The Leadership Adventure: How to Create High Performing Teams, a Crowd-Sourced set of Answers

This newsletter is for the benefit of one of my members. She is partner at her firm and manages a junior team. On this morning's Mastermind call, she welcomed tips on how to motivate them to become high performers by year's end.

Tip #1 Meet with each team member individually to understand their strengths and motivations. Match them with projects that speak to both.

Tip #2 David Burkus, one of the world’s leading experts on company culture, says the days of the 'annual review' have been traded in for monthly coaching sessions. How can you co-create the high performer together?

"For the last decade or so I’ve been much more in favor of shorter, more frequent “coaching” meetings. There’s some interesting case studies along this route such as this one from HBR , Accenture, Stanford and Adobe . Toward that end, I highly recommend Michael Stanier book “The Coaching Habit” for a useful framework on having those coaching discussions:?https://amzn.to/3BQAfJT "

Tip #3 Establish three goals. One "keystone goal" that would make everything better for the team member. One personal goal and one goal for the team.

Tip #4 Establish a clear path to goals. Below, I shared Dr. Ben Hardy's diagram on what creates 'hope' for people. It's where vision, having agency and a CLEAR PATH meet. Once you have established a goal, can you also outline the next 3 action steps you need to take to make it happen by year's end?

Tip #5 Doubledown on projects, tasks that engage the team outside of work.

One of my members, through the pandemic, introduced group workouts, cooking classes, yoga. Virtually at first. When things were in the clear, in-person. She formed a committee of four employees, who created the activities, based on what was working and what wasn't. During a workshop, she assigned homework: 7 questions to answer before the retreat. At the retreat, they shared their answers and workshopped a 'team identity' (what they wish to be known for.) Another member assigned her team a project: Build a presentation explaining what you do to the company. It turned out much better than she expected.

Before heading up a leadership platform for women, I was a TV news anchor in New York City for 20 years. I've covered the financial markets from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Business news has been my passion. Ten years ago, I founded a women's leadership platform. This program was born out of my personal pain point. While there were many spaces to have conversations about getting married in my family and friend circles, I didn't see spaces to have conversations about building a high profile?career.?

Today, I host a Mastermind for senior women leaders and business owners who have a goal and want to make it their lived reality in one year. How ready are you to get your goals? Take this assessment www.goalsscorecard.com

In 22 days I take my Mastermind of women leaders to Morocco. A piece of the way I drive leadership programming is through the element of adventure. I made this video of what I am packing and wrote this blog on how organizing for leadership is similar to organizing for adventures.