Services About Blog Contact Us The Station Posted on December 10, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma A few weeks ago my family lost a beloved wife/sister/daughter/mother way too soon and way too suddenly. This also happens to be a time of year when I teach about celebration, which is hard to do right now. But even in the wake of death, there is celebration—I was reminded of this at the beautiful memorial service celebrating my sister-in-law’s life. Continue reading The Great Eight: Wrap Up Posted on October 17, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (This post was originally shared at Leading by DESIGN, where I’m a team member. It is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) I’ve served on a whole lot of teams in my life, some great, some not-so-great, and I can say without hesitation that the team I work with at Leading by DESIGN is the best, healthiest, most connected team I’ve worked on. I think the four of us (Rodger, Jeff, Gerald, and me) actually hit all eight characteristics of a great team. (Can you list them by now? If not, here they are once more, with links to each blog post in this series: Common Goals, Commitment, Communication, Trust, Talent, Knowledge (of each other and of self), Grace, and finally Chemistry. And just for good measure, you can also read the introductory post to this series.) And let me be clear that as individuals, we’re nothing special (sorry team). We are regular people with our own beliefs, values, gifts and voids, passions, wiring, and a heck of a lot of dysfunction (sorry again, team). But we still manage to live into these characteristics of a great team, and I think that we make something special as a team. Continue reading The Great Eight: Chemisty Posted on October 10, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Rodger Price, owner of Leading by DESIGN, where I am a team member. It was originally shared on the LbD blog and is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) Chemistry is the last of our eight characteristics of great teams. This is the most difficult of the eight characteristics to write about as it’s the one I understand the least. I believe we can teach you how to grow the other seven characteristics Continue reading The Great Eight: Grace Posted on October 3, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Rodger Price, owner of Leading by DESIGN, where I am a team member. It was originally shared on the LbD blog and is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) Grace is a unique aspect of great teams. It’s also something that is seldom talked about by experts in team performance. Do you remember what we meant we used the term “grace” at our offsite where we explored the eight characteristics of great teams? The definition we used was “undeserved favor.” Continue reading The Great Eight: Knowing Yourself and Others Posted on September 26, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Jeff Boersma and was originally shared at Leading by DESIGN, where Jeff and I are team members. It is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) If everyone were just more like me, the world would be a better place—or at least my organization would be—or at least my team would be. Besides being an entirely narcissistic statement, it would not be the case that if our teams simply had more uniformity, they would be better. But when are differences valuable? When are they harmful? Continue reading The Great Eight: Talent Posted on September 19, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Rodger Price, owner of Leading by DESIGN, where I am a team member. It was originally shared on the LbD blog and is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) In order to be a great team, there are specific tasks that need to be done very well. The word “talent” describes what is required in order to achieve each of these tasks with excellence. Great teams have the right mix of people who have the talents needed to achieve these specific tasks. John Wooden—the legendary UCLA basketball coach and one of the all-time best assemblers of any kind of team—was known for not allowing a focus to be put on any one talented superstar, but for always making sure the focus was on the overall team. But even with this reluctance to focus on great talent, Wooden is quoted as saying, “I’d rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent.” As committed as he was to the character of the team, he knew the importance of having the right mix of talent. Continue reading Procrastinate Now Posted on September 2, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma I can’t believe I’m recommending a TED Talk that explores how procrastination can make you better at what you do, but this one is so good and the info so compelling that I had to share it with you. Maybe you can watch it while you put off that project with the looming deadline. The Great Eight: Trust Posted on August 30, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (This post was originally shared at Leading by DESIGN, where I’m a team member. It is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) As I write this post, there are 6,289 books on trust available under the Business and Money category on Amazon. What can we possibly add to all that wisdom? Maybe nothing. But please keep reading anyway. Trust is foundational to great teams, and so far—even in those 6,289 books—no one has developed the magic, one-size-fits-all formula to create trust on a team. Every team is different, but the need for high trust in order to be a high-functioning team is a constant. Continue reading The Great Eight: Communication Posted on August 22, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Rodger Price, owner of Leading by DESIGN, where I am a team member. It was originally shared on the LbD blog and is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) Communication is truly one of the key characteristics of great teams. Effective communication is rarely identified as a strength in the teams I’ve had the privilege to observe over the past twenty years. In fact, when doing a cultural assessment, most of the teams I’ve worked with rank it as one of their top five weaknesses. I’ve also heard that it’s the number one reason marriages fall apart. (Not sure if that’s true, but I do recall hearing it from a marriage expert.) Communication is a pretty simple idea: someone wants to (or should want to) send a message of some sort, and someone else wants to (or should want to) receive that message. It’s simple to understand—and really challenging to do. Continue reading The Great Eight: Commitment Posted on August 15, 2016 by Meredith Nieuwsma (Today’s post is written by Jeff Boersma and was originally shared at Leading by DESIGN, where Jeff and I are team members. It is written for our LEAD 365 alumni, although all are welcome to read it.) In Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he lists five characteristics of a dysfunctional team. One of those five is the lack of commitment. When people have not had the opportunity to air their opinion or challenge others, they often do not have the buy-in necessary to move forward with the rest of the team. The important role of the leader in this—your important role—is to force clarity and closure. Let’s talk about how you can grow in this important leadership role of developing commitment. Continue reading Post navigation 1 2 3 Next » Recent Posts The Station The Great Eight: Wrap Up The Great Eight: Chemisty The Great Eight: Grace The Great Eight: Knowing Yourself and Others Recent Comments KimFef on One Step Further DiedraAgoro on The Great Eight: An Introduction JackFef on The Great Eight: Wrap Up AnnaFef on The Great Eight: Wrap Up NormanCox on The Great Eight: An Introduction Archives December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 Categories A Leadership Framework Building a Great Team Business Acumen Feedback Finding Your Fit Leading Change Leading Yourself Real Life Shaping Culture Meta Log in Entries feed Comments feed WordPress.org