On Saturday we (XNRG) organised a 50km ultra run / walk for the charity Humanity Direct. It was an amazing day with inspirational people taking part in a massive long distance off road challenge, made harder by heavy rain creating thick mud.
£1000s of pounds were raised to help children have minor and major life changing operations in Uganda. Humanity Direct is an amazing charity because all the money raised goes directly to individual operations. www.humanitydirect.org.
Organising a 50km (30mile) long distance event is not a small task and it has many moving parts before and during the event. Prior to the event there is all the bookings, permissions, route planning, food preparation, ordering Tshirts and medals, marking the route and much more.
On the day there is the route checking before the competitors go through, the registration process, the timing systems, the briefing, the starts, setting up the check points, manning the check points, medical support, prize giving and loads more.
As the Race Director I am responsible for the overall event, but I would be completely overwhelmed and unable to deliver the final product without a fantastic team.
As the event unfolded on Saturday and the wheels went into action I realised that everyone in the team is like one big organism, like a living thing. One part could not survive or operate effectively without the others.
This made me think that the same thing is true for anything significant we want to achieve. Nothing is ever achieved without building, developing, nurturing and leading a great team.
If you are a salesman out on patch your team might be – the people that generate the leads, the support team that help you with pricing, proposals, contracts, invoicing, the delivery team that deliver the product or service etc.
If you are a runner it may be your coach, physio, sports psychologist, nutritionist, support crew etc.
If you are a consultant or soultrepreneur your team might be your social media person, your web designer, your graphics designer, your accountant, your book keeper, your virtual assistant etc
We all have teams of people that support us in achieving our significant goals. In fact I would go as far as to say that you need to start building the team as soon as you decide you are going to take on a Big Goal, then continuously be cultivating them.
This leads onto another interesting thought – if we all need teams to achieve significant outcomes then surely we are all leaders ? Do you think of yourself as a leader ? Leading doesn’t mean that you have to “manage” people, it just means that you need to work with others to achieve your goal.
This blog isn’t about how to be a great leader it is about building and nurturing your team, however you may want to think on the fact that even if you do not think you are a leader, you probably have a team that you need to work with to achieve your significant goal.
As a result of this thinking I sat down yesterday and started writing down everyone who is in my team. I got to 30 people and was still writing !! Why not spend 5 minutes writing down everyone who is in your team ? Then think about how you can nurture your team.
The event at the weekend was a huge success for the participants and the charity because of a great team. Thank you to all of you.
Have a great week…………………. Neil………………………
Neil Thubron - Executive mentor / coach, sales and leadership development, Motivational Speaker
Author of Yucan - Achieve any Big Goal using the 7P formula for success - available on Amazon and Kindle.
