A4B Notes

Best wishes for high Quality of Life in 2010 from Answers 4 Business

It seems our team is running pretty hard heading into the Holiday Season (which, it seems, is now fully upon us).  Personally, I have some teaching work right through the 23rd (and gladly, it's local to Toronto) and other associates have client work, new projects starting (yes, right before the holidays) and, of course, the various sales and marketing activities associated with building out our company and preparing clients for projects starting in the New Year.

It is easy to take our eyes off of the importance of a calendar year end and the significance and meaning of the Holidays (regardless of the faith we may practise - this period seems to have significance to everyone).   We recently defined how our own team defines "winning" and an important aspect of that was to "Constantly increase our individual and collective Quality of Life".  Of course, this extends to our family members, friends, clients, subcontractors, and other stakeholders.   This goal seems to have a particularly strong resonance with our team, so I am quite comfortable speaking for them by wishing for you, our reader, that 2010 be a true breakthrough "Quality of Life" year for you - however it is that you may choose to define and measure that.

We are committed that 2010 be a great year for us and those around us, and we're really looking forward to continuing to expand our relationship with all of you.

 

Season's Greetings.

 

PEAK Teamwork at Answers 4 Business

On October 28th I introduced the PEAK Teamwork management system and committed that we'd be implementing it fully for the purpose of strengthening our own business.  We've been at it for a first month (not full-time, of course) and its impact is beginning to be felt.  Preliminary results are quite positive and I'll describe some of the things that work differently around here so far (and we have just begun - it's at the senior management level so far).

1)  We have a much better understanding of where our own business has been.  As we introduced and gathered simple yet powerful measures for ourselves, it has become more apparent where the source of our success is, and we can easily adjust to build upon these strengths.  Intuition is helpful, but hard data is more compelling.

2)  We are developing and communicating a stronger collective team vision for the enterprise (both current and future states) and are having active dialogues about not only what is possible, but how to get there.

3)  The attitude and atmosphere within the organization has become more positive.  Any leader of any team knows how useful this is.

4)  We are investing in the business and ourselves with a higher degree of purpose and team commitment.

I don't think it's too early to say the the PEAK Teamwork concepts work for us - and I expect to continue to see benefits as we roll out the concepts at more layers in the organization.