What’s that button for?
Remember the joke about the apprentice lumberjack?
He could only clock up nine trees a day compared to a performance target of ten. And so his foreman decided to give him some coaching on technique. He grabbed the power-saw and fired it up.
A startled apprentice jumped back and exclaimed, “I wondered what that button was for!”
Do you notice a similar situation in the teams where you work?
How much toil, sweat and underperformance in going on? How much untapped potential is sitting there waiting for someone to fire these teams up?
What does the firing-up process look, sound and feel like? What do leaders believe about the power of teams where you work?
How do they approach the commissioning and missioning process; how do they optimise trust, challenge, commitment, and accountability; how do they nurture engagement and dialogue with stakeholders; how do they encourage effective learning and reflection? What tools do they use?
And how do they decide when the team’s purpose has been fulfilled? How do they decide when to power-down and switch it off?
How many well-meaning apprentices are struggling with teams in your neck of the woods? What are you going to do about this?
Dave Stewart
The Fresh Air Learning Company
