Increase Your Team's Performance

This is from HBR's Management Tip of the Day:

AUGUST 30, 2011

3 Ways to Increase Your Team's Performance

Successfully managing a team is a complex undertaking. Increase the odds of reaching your goals by doing the following three things: Establish urgency. Team members need to believe they're working on something that matters. And it needs to matter today, not at a nebulous point in the future. Be sure the team sees the potential fruits of its labor. Set high standards. The higher the expectations the more likely the team will live up to its performance potential. Set ambitious goals and hold the team to them. Start off on the right foot. Pay particular attention to first meetings and initial impressions. How a team starts its work together often sets the tone for future interactions.

If "start off on the right foot" is one of the top three it sounds to me like it's a new team. If it's a new team I believe high standards are important, but I would change that step to be "set clear and attainable goals" and within that add "set clear expectations". If the desired outcome isn't clear then you can bet the desired outcome will not happen - people need direction and clear expectations so they know what is expected.

What are your thoughts on this?

Leaders are Readers

When was the last time you picked up a book? Most people think reading, learning, studying end when school ends. Truth is, it's only beginning.

School gives us basic skills that we expand on as we further our education. It wasn't until I started reading books on personal development that I found out very little of what I learned in school through the years would help me achieve my personal and professional goals. Skills such as: attitude, enthusiasm, passion, leadership, communication, goal setting, time management, etc are not taught in school but are essential if you want to succeed in the real world. Several of the above skills are learned as you grow up and participate in sports, balance time between school/sports/work, and take freshman general education courses, but they're not really taught.

Do yourself a favor and start investing in yourself - start reading, teaching yourself, and taking success into your own hands. See you at the top!

Why...so...serious?

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing" - Dale Carnegie

Picture this - I'm sitting in my car behind the car of a mother and her two younger kids. There we are in the turning lane, stopped at a red light with cars all around us waiting for green. A song comes on the radio and the mom in front of me starts singing, throwing her arms in the air, and moving to the beat. I can see little arms and heads bopping up and down in the back seat as she turns to them and they're all singing together. I'm smiling, the car next to her is smiling, and you can bet that her kids are smiling. What a great memory for those kids. 


Zappos.com has a core value called "Creating Fun and a Little Weirdness". They make having fun at work a staple of their company! Where I work a core group of us at the club read "Zappos: Delivering Happiness" and decided to focus more on having fun. Now, the WAC is already a great environment and we have a good amount of fun, but why not a little more...what could that hurt? We decided to adopt Henry (aka Hank) as our North Shore mascot. You can check out a picture of him here: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=hb_tab_pro_top Hank travels all around the club - spin room, offices, treadmills, etc. He has brought smiles to the faces of our team members and even more importantly - to our members.


Be a "fun ambassador" and start having fun where you work and with your family/friends. You will be happier, your co-workers will be happier, and your customers/clients/members will be happier because fun rubs off on everything you do and everyone you touch. 

Go ahead...have some fun today! 

Attitude is Everything

How are you feeling today? Are you on top of the world or stuck in a rut? Whichever group you fall into today is a direct result of your attitude.

I firmly believe that attitude is the major determining factor in someone's success - not knowledge, not who you know, not power, not money...attitude. Now, don't get me wrong, knowledge and a multitude of other skills are needed, but attitude is the biggest piece of the success pie. And there are studies to show it:

• American Business Report study - 94% of all Fortune 500 executives polled attributed their success more to attitude than oany other characteristic
• Carnegie Institute study - out of 10,000 people only 15% said their success was due to technical training and 85% was due to personaltiy with the primary personality trait being attitude

Our attitude determines what we see in each situation and how we handle our feelings. The more positive we are the more positive outcomes will come our way and vice versa.

Negative situations and negative feelings will occur, that's life, but how we react to them, how quickly we get out of them, and if they snowball to more negative situations and feelings is determined by our attitude.

You want to know the amazing thing about attitude?..........YOU are in control of it!

