Every team and organization has a picture of success. And usually leaders will talk specifically to everyone about being “bought in” or “on board” with the goals of the team. If you are “on board”, that’s great! But are you being a positive contributor and helping the ship sail or are you just dead weight on the deck of the ship.
Here are 2 ways to keep yourself in check to make sure you are a positive contributor for your team everyday.
1. Constantly ask yourself questions that start with “what” and “how” instead of “why”. We naturally ask questions like… “Why is this happening? Why did he/she do that? Why do you have a bad attitude? Why can’t you do better?” If we ask the questions “what can I _________” or “how can I ________” then we end up engaged and ready to act. Asking questions that start with “what” and “how” changes our vantage point to be influential instead of just observant.
2. Keep yourself in check by evaluating your effort and performance everyday. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being your best day ever and 1 is when you want to go bury your head in the sand, where do you land on the scale? This is a way to keep yourself accountable to be at your best everyday for your team. If you are working to get better in a certain area you can adjust the scale to track accordingly. I call it the EP Scale (effort/performance). At day’s end you have 2 numbers. Tomorrow those numbers need to be consistent or increase a notch or two.
My philosophy is a person is either adding to or taking away from the team. You are either helping or hurting the team. There is no in between just to hang out and be dead weight. You can be a factor in moving your team forward.
