Bringing your business 'A' game

Written by Mark Jenkins, CA | Jun 7, 2018 7:08:25 AM

Success in sport is all about playing your 'A' game. Being the best you can be through preparation and training, during the game and even after with modesty and humility in success and graciousness in defeat. If everyone on the team plays their 'A' game the results are impressive.

So how do we bring our 'A' game to the workplace? Let's liken our business operations to the game of cricket. Play your 'A' game and you're likely to win; play an 'O' game you'll be 'Out' pretty quick.

There are three important components of your 'A' game

Three A's that bring it:

1. Appraise:
Figure out who is best to have on your team, establish their strengths and, most importantly, what they want to achieve.

2. Allow:
Empower your team to deliver on your plan. Just as the cricket coach stays off the pitch, allow your team members to demonstrate why they are on your team.

3. Acknowledge:
Reinforce the great work they're doing with support and encouragement. Celebrate their successes and build their confidence.

Three O's that will undermine performance:

Avoid the three components of your 'O' game:

1. Obstruction:
Don't stand in the way, seek to control the business or allow your structure to bottleneck at you.

2. Objection:
Don't block the growth of your team in the belief that they will never do the job as well as you do.

3. Obliviousness:
Don't carry on working blissfully unaware of the impact your approach is having on the team.

As leaders we must eliminate our 'O' game.

We all need to take an honest look in the mirror and check our blind spots. Are we allowing our team to bring their 'A' game?

We all have blind spots... if you don't think you have any, ask your team what they think! The 'A' game simply doesn't happen if there is any 'O' game behaviour.

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