Who has been to the Dead Sea?  What make the Dead Sea – dead?  Basically, these are the characteristics of the Dead Sea:

1. High salinity
2. Lower than the ocean
3. Zero outflow of water

The Dead Sea is a dead sea because the water flowing into it never flows out of it except through evaporation.   This makes the sea very salty and not capable of supporting life.  The Dead Sea does not have the correct balance of inflow and outflow to support life.

For a child to grow healthy requires a good equal intake of food and burning energy.  If this gets out of balance, then the kid either becomes obese or does not have enough energy to grow.  The child needs to have the correct balance of inflow and outflow to support life.

Fishermen know that the best location to catch fish is where two bodies of water come together.  Why?  Because in the transition area, there is always abundant life.  Water is flowing in from two different sources and fish are attracted there.

These three examples demonstrate the need to have a balance of inflow and outflow.  A company also must have people leaving the organization and people joining the organization to sustain health.  Many companies have growth, but they don’t have people leaving the organization.  Likewise, a company that has many leaving but is not cultivating new talent will die.

New people in an organization breed new life into an organization and cause the following:

1. Less Group Think
2. New Ideas
3. New Perspectives
4. New Experiences

The question is not “Are people leaving?”  The question should be “Who is leaving and are the right people leaving?”

For some reason, terminations, redundancies, and people leaving an organization is never talked about.  However, I think that in these situations leadership is most needed. Are good people leaving for reasons that can be corrected?  Are there “hangers-on”, or people that need to go but are still around because their supervisor will not make the tough decision?

A good organizational leader’s primary role is to manage the organization in a changing environment.   This also means that the organization itself must be constantly changing and evolving through the inflow and outflow of its people.

Not everyone will take the Journey with you

• Passion Issue.  Some workers will not want to work that hard.
• Don’t like the make-up of the team.  Some can’t work with others.
• Don’t like the leader.  Some can’t work under your leadership style.
• Different calling.  Some will work hard but not for your cause.

Not everyone should take the Journey with you.

• Don’t have the right skills or experience for their position.

Not everyone CAN take the Journey with you

• Don’t have the ability to grow or adjust with the Vision.  Occasionally, the company outgrows the person.  A worker can prosper in their current role when the company is small but cannot handle the same role in the larger company.
• Find the right place for each person.  An employee can have great skills and potential and attitude but be in the wrong position.  Move the employee with potential to a new role.  If the person won’t take the readjustment, wish them well as you ask them to leave.

So in summary, having a healthy company is like a healthy body or sea – it must have inflows and outflows.  Any imbalance of outflows & inflows lead to a bad & unhealthy situation.

(A note on the discussion after this lesson was awesome today.  Many people talked about companies or teams they had been apart of that were not healthy because of this issue.  Thank you for the participation; it makes the lesson richer for everyone!)

Lead On!
Sutton

Yesterday in our weekly meeting, I thought it was important to go over our Team Culture.   Leaders should communicate the culture they are trying to grow, and this is something we do each quarter.

Team Culture

1. Positive, always positive (the first and most important – we are in the problem management business.  It is not “if” problems will happen, it is about “when” the problems happen what is our reaction.  Being positive is the first element of dealing with problems).
   • Problems are opportunities for success
   • When you raise a concern you must have a solution
   • Willingness to be enthusiastic at all times
   • The work I am doing is important
   • The people I work with are the best – if you expect the best from them, they’ll give their best
   • The results are positive – you get what you expect
2. We are Leaders – and the first person you learn to lead is yourself before you can lead others.
3. Whatever it takes attitude
4. Customer focused results and service (always knowing what the customer wants)
5. We take responsibility – whether it is our fault or not.
   • No blame game
   • Our problems are our problems – we don’t share our problems
6. We build and direct POSITIVE momentum, we don’t allow negative momentum to direct us
7. We are all leaders of leaders who train up leaders.  No great leader was ever negative and leadership is about serving others not wielding power.
8. Our differences are our greatest strength (Culturally, religiously, gender, language, education, age, etc.)
9. An absolute respect for authority
   • We make team decisions and discussions when appropriate
   • When a decision is made (especially when we might not have originally supported the idea in the discussion or it was not discussed at all) we support the decision and work as hard as we can for the Team’s success.
10. Work Smart: Doing the right things, vs. doing things right. We do the right things. (don’t waste your time on things that don’t add value)

Create a culture that celebrates the successes of each other. Work to see your fellow employee or some you manage succeed and give them all of the praise

Lead On!
Sutton