The Power of a Positive Team

by  Jon Gordon

“Great teams need to communicate, connect, commit, and care to create meaningful relations, strong bonds, and team unity,” claims best-selling author, Jon Gordon in The Power of a Positive Team. Gordon is convinced that when team members know their team’s purpose and how they can contribute to it, the collective energy and passion will skyrocket into astronomical results whether it’s a family, sports franchise, business or philanthropy. With “roadmap” details, an ordinary team can transform into an extraordinary team, leaving competition in the rear-view mirror.

Why are we reading this book?

Three of Gordon’s more than 20 books are written as guides for leaders to build their teams—The Power of Positive Leadership, You Win in the Locker Room First, and The Hard Hat. This book is meant for teams to read together—to literally be on the same page. He gleans his proven principles and practices from interviews with people who have participated on some of the greatest teams in history. Their inspiring stories plus Gordon’s bullet-point tips in every chapter are a call to action worth heeding.

Backstory:

Gordon’s research substantiates his premise that great teams require more than positive thinking strategies resulting in two additional assertions: that “Culture beats strategy teams lacking a culture statement will fall short of its goals.” He’s quick to point out it’s not “just any culture.” Positive cultures are what energize and encourage the kind of great teamwork that produces stellar results.

Challenge:

To increase revenues, consultants told Southwest Airlines to follow the lead of other airlines and charge for carry-on and checked baggage. In response, Southwest asked the critical question What do we stand for? and referred to their purpose statement: “To connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel.”

Solution:

Southwest decided that if they were focused on everyday fliers and low-cost air travel, they should not charge any baggage fees regardless of what the competition was doing. The result? Southwest’s new customer acquisitions flew to greater heights and their revenues went sky-high. “Once you know what you stand for, decisions are easy to make,” Gordon states.

Solution Steps:

• When people focus on becoming a connected team, the “me” becomes “we.”
• Talk to yourself with positive statements instead of listening to your negative thoughts and ideas.
• Think like a rookie—they aren’t tainted by rejection, negative assumptions, or past experiences.
• It’s not the challenge, it’s your state of mind and thinking that produces how you feel and respond.
• Positivity leads to action, and action leads to results.

Summary:

Most organizations have a mission statement. Only the great ones have people on a mission. People with a purpose drive the numbers and achieve the goals. It doesn’t matter what your culture was like yesterday or last year. What matters is what you are doing to create it today. Meraki is a Greek word meaning to do something with love, soul, and creativity; to leave behind a piece of yourself in your work. Teams that live and breathe these values are truly extraordinary teams.