No matter where you are in your career, taking the leadership role in your organization is a given. Here is the lesson about creating leadership momentum. It's not about you, it's about them.

True leadership begins through valuing others. In working with many law firms, major corporations and associations, everyone plays a leadership role, from the receptionist all the way through the organization to the top dog.

Does everyone on your team consider themselves a leader? Why not? What can you do to help others see their role?

Keep this LEADER acronym in mind as you lead your team, your personal life and more importantly, your self!

L - Listen.

You cannot hear anyone's message if you are talking to yourself. Stop the mental terrorism and self chatter and say to yourself, 'My mind will not wander, I will give this person the respect they deserve.' Do you want respect when speaking to others? You get what you give.

E - Educator.

Knowledge Management is a hot topic. You can only turn the tactic knowledge (process and data) into explicit knowledge (application and wisdom) through positive communications. Knowledge is power to some people and they are not willing to share. These people and ultimately their companies are, simply put - doomed.

A - Adaptability.

Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape. Adapting to change is critical. The old theory of managing by fear is long gone. Boomers, Generation X and the Millenniums (Gen. Y) must be adapted to!

D - Delegate.

Excellence in leadership is created by releasing your authority and responsibility through delegation. Fear? Sure! Give them the objective, hear it in their words (eliminate 'Do you Understand'? and replace with 'I want to make sure I explained it well, could you please play it back in your own terms.)" Most importantly, let them try it their way.

E - Empathetic.

Communicate with the intention of the other person in mind. Leaders can become ego centered and power hungry. Remember it's about them not you. Record yourself. Listen to the intent of the conversation. Is it about you or them? (Then erase the tape!)

R - Role model.

They watch every move you make, every sentence you speak. Want to motivate your group? You must work at creating a positive environment. Too touchy, feely for you? Tough. It is what works. Have fun, speak positively, stay focused and your team will follow.

What part of this acronym do you need to polish? The real secret to leadership momentum is understanding what you can do better. You are not going to change others - just yourself!

by Marsha Petrie Sue E-mail: Marsha@CommunicatingResults.com

(This is a part 1 of a 3 part series on effective collaboration.)

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead

Imagine an acoustical engineer, an electrical designer, a pilot, and a manufacturing engineer in a computer generated, virtual environment putting their heads together in to running jet engine simulation to offer their expert opinions on what they see. This is collaboration, and it is happening everywhere people think together about the same problem, situation, or goal. The technology for collaboration, created at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications Simulation, is being applied in industry to areas of scientific visualization, manufacturing design, rapid prototyping, and education.

In a competitive environment, collaboration is critical to innovation, inspiration, and speed.

Collaboration is a way of energizing people to work and think together. It is the exploration of multiple options from various perspectives. Collaboration is the process of people thinking and working together to discover ways to solve problems; address complex or cross-functional issues; improve processes, products or systems; or invent new ones. Creative, collective thinking applied to work we do leads to examination of how we do it, and how we can do it better. This means discovering new ways that are better, simpler, more efficient, or faster. You will discover many advantages to getting the individuals within your organization to collaborate with others and share their individual thoughts for greater collective thoughts. The benefits are enormous. In the words of Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of VISA USA and VISA International, "Given the right circumstances, from no more than dreams, determination, and the liberty to try, quite ordinary people consistently do extraordinary things." With collaboration, the whole is not the sum of the parts. The whole is exponentially greater than all of the parts. Individuals join the cooperative effort by polling their personal resources for superior results.

The Benefits Of Collaboration

Shared knowledge earns knowledge in return, and polled knowledge consistently leads to better outcomes. In the information era, sharing information is important because it leads to understanding and keeps you in the loop of what is happening. Sometimes just being in the know opens a wider range of opportunities for action.

When problems are complex, seemingly insurmountable, or just frustratingly difficult to solve, answers and breakthroughs are more likely to be discovered through a collaboration of diverse capabilities or divergent viewpoints. The process of collaboration can transform conflicting points to common goals. Collaborations provide an abundance of ideas and options in a short period of time.

Searching for new and better ways in today's morass of possibilities is more than one mind can handle, or at least more than one mind can handle as well, in the same time frame. There are countless tasks and complexities that are beyond the capability of one person alone which can be handled by the concentrated efforts of many.

There are three additional reasons for collaboration:

First: Collaboration will help improve production and product quality. Many can accomplish what one cannot.

Second: Collaboration frequently provides better results in shorter time frames.

Third: Improved products and higher levels of productivity, and processes without bottlenecks will contribute to increased profitability.

Even workers who do the same job, but do not ordinarily work together can benefit from sharing tacit information. This is the kind of information that is often not written anywhere, but learned through experience and passed by word of mouth. The knowledge of how to perform tasks they all do separately can be profitably shared. The result is that each party in this collaboration gains personally from the collective knowledge of the group.

Is your team, workgroup, association, or company utilizing collaboration effectively?

In our next issue we will focus on the "Rules for Collaboration" and the final part will focus on the "Three C's Of Collaboration."

Need help with effective collaboration? Contact Cable & Franklin today!