Harness the power of your ‘Team’
Imagine these three individuals are working together:
The first – let’s call him Brian – is brilliant at doing exactly what he knows how to do, exactly when it’s needed. If something’s wrong, he will jump in to solve the problem automatically, without question. Unfortunately, Brian’s not great at analytical thinking. He lives completely in the black and white, which means that sometimes the solution he chooses isn’t the best approach to solving the problem.
The second is Mindy. She is an analytical thinker extraordinaire. She can gather and integrate huge amounts of information incredibly quickly and use it to make solid decisions. Most of the time. Mindy’s downfall? She has a really hard time weeding out what’s true and most useful from all the facts and data, and she is easily swayed towards the negative bias. Which can lead to some questionable choices and outcomes.
And finally, number three – Guto, whose name means a chief or person who has the strong ability to lead. Guto has an incredible grasp on the big picture, can be trusted to provide timely information with pinpoint accuracy, and they can easily guide the entire team to success. When they’re allowed, that is. A lot of the time, no matter how loudly Guto speaks, the rest of the team ignores them.
If you were their manager, how would you harness this team’s strengths to get the best results?
I suspect most of you would say, “Put Guto in the lead! Make the others listen to them and then use Brian and Mindy’s expertise to build on the information Guto has given”. Easy breezy. And right on.
Now I’ll cut to the chase here, because I’ve been known to milk a metaphor far past its best before date.
In case you haven’t guessed, Brian is your brain, Mindy is your mind, and Guto, that’s your gut.
Does that change your response?
If so, today I challenge you to think about why that might be. What keeps you from listening to your Guto?
