Good leaders see the need, seize the opportunity, and serve without expecting anything in return. Who wouldn’t want to work for a leader like this? What about working beside people who – SEE, SEIZE and SERVE?

A great team motto would be SEE, SEIZE and SERVE. When I talk to leaders about establishing core values and making them come to life, I often talk about the importance of communicating “What good looks like” to the teams they lead.

See, Seize and Serve

Communicating “What good looks like” is critical for any leader who wants to lead a team that everyone wants to work for and everyone wants to do business with. That is why an entire module of The Overwhelmed Manager’s Guide to a Winning Culture is devoted to Communicating Your Values.

You can check out The Overwhelmed Manager’s Guide to a Winning Culture by clicking on the title above or use this url: www.om-guide.com.

But, how can I get my team to behave in alignment with our core values? Let me use SEE, SEIZE and SERVE as an example.

Communicating SEE, SEIZE and SERVE

So often we busy, overwhelmed leaders forget that the simplest communication strategies can have a huge impact. We see communicating core values as important and therefore should be much more complicated than something as simple as a greeting or a team motto.

I could bring my team together for 15 minutes a week to discuss SEE, SEIZE and SERVE. Here are some questions I might initiate the conversations with:

• What opportunities are in front of us this week?
• Who do you think should SEIZE that opportunity? Why? What can we do to help?
• What selfless act of service did you see someone on our team perform this week?
• What opportunities did we miss last week? What can I do to be sure we don’t miss another opportunity?

If something is important, it is worth repeating. As leaders we are naïve to think that saying something once a year or even quarterly is truly placing value on a topic.

As a leader I must be intentional and build the communicating of “What good looks like” into my daily and weekly communications with my team.

The General’s Idea

During a recent radio interview I conducted on IMPACT Talk Radio, (over 200,000 downloads to date) I interviewed my father, General Jim Anderson about his experiences in Vietnam and how they shaped his view of leadership. He shared this simple way to remind people how decisions should be made.

It was another motto: “Do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do.” His suggestion was a team greeting. Much like at some churches when someone says “May the peace of Christ be with you.” The response is, “And also with you.”

He believed a team greeting of “Do the right thing.” and response, “Because it is the right thing to do.” Would go a long way towards instilling the value of integrity into the DNA of a team.

I could also bring my team together and unpack our greeting and response: “Do the right thing.” – “Because it is the right thing to do.” Here are some questions I could use to facilitate some question around integrity and this greeting:

• Why is doing the right thing difficult in our everyday work lives?
• When can we be tempted to take the lower easier road versus the higher – harder road?
• What should we do if we have a customer or a vendor who does not operate on that level?
• What can we do to avoid situations or people that might create a problem in this area?

The Bottom Line:

What can a leader do to communicate and reinforce “What good looks like” in his/her team? The answer is a lot!

You do not need an off-site meeting. You do not need a book club. You do not need a professional motivational speaker (even though that is part of what I do!).

What you need is a plan to consistently communicate “What good looks like.” You can do it in 15 minutes a week and you will have an impact on your team.

Use a blog. Use a video. Use a greeting. Use a motto. Use your core values. AND THEN TALK ABOUT THEM!

If the leader talks about SEE, SEIZE and SERVE, it becomes important. If the team discusses “What good looks like” on a regular basis, the team will begin to SEE, SEIZE, and SERVE.

You can also get some free PDF downloads (OMG Power Pack) and watch some free videos that explore this topic further by clicking on the following title: Overwhelmed Manager’s Guide to a Winning Culture

Or here is another blog that discusses communicating team values further:  Building Leaders with a Blog – Four Easy Steps

Question:

What other suggestions do you have for communicating “What’s good look like”?