opposite. You need to have solid succession plans, empowering your go-tos so they’re ready to step up whenever the need arises. Not just for succession planning, effective leadership is all about hiring people who are smarter than you, who bring new ideas and innovations to the team and compliment each other well to create an amplified impact.
Hiring great talent in your team is only one piece of the puzzle. You need to take care of their interest as your own if you’re serious about keeping them engaged. This is not for them but for your own sanity and self preservation. Team stability is not just a vital KPI for how you’re conducting your team but also an absolute requirement for sustainable growth.
Turning the tables a bit, expectation to prioritize the team is not just for the managers but every team members regardless of the hierarchy. Two of the most valued character traits that can help you grow in your career are reliability and attitude. You can rate your impact however high as you may wish but it means to nothing if you’re not seen as a reliable team player by your teammates. Reliability helps you build trust. And without trust, it’s impossible to build long lasting relationships and find avenues for growth.
Earning trust is no rocket science. You just need to show up with an attitude to help. If your team is going through a tough time, you need to tough it out with them. If some of your team members are working late hours, you need to ask if you could help. You might want to clock out just in time because you have a life outside work and that’s all great but the thing to realize is that you’re not the only one who has a life outside work. This is how reliable team players think. They think beyond themselves. They do this with a sense of responsibility. Because they understand that you need to be prepared to take responsibility if you are to expect recognition.
Our personal and professional lives are all integrated. Same ideas that help grow as a person also lead to our success as a professional.
Seeing beyond yourself to be a great team player is one such powerful idea!