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The best leaders have the best players on their team to execute their vision and make it a reality.
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Quick reference
Select “A” Players
Perpetuating teamwork is the final step in leadership because when your organization is working as a cohesive team you achieve more goals and then morale goes up and quality increases. We look at the importance of a team and how to use the team to achieve the desired outcome. As a leader you should strive to select “A” players. These are people who are smart, have a good work ethic, are aligned with your companies values and your purpose and are nice.
When to use
When you are creating a team, always select “A” players. You have to have the best people on your team to create the synergy needed to overcome challenges and meet the desired outcomes.
Instructions
Everything we have talked about up to this point is the foundation. Without “A” players it is going to be difficult to execute.
“A” players are those people that allow synergy to happen. They help perpetuate innovation. You must hire the best people and have to be willing to fire those who are not the best, because one bad apple can poison the bunch.
There is an acronym you can use to help you select the “A” players, SWAN:
- Smart – Hire people who are smart. If you are trying to create synergy and innovate, you need smart people.
- Work Ethic – You can’t train a work ethic. If you want people to come to work on time and maybe work late when needed you need someone with a good work ethic.
- All In – You want someone who is all in with your company. You want someone who aligns with your company, with the core values and with your purpose. That will make things much faster.
- Nice – Hire people who are nice especially if they are interacting with clients, but also those who work internally with your team. You want nice people to create that positive environment and synergy within your team.
- 00:04 In this video, we're going to talk about selecting A players.
- 00:10 This is huge.
- 00:11 Everything we've talked about up until this point is the foundation.
- 00:15 And without A players, it's going to be very difficult to execute.
- 00:20 So what do I mean by A players?
- 00:22 I am talking about the people who allow synergy to happen.
- 00:28 These are the best of the best in their industry.
- 00:31 They help perpetuate innovation, right because their creative people,
- 00:36 their smart people.
- 00:37 And we're gonna talk about a little acronym to help you remember the people
- 00:41 that you want.
- 00:42 Because think about the wrong people, you can't motivate them.
- 00:46 It's a waste of time.
- 00:48 You have to hire the best that you can hire and you have to be willing to fire
- 00:55 those who aren't up to part, because one bad apple can poison the bunch.
- 01:01 Haven't you seen that before?
- 01:03 I had a client, working with a hospital, a fairly good size hospital.
- 01:08 And we were trying to really implement great service for their clients and for
- 01:13 their patients.
- 01:15 And what ended up happening,
- 01:16 there was one department head where she just didn't get it.
- 01:19 And I could tell that she was the one that the other department heads
- 01:24 were having butting heads with everyday.
- 01:27 And she had that attitude.
- 01:29 And she was that apple that was poisoning the bunch.
- 01:32 And as I talked to the other executives and department heads, she was the problem.
- 01:37 What ended up happening was everything else changed so much.
- 01:42 We did so much change in moving in the right direction.
- 01:45 She was left behind, she didn't wanna change.
- 01:48 And she ended up leaving the company.
- 01:50 And once she did, everything changed.
- 01:54 One person.
- 01:57 I really wanna emphasize that.
- 01:58 Because think about it.
- 02:00 Is there somebody on your team right now that's holding everybody back?
- 02:05 Is there a one person?
- 02:06 No, or maybe two people or three people and handful of people.
- 02:09 That are just in a different mindset than the goal you are trying to achieve.
- 02:15 You can try to train them, you can try to motivate them from where they are,
- 02:20 or do you have to make a personnel change?
- 02:23 You need to make those tough decisions.
- 02:25 Excellent.
- 02:26 The second thing I wanna talk about is another acronym.
- 02:28 I love acronyms.
- 02:29 It's SWAN.
- 02:30 S-W-A-N.
- 02:31 And I first heard this from Bryan Tracey.
- 02:33 But I changed it just a little bit to meet our needs here.
- 02:37 So the first thing is you wanna hire people who are smart.
- 02:41 Because if you're trying to create synergy and innovate, you need smart people.
- 02:46 So hire smart people.
- 02:48 When you go back and
- 02:50 you look at resumes, the resume doesn't tell you the whole story, does it?
- 02:55 No.
- 02:56 You wanna talk to these people and you wanna hire people that are smart.
- 03:00 Number two, the W in SWAN stands for work ethic, you can't train a work ethic.
- 03:07 If you want people to come to work on time and stay late every now and
- 03:11 then when they have to, or maybe sometimes they have to work weekends,
- 03:15 you need somebody with that work ethic already built in.
- 03:19 And the N of SWAN stands for all-in.
- 03:22 You want somebody who's all-in with your company.
- 03:25 Somebody who aligns with your mission, aligns with your values,
- 03:29 and aligns with your purpose, remember we talked about purpose,
- 03:33 somebody who already aligns with your purpose cuz now everything is gonna move
- 03:38 that much faster because they're all in.
- 03:41 And finally, the N, I love customer service, I'm passionate about it,
- 03:45 you wanna hire people who are nice.
- 03:49 People were nice.
- 03:50 Especially if they're front facing out to your clients, and
- 03:53 interacting with your clients and your customers, but
- 03:56 also interacting with your team, and your co workers.
- 03:58 And your staff.
- 04:00 You want positive people who are nice, who are friendly.
- 04:03 Who can get things done for you.
- 04:05 That helps create that culture in that team environment that's positive.
- 04:09 That's gonna help you guys overcome challenges.
- 04:12 And still create an environment that people want to be in,
- 04:16 does that make sense?
- 04:17 Excellent.
- 04:18 So let's go back over selecting your A players.
- 04:22 You want people who allow synergy to happen.
- 04:25 They help perpetuate innovation.
- 04:28 Because the wrong people, you can't motivate.
- 04:30 They're a waste of time.
- 04:32 You have to hire and fire because one bad apple can poison the whole bunch.
- 04:37 And if you want a simple acronym, remember SWAN.
- 04:41 S-W-A-N.
- 04:42 Hire people who are smart,
- 04:44 with a work ethic, they're all in with your company, and they're nice.
- 04:50 All right, I hope you enjoyed this video training.
- 04:52 We'll see you in the next one.
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