David Nickson operates in a highly pressurized unit of the firm and lives daily with the challenge of motivating and encouraging some of the firm’s highest performers.

At the Leadership Forum David demonstrated how Richard Ross’ ‘What Shape is your Boat’ tool can be a powerful way of getting teams to look at the way they are working together  - emphasizing that one size does not fit all situations.  He began his presentation posing the question:

“As leaders how do we overcome the challenges of the natural sense of failure and apathy that prevails within British Business?”

David suggested that leaders do need to get the most out of their people – their greatest asset.  Gaining commitment and engagement from staff is enhanced by teamwork. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, however, suggests that one of the reasons why there are so few great teams is because there are too many good or mediocre ones and there is insufficient desire within organisations to change that.

Spending time raising the collective knowledge and understanding of the dynamics within a team is an essential first step when raising the overall performance of the team and helping to answer such important questions as:-

• What are my ‘crew’ good at?
• What style of ‘rowing’ suits them
• What does ‘high performance' look like in this organisation?

David went on to describe some other practical ways he has found to raise a team’s overall performance:-

• Turn organisational goals into meaningful actions and keep them small in number
• Assume nothing, be proactive with feedback and counseling and keep score
• Be as candid as you can be, even it it’s uncomfortable
• Ask powerful questions.