Find the positive in every day, every situation, and every person and you'll be well on your way to achieving success (not to mention happier due to the constant positive thoughts). For some great books to read on attitude please check out my reading list. Have a great weekend!

A Better Way To Live

The General Manager of the health club I work at, Wisconsin Athletic Club - North Shore, gave us a personal development piece about a month ago. He has been a great mentor for me and shares many of the same values and passions I have. These rules are from "A Better Way to Live" by Og Mandino. Living by these rules can help you keep your life in balance and lead you to be more positive, happier, and more fulfilled.

Rule #1: Count your blessings

Rule #2: Today, and every day, deliver more than you are getting paid to do.

Rule #3: Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don’t look back at it too long.

Rule #4: Always reward your long hours of labor and toil in the very best way, surrounded by your family.

Rule #5: Build this day on a foundation of pleasant thoughts.

Rule #6: Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress.

Rule #7: Each day is a special gift from God, and while life may not always be fair, you must never allow the pains, hurdles and handicaps of the moment to poison your attitude and plan for yourself and your future.

Rule #8: Never again clutter your days and nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it come along.

Rule #9: Live this day as if it will be your last.

Rule #10: Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one your stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight.

Rule #11: Laugh at yourself and at life.

Rule #12: Never neglect the little things.

Rule #13: Welcome every morning with a smile.

Rule #14: You will achieve your grand dream, a day at a time, so set goals for each day.

Rule #15: Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast gloom and defeat on the entire day.

Rule #16: Search for the seed of good in every adversity.

Rule #17: Realize that true happiness lies within you.

As I sit here typing this I have the rules taped right above my computer as a daily reference. I wish you all the best in applying these rules to your life!

Fitness Goal Success

Everybody has fitness goals, whether it's to lose weight, run a 5k, increase their strength, improve performance in their sport, etc. Unfortunately, unless you're working with a certified and knowledgeable trainer you're likely going about it all the wrong way...

Research has shown that "progressive overload" is the best way to achieve those goals. This system progressivly increases the weight in an exercise, or time doing an exercise, while combining lower intensity periods to help with recovery. If you've been doing the same routine week after week or if you've been increasing intensity every week but not seeing results (or seeing little results) then stop what you're doing, give this a try, and rest easy knowing you're on your way to achieving your goals.

Progressive Overload (based on 8 week cycle):

• Week 1: base (whatever you're doing currently)
• Week 2: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 3: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 4: decrease weight/time by 25%
• Week 5: base (what you did in week 3)
• Week 6: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 7: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 8: decrease weight/time by 25%

As you can see, each is broken down into a 4 week cycle with the first week being a "base" week, 2 weeks of increasing intensity (overload), then a week of lower intensity (recovery). You simply repeat that 4 week cycle for as long as you would like. The lower intesntiy week actually helps your body to better recover so you can continue to make improvements. If you're constantly increasing the intensity each week then you're not giving your body a chance to recover, which leads to overtraining (side effects: decreased desire to workout, lower energy, strength or endurance actually DEcreasing, and injury).

If you want to increase your running time, for example, here's how it would look (assuming you can run 20 consecutive minutes as your base):

• Week 1: 20 min
• Week 2: 22 min
• Week 3: 24 min (rounded down)
• Week 4: 18 min
• Week 5: 24 min
• Week 6: 27 min (rounded up)
• Week 7: 30 min (rounded up)
• Week 8: 22 min (rounded down)

Again, you can strucure it for as many 4 week cycles as you would like. I personally prefer increases of 5% when using it for weight exercises or 10% when using it for cardio exercises. I also use it in 13 week cycles where I do 3 - 4 week cycles and take week 13 completely off to further allow my body to recover. And I only complete 2 of these cycles per year and use the other 26 weeks of the year to maintain the increased base I've attained.

Everybody starts with a different base and different goals so there's not one set program for everybody, but what's great about this structure is that no matter where you start, what your goals are, or if you enjoy doing a certain workout routine and want to keep doing it you can use this program to achieve your goals. 

If you have questions about how you can apply this to achieving your goals please don't hesitate to contact me. I wish you all the best in the pursuit of your goals!