No Parking Zone

The reality television show Parking Wars is an interesting way to learn about human reaction in crisis, frustration and about how people accept (or don't accept) responsibility.
One evening I decided to pop into the show briefly and observed a young woman state that she had received seven parking tickets after parking in the same No Parking Zone several times.  These seven tickets totaled $281.00 plus the fee to impound the car, as a result of the seven unpaid tickets.  The fee to park in the underground parking lot across the road would have been $7.50 per day.  What I found most interesting was her dialogue with the Impound Officer and her friend about whose responsibility and problem this actually was. Somehow this young woman had convinced herself that it was the Ticket Officer's problem.  She was full of excuses, blame and even personal put downs about the Ticket Officer.
This same scenario plays out in workplaces all the time.  Someone makes a mistake or a bad choice, and rather than own it and accept responsibility, fingers start pointing and blame and excuses fuel the dialogue.
There are clear benefits of owning your choices, actions and decisions:

• It demonstrates integrity
• Owning up shows you are not perfect
• Relationships are maintained instead of becoming strained
• You can change the behavior for next time or to improve the situation
• Owning your actions reduces chance of the same mistake(s) occurring again
• There is learning and growth

The benefits of owning your choice and actions far outweigh blame, excuses and putting the responsibility onto others.  Workplace environments that faster respect, acceptance, and trust provide the "safety zone" for team members to effectively handle mistakes and own their actions.

Renovate to Sell

While watching a "sell this home" type TV show, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between renovating a home to sell it and developing effective sales skills in teams.
In the television episode, a woman was selling her home to downsize as her children had all left for college.  The feedback from the open house attendees who toured the home made comments like, "It is dated", "It is too dark", "I don't understand what this room is for", "Too busy and cluttered", and the list list went on.  You get the drift.  To address some of these issues, the home stager suggested that a coat of paint to some low cost fake wood furniture would actually improve the aesthetics, modernize the room, and make the room look fresh.  The home owner resisted this suggested strongly.  It was her belief that wood should not be painted, even fake wood!  She was so attached to what she knew and how it has always been that she could not see what it could be like.
This occurs in teams too!  Team members become so attached to the way it has always been (even if it no longer serves them) they emphatically resist how it could be.  You hear comments like, "Why change, we've always done it this way", or "It works just fine".  Sometimes the current way really is THE WAY.  However, in many cases, there is opportunity to change things up a bit instead of doing what has always been done.  Often it is difficult for reams and leaders to acknowledge when a system process, service, or approach is no longer serving them well.
Just as attendees at an open house must clearly understand the purpose of a room (e.g. is it a kitchen, a den, etc.), we must clearly understand the purpose of our business and the vision for the future.  When team members understand these things about the companies they work with they will be able to passionately and clearly share that with others, including our next customers.  When teams understand these aspects of their companies, it is then that they can explore how things COULD be.

Extreme Team and Business Makeover

There are many reality makeover shows on television that relate to fitness, appearance, one's house or yard.  How about a business and team makeover as a way to bring in the New Year and welcome new success?
Years ago, when I had two businesses, I loved the last week of the year.  For me it was a time to clear up old projects and make room for the new.  I used this time to de-clutter and reorganize the office, catch up and clear away outstanding projects, take stock of resources and supplies needed for the coming year, and to revisit values and goals for the team and our company.
Ed Horrell, author of the Kindness Revolution, talks about his idea of an Extreme Corporate Makeover.  He suggests the following steps to your makeover.

• Survey your customers needs - find out their challenges and needs
• Prepare to do what your customers want
• Focus group to plan the changes and set goals
• Develop a customer credo (the Ritz Carlton's is "Ladies and Gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen)
• Talk about customer service every day in the team.  Keep it front and centre, make it important
• Review customer service objectives
• Put your standards out for others to see
• Make our motto and credo a promise and part of your staff's uniform
• Practice kindness in every single conversation and contact

As you move forward in 2012, identify five areas of focus for your extreme team and business makeover.  For example, sales, customer service, team relationships, systems, referral process, etc.  Once you have completed this step, identify five actions for each area.  That will start your year with 25 designated steps toward your corporate makeover.

Wishing you great success!

Who is Leading Your Tribe?

Book Review on the book TRIBES by Seth Godin


Godin describes a tribe as a group of individuals who are connected to one another, an idea, and a leader. According to Godin, you must have a leader otherwise it is not a tribe; the group is imply a group of people. This connection, the tribe, requires two things. The first is a common interest, and the second is communication. Communication can occur in several different ways: leader to tribe, tribe to leader, tribe to outsiders and between tribe members. There have been initiatives and groups to which I have belonged that could be considered a "tribe" in that the members were connected to one another sharing an idea or movement they supported, and where there was a leader. The energy in these groups was very high in that the shared idea was what rooted the members together. The leadership provided the communication and drive to move the initiative forward.


A tribe does require a leader. Leadership and management is different, Godin summarizes the difference as a leader being one that creates change you believe in while managers are more about managing processes and manipulating resources. A tribe leader can increase the effectiveness of the tribe through transformation- transforming the shared interest into a clearly defined goal that the individuals are passionate about. The leader secures the resources and processes to communicate effectively and supports the tribe in growing and evolving.


In the book Tribes, Godin talks about one barrier to bringing good ideas to reality, that is FEAR. He suggests that while many people come up with great, even groundbreaking, ideas however most lack the will to actually make the idea happen because we are hardwired with fear. Fear is also a reason that many leaders avoid leadership...because of the discomfort involved in leadership. There is discomfort when making an unpopular decision, taking a stand, challenging the status quo, change or settling for just "okay". Leaders stretch to move out of the discomfort to be effective in their role, and in doing so, provide the opportunity for change, growth and action towards the goal or mission, or a movement.


