I get sent a lot of business books to review. Mostly, I browse them and see if anything attracts my attention. Often, nothing does and the books head off to Goodwill.
Monday Morning Leadershipby David Cottrell is not new. Published in 2002, the book is focused on how managers can do a better job leading teams. You can read it in about 30 minutes.
Book cover via Amazon It has good, basic insights on how to build and maintain effective teams.
The book reminded me of an important maxim in startups--making sure that everyone knows what the "main thing" is in their company or project. Hint--it probably has something to do with value creation and customers.
One of my early mentors in consulting taught me to ask my team members the following question at the beginning as well as during a project:
What are the most important things we need to accomplish for the client?
The usual outcome, believe it or not, was that almost every person on the team had a different (or slightly different) idea of what needed to be done. The exercise provides a great springboard for discussing the project work plan and objectives, hopefully ending in a collective understanding of what the team has to accomplish.
Try it on your team today to see if all are on the same page. I'll bet that you find a lot of differing opinions. If all can get on the same page, it will make a big difference in your productivity, product quality and customer satisfaction.
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