How to Lead and Manage Teams

Formula one is measured by hundredths of a second. Any team member that stalls or loses focus will cost the team. It is the responsibility of each individual to be prepared to perform in be in the zone when the time comes. Are you prepared?

"We have a no blame culture“ Mercedes

There are only two outcomes in sports:

1. Winning

2. Losing

I tuned into Netflix new series focusing on Formula One teams. I skipped the first Series and we to watch the second series episode on Lewis Hamilton’s team Mercedes. I must admit I only knew of Lewis Hamilton from social media celebrity, a winner and the darling of motorsports especially the Formula One Championship Teams. As a five times world champion I was intrigued to learn more from watching 30 minutes of Netflix which is of course only a fraction of someone's life.

We love to watch winners and observe their habits and performances do you agree?

The lessons they learnt and how that could be applied into our own leadership and high performance teams.

Losing and winning are simply how a team is able to function on the day. From the engineers, to the mechanics, changing of the wheels to the investors and owners. Lewis Hamilton performance in this episode was lets say sub par. He went into the race with like flu symptoms which not surprisingly affected his performance.

In Rugby teams you only focus on your own mental and physical preparation. Implementing the process of your role is important for the flow and systemized habit’s leads to consistent high performance. You are responsible for how you prepare during the week and the day of the game there is no one to turn to. The coaches role is to provide the strategy for the game and prepare you to be in a position to implement the plan. You only have one opportunity to make that call to either go for the gap, to pass, to tackle and to score the winning try.

Formula one is measured by hundredths of a second. Any team member that stalls or loses focus will cost the team. It is the responsibility of each individual to be prepared to perform in be in the zone when the time comes.

Here are a few insight's.

1. Firstly the Team is first in everything you do. As a leader your responsibility is to find the right people who add value to your team. You are to ingrain the high performance culture, which will affect the attitudes and habits. Setting this right will take you a long way to improving performance, productivity and engagement.

2. Second there is no blame culture. The old ways are to blame and take a top down approach. Telling them what to do will only ever get short term results. Showing your team and working alongside them maintains a high TRUST factor and every increasing consistent performance over the long term.

3. We look into the problem not the person. Similar to not blaming is focusing on the problem. A question you need to ask your self as the leader whether you have done enough to ensure that your people were given the right information and communication. Are you improving your team every single day?

4. Thirdly taking ownership of performance and allow feedback in setbacks to adjust and learn fast to improve and grow before the next race. It is well known phrase that feedback is the breakfast of champions, however you openness to feedback will create the environment and culture of constructive feedback growth.

The lessons here are similar in most teams, whether that is your senior leadership team, managers or board meetings. The difference is the culture and organisational systems which are embedded into each minute, hour, day, week and month. The little things add up and performance and leadership is only as good as the systems. structure and culture.

What have you learnt over the last year since our first lockdown in 2020? How are you leading your team's differently to other years? What and how are you going to help your team? You have an opportunity to lead in equality and empathy and redefine the meaning of leadership in the twenty first century.

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