There are several "musts" for a movement, according to Godin, those are:

- A Manifesto or what I refer to as a charter- a clearly defined message that is easy to understand and as easy to share with others

- Accessible leaders and connections with others

- Opportunity for members to connect with one another

- Money enables the movement, but money is not the point of the movement

- Progress is tracked.

The principles required, that can also benefit your team are:

- transparency, a movement or goal that is bigger than you, opportunities to grow and thrive, and a high degree of caring.

Who is in your tribe? Whose tribe do you lead? What movements can you get behind to make a difference?

To learn more about Seth Godin or the book Tribes, visit:

What Gets in the Way of Communication?

In the book The Orange Revolution by Gostick and Elton, they identify communication barriers, such as:

- Talking in innuendos (and hoping people get the point or read between the lines)

- Finger pointing and assigning blame

- Pushing a negative agenda and building allies

- Minimizing or down playing serious situations

- Withholding information or ideas


What gets in the way of team communication in your place of work?


Teams that don’t fall into these communication traps are much more likely to collaborate, build trust and effectively manage the challenges that come their way.


Three ways to enhance team communication:


- Speak with Respect, Clarity, and Focus

- Question that which you don’t understand

- Avoid assumptions and especially be aware not to act on assumptions

When communication falls off the track, take a moment to refocus. Don’t let emotions or assumptions take you further away from the issue at hand. The extra time you take to communicate with clarity will save you time dealing with bigger challenges later on.

How great teams transform organizations

The Orange Revolution Book (written byAdrian Gostick and Chester Elton) Review

Communication is absolutely essential for building teams and team success. While communication can be pretty complex, at the simplistic level it is about sending, receiving and understanding messages. It is in the understanding that the water can become pretty muddy.

If a team does not understand the messages that are sent from leaders, management and owners, it will result in failed communication, a lot of missed opportunities, frustration and gapping out on the goals. I have seen this time and time again. Communication goes astray, blaming and fingerpointing surface, and goals sit on the sidelines awaiting the team's attention and focus.

Accountability is also critical in a team. Often leaders and team members don’t acknowledge the success, completions and accomplishments that have transpired. Instead, the recognition occurs when someone drops the ball, misses a deadline or makes a mistake. This recognition is often communicated through blame, finger pointing and excuses. Accountability must also include the discussions about the successes, for people to embrace accountability instead of fearing it. When I work with clients we talk about accountability being accountable to self, and to others. Accountability really is a two way street.

In Orange Revolution, it is stated that great leaders understand that recognition is fundamental to effectively focusing team members on their goals, building collaboration and team work. This brings us to what is called Cultivating the Team. In Orange Revolution, the author shares the six components to achieving world class results, those being:

1. Dream- dreams are larger than a goal and don’t necessarily require a plan like a goal.

2. Believe- team members follow the leaders’ passion and desire to succeed which inspires steps forward.

3. Risk- there has to be some risk to achieve results.

4. Measure- set standards and then measure against these.

5. Persevere- all teams fall off the track and encounter road blocks and experience change. Great teams find ways around these.

6. Tell and share stories

What are the stories that you want the team to share with others?

Sometimes the Way We Look at the Problem, IS The Problem

Another way to think about stress is through the outcomes you
experience in your life. For example, the quality of your relationships, your
satisfaction with a job, your current level of health and stress, and your
financial situation are all a result of how you have responded to situations,
events, and circumstances that have come up in your life.

You might be thinking: “There are lots of things that come up in life that
I have absolutely no control over.” And you are absolutely right! There are
many situations that go on in the workplace that you cannot control or
influence. In fact, there are events that arise in life that are completely out
of your control. It is important is to spend your energy, skills and time
focusing on what is within your ability to control or at least influence.

I discovered many years ago when I was a Correctional Officer that
sometimes the way people view a situation or event is actually the problem.
When you can change how you look at the event or view it through a
different lenses, sometimes the issue doesn’t seem so bad.

“Why is it that people always put their energy into the things that drives
them crazy…stuff that is completely out of their control?” asked a client
during a team building consultation.
“Tell me more about that. What do you mean?” I asked Joe, the team
lead. Joe had been with his company for 15 years, and according to him
he “had seen it all, and done it all.”

“Well, I have noticed that our staff meetings often go off on a different
tangent. It seems innocent at first but then I see the team’s energy
focusing on what they can’t change, such as company policy, the available
budget, and the current economic climate in the world. People get pretty
hot under the collar and it can be tough to bring them back to the rea
l world…our business.”

“Great question Joe, one that would be useful to explore when we meet
with the team. What’s your take on it, though?” I asked. Joe really
seemed to have his finger on the pulse of his team and had a vested
interest in building a resilient and inspired team.

Thinking for a few minutes, Joe responded, “Maybe when people focus
on what they can’t control they can assign blame, or look to who ‘should’
be responsible, instead of what they can actually influence or fix
themselves.”

“Interesting. So I wonder what gets in the way of the team having
THAT discussion.”

These two questions were soon a facilitated discussion that led to an
incredible team building process. The questions were: Why do team
members put energy into what is not within their direct control and?
And what is it that we can actually control or influence, and could we
explore putting our energy there instead? As the team explored looking

through a different set of eyes, they discovered that when they focused
only on the negative or what seemed broken the situation was far worse
than it was in reality. When the team focused on what was in their
control, they looked at that same event very differently, and focused
on solutions!


Excerpt from Charmaine Hammond’s Bounce Forward Book.

To read more about this topic, follow the blog, or you can order a copy of
Bounce Forward (the book or the soon to be released audio book) by
emailing chris.alcock@hammondgroup.biz for your signed copy.