The sense of being a team player has naturally grown in me during my childhood, in school, at home and with my friends. I was luckily always faced to the powerful experience of being part of a team, but I only understood the true meaning of it, when I had to create my own.
As far as I remember myself, I was taught in school during sports activities and in games that a team gathers its strategic forces for a common goal; scoring.
I also understood back then, that team members had to have different skills and actions to
complete the team's overall mission.
In college, I got faced to teamwork around a project.
Sometimes I would let the others do my part of the job, and they would make sure to never include me again in their team.
No, I was not the most disciplined student back then. As a matter of fact, I was the type to work on my projects at the last minute and be satisfied with average grades.
The most important trait about my personality, that helped me overcome my weaknesses and become the person that I am today, is that all along my life experience, I have been observing the world, myself and my mistakes.
That sensitivity that I have grown in me, as well as an early passion for happiness, have allowed me to learn, learn and keep learning, not only from my own experiences, but also from those of others.
And as I grew up to be a young mother at 24, and chose to put myself on the path to become a better person, I realized that to get positive results, it demands continuous work.
Work, workout, lifestyle, love... all these words that are naturally part of our life, remind us that discipline is the key to achievement.
On the path to wellbeing, there is no last minute, and no average results. We must give our best to succeed and we must give it everyday.
When we understand that, then we realize, that if we join our path to the one of other people who are in the same pace and understanding towards life, that is where a powerful teamwork begins.
A winning team is not composed of similar people, as diversity always brings richness to a group. But a winning team must be made of people who have the same level of ambition.
Otherwise, those who want to succeed will have to drag the ones who can do just fine with average results. And I used to be one of them.
I always tell my team:
"I can teach you anything. Don't be ashamed of what you don't know, we can overcome it as a team.
But there is one thing I cannot teach anyone, it's ambition."
Our level of desire to succeed only depends on us. And I will not take it personal if one does not want to be part of my project.
"This choice is related to you and your own life choices.
But if you get onboard, I expect from you to want to succeed. Because you get on the same boat as a winning team and you must respect all the energy that has been put on this project.
If you don't work towards the same direction as us, you are being a weight on us''.
Leading a team is such a challenging responsibility.
It is the one of protecting its members and making sure to keep them in a positive environment.
It is also the one of directing them with the right vision...always observing, testing and having the humility to reconsider the strategy when we feel that the equation between their time and energy spent, is way higher than the results we get in front.
Leading a winning team is most of all, believing.
Believing in you, believing in the vision you work for, believing in the team members and spreading the right spirit among them.
We cannot build a winning team without rules and boundaries, but we must make sure to always cherish it as a family.
This week, I have been faced with deep frustrations.
Some mistakes have been done, that I thought we overcame 6 months ago. I also felt that some team members were not getting to the results I was expecting.
When that happens, I always blame myself first.
I called-in an emergency meeting and shared with them my disappointment and sincere frustrations, but I told them, that I was there to find solutions.
I wanted to understand!
Why was it that a mechanism that I have put in place and was validated months ago, was being dropped without notice and obviously reflecting on the results with serious consequences?
I wanted to understand!
Why was it that I kept pushing some team members who seemed to not have improved at all for the past 5 months?
My company is my life, and my team members are my extended family. I put so much care and energy in seeing them growing.
My frustration was clear, but in that meeting, my sensitivity could also make me notice, some
questioning in their eyes.
My team wanted to understand better my expectations.
How could they be winners within the Mayshad team? How could they succeed in their mission?
I started talking about the relationship between a team, a company and its leader. Each one of them had responsibilities towards the others, and those responsibilities were equal if not similar.
Keeping the environment growing, fulfilling our duties towards each other, bringing our richness to the project to make it succeed.
That talk has brought me to draw four evaluation criteria's and values that made things more clear to all of us.
- Respect and Commitment, expressed as caring for the company and its overall growth and not only focusing on the success of our own tasks. When we get to that level of caring, it creates an emotional link within the team and the company that builds an essential trust to a
powerful team.
- Productivity, measured in quality and time spent to accomplish our mission. It is an important component that investors will always look at when evaluating team members.
- Regularity. Just as balance and discipline, a team member who overcomes its ups and downs and understands that working greatly is an everyday mission, will start experiencing tremendous growth and success within his mission and in a company.
- Engagement out of work. I expect my team to bring me richness from their life experiences, inspirations, network, ideas, solutions. My mission within the Mayshad Team does not stop when I leave the office, it is constant. I always tell them, that I keep working for them, whenever and wherever I am in the world. The day that my inspiration and absorption of the world's richness, will be multiplied by my 30 team members, we will explode into an invincible winning team.
Those values are applicable to Mayshad but also to any winning team in the world.
They are fundamentals to our professional projects but also to our personal ones. When we give that level of commitment to a subject in our life, we automatically achieve amazing results.
As someone dear, once told me: "Your focus, is in more focus''.