What will you learn next year ?

The new year is (again) just around the corner ... As usual, time to reflect on what is behind and make plans for what is ahead. You can think about what you did last year, or didn't do, and how good or not that was. And you can make lists of what to do and places to go in the next year. Or even commit to doing things you never did and you know you will not do !

What about thinking not about what you have done or not done, but instead about what you have learned last year ? What did you learn about yourself ? About the people around you. What do you do better thanks to what you learned compared to the past ? The same goes for next year. What will you learn next year ? What will you do to help others around you learn next year ? Looking at learning opens up a more positive and empowering view on your development and of those around you. There is always learning and yet learning is never completed. When you frame what you do as learning, you are never at zero and you are never fully done. When you are supporting others, see not just what they do or what they don't do. See what they are doing as learning.

We do what we do thanks to what we learned, starting all the way from childhood. We are what we are in life and in work because of what we have learned in the past. And we will be more successful in the future if we can continue to learn.

Happy learning next year !

When the cat's away ...

What happens to your team when you are not around ? My experience with different teams in Asia is not so much that people will start to play or muck around. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Rather than getting together and doing all the stuff you maybe do not allow when you are around, most of the time, when the cat is away, the mice will go in hibernation !

That "team" that you often think of as the group of your direct reports will more or less fall back to its components. The HR manager will go and focus on the HR stuff and the marketing person will quietly keep on working on the marketing assignment you handed out. The team ceases to exist.

When an issue comes up where collaboration or joint action is needed, and when you are not around, does your team huddle together, come up with solutions and decide on the best way forward ? Or do they get lost in arguments and turf wars ? Or - and I think this is what happens most often - is the issue put on the 'pending' list until your return. Whichever of these two extremes, it seems that anything but routine work gets done when you are not around.

What is the solution ? You cannot expect a team to grow by itself if you are involved in every decision. Step back ... even when you are around, and refrain from intervening while at the same time asking for progress to be made. In fact, if the mice start playing when you are not around, that would be a pretty good sign. If however they go into a comatose state, you need to reflect on how you can change the way you work to start building a real team !