When supervisors and managers engage in team building, one way to help ensure success is to consistently repeat the focus, or objectives, of the team.

The reason? People go where they’re focused.

Whatever comes out of a team leader’s mouth is going to affect (and direct) the team. If a person focuses on negatives and what’s going wrong, pretty soon the whole team is doing the same thing.

However, if a team leader focuses on positives and possibilities for resolving the problems that inevitably creep up, pretty soon the whole team is doing that same thing.

Allow me to restate this important fact: People go where they’re focused. And—it’s up to the team leader to establish and reinforce that focus.

Just the other day I was working with someone who oversees four employees. Let’s call the person Jim. Jim’s tendency is to repeat stories about how people have taken advantage of him. It’s almost like he’s addicted to negativity.

As predicted, Jim’s team had begun using similar victim language. On the upside, I was able to point this out to Jim, and he’s starting to catch himself and change the direction of his words.

Hopefully, with some practice (and accountability), Jim can reprogram his conversations so that he talks about what’s possible in the “achievement” arena, and not about what went wrong.

I want to emphasize that refocusing one’s mind occurs over time — and requires conscious effort, too. VERY RARELY does someone make a conscious choice to change and — Voila — permanent change occurs immediately. As research in neuroscience has shown, choosing new pathways of thinking and behaving means physical changes must occur in the brain. That doesn’t happen overnight.

Bottom line, if you’re a team leader, you set the tone and direction for your team’s thinking and behaviors by what you say. Your team will go in the direction of your focus. Therefore, your best bet is to develop a clear mental picture of what you want. Be able to describe it to anyone and show how their work contributes to achieving that picture. Then, stay with it. Keep it up. Regularly talk about that picture so that your team focuses on it, too.

And then — you increase the likelihood of your team becoming passion-driven.

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Filed in Training, Motivation, Management, Team Building, Workplace, Corporate Culture, Coaching