Find Your Calling and Purpose (2) – The Call to Love

I am a Christian. I think that our enthusiasm is a place where we can find joy and calling, but there are also some things that we can find in the Bible, including

The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:7-21)
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’(Deuteronomy 6:5)
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18, Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:37-40)
The Golden Rule (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12), and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) that need to be considered.

As my friend Sam Martinez likes to point out, it is both Old (Job 24:3, Psalms 68:5, Isaiah 1:17) and New Testament (James 1:27) teaching to do a better job at taking care of orphans and widows. Which I can sum up as God telling me “Love God, Love others, especially the less fortunate, and make disciples who are baptized and obey the Word of God.”

Loving God, to me means that we pursue our calling with our gifts, our passions, and experience, as well as loving people that He has put into our path, our neighbors.

But what does it mean to love our neighbors (including our co-workers, customers, vendors, employees, etc.)? I believe that there are a few things that we can do. These four things are foundational in loving our neighbors, in the agape, or selfless sense of the word.

Listen – as Stephen Covey put it in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “listen first to understand” rather than listening to respond. Listening is a great way to show people love, including our spouses, children, parents, as well as those we work with.
Empathy – derived from listening comes empathy. Empathy is really trying to put yourself into the shoes of those around you. Can you listen to really feel someone’s pain as they tell you about some tragedy in their life? It is not easy, but focusing on someone else’s hurt, can help them better process it and help them get to the otherside of something which may be blocking their performance.
Trust – In a culture of love, you need to be able to trust people. Trust them to do the task they are assigned, trust that they will do their best, and trust that they are oriented with your same mission. They also want to trust you as a coworker, in that you have their best interests at heart, that you will take care of them, and that you are invested in their development and success. We also need to be able to trust that our co-workers can deal with bad news. If we do trust that we are all doing our best and trying to acheive, then if something goes wrong, we may be better able to recover.
Serve – Serving those your work for, with, and by, is also sometimes a difficult thing to do, but is another reminder that love comes from serving, and not expecting to be served. How much better could are relationships be if we took the time to serve the needs of those around us.

For another few ideas, please check out this blog post on (High Performing Cultures)

In this world of coaching and development, there are many books, articles, podcasts, and other content. I think that many of them say the same thing in different ways. Recently, I heard a story that Ken Blanchard had written a book, called the 1-Minute Manager, and was marketing the book on a Christian TV show. The tenets of this book called for managers to do goal setting in one-minute increments, to get out and catch people doing things right and praise them, then similarly, setting clear expectations and doing any reprimanding in the space of a minute. The host of the show then mentioned to Ken that there was one leader who was doing this long ago, (even longer than the 30 years ago the book was first published!) and that was Jesus. Jesus spent his time helping to set goals for people could quickly praise people, and quickly reprimand people, but leave them feeling valued and seen in a way that kept them from wanting to repeat their mistakes (sins) again. Ken was then inspired to right another book with Phil Hodges, called Lead Like Jesus. Ken has said, “The more I read the Bible, the more evident it becomes that everything I have ever taught or written about effective leadership over the past 25 years, Jesus did to perfection. He is simply the greatest leadership role model of all time.”

So taking that Jesus is the greatest leadership role model in history, and He is essentially all about Love, and he calls us to Love, then I think that is definitely a calling on my life.

This then begs the question: Do we need any other books but the Bible to teach us how to grow, how to be, how to lead? Maybe not, but I also think that some of these concepts may not be as clear to people based on translations, based on contextual understanding, etc. Every time I read passages in the Bible I feel like I am learning something new, based on the context and lens I am looking at it through. People who are writing books, like Ken Blanchard, Dr. John Townsend, Henry Cloud, and Rick Warren, all are helping to put context around these timeless principles, and hopefully they are reaching people so that they can find calling, purpose, and fulfillment in their lives. Interestingly, I also searched for “love in business” on google and found a few other references on the benefits of building love into your business, and these I don’t actually know if they are Christians or not, and some have written books on the subject:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/07/05/how-love-as-a-business-strategy-can-make-your-company-more-profitable/?sh=2b6c727e3211

https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/love-four-letter-word-or-remarkably-powerful-secret-for-business-success.html

https://real-leaders.com/why-love-is-important-in-business/

https://hbr.org/2022/04/marcus-buckingham-why-love-is-the-key-to-career-success

A scholarly article on Love in Business:

https://rdcu.be/c4eW6

In summary, Love is a calling, a need, and an action that we can take to make a better world, whether you are commanded as a Christian, or it just makes good business sense, do more with Love.

January 21, 2023January 26, 2023

Find Your Calling and Your Purpose (1)

Man waiting for a call. Image shows a man waiting for his calling or purpose to call him on the phone. — Calling and Purpose

God, please tell me what to do!

God speaks to a lot of people in the Bible. Even some people today, you can talk to them and they are sure that God has called them down a path. He does not speak to me in any sort of obvious way, and waiting by the phone for him to call and tell me what my purpose is, doesn’t seem to work. My wife and I were talking today about how communications isn’t just about email, and while God hasn’t adopted that either, he has left us plenty of instruction. He has left us his word, and he has created us uniquely to have a purpose.

Over the past couple of years, I have worked through a transition in my life, from a Defense Contractor to an Executive Coach and Management Consultant. I made this transition partly of my own volition, but also to pursue an opportunity to minister to people in the marketplace.

As a defense contractor, I was doing work I was passionate about, was interested in, and that I thought useful and cutting edge for the Navy. Other people had other priorities, and I was out of contract dollars to keep my technology growing. What I realized quickly is that I am not a software developer. That is not my experience nor my gift. I have written some R and python scripts, but I am not efficient or effective. It is a daunting thing to be dependent on others to bring your vision to life, without having money to pay them to do it. Rather than go after investors, I chose the consulting route and pursued the opportunity to be a Chapter President for @Truth at Work in San Diego. My goal was to use my leadership and management education, training, and experience to create a successful consulting practice to serve others. Along the way, I could also support business leaders who are lonely, isolated, and overwhelmed, by getting them into community with other believers. Then COVID came and put a halt to everything. So I began to ask myself, is this just my great idea, or am I really pursuing my calling?

In the Executive Coaching world, continuous education is a real thing. If you plan to help others to continue to get better, then you need to continue to better yourself. So I went back to school, got a certificate from the Townsend Institute at Concordia University Irvine. Then I started getting into other groups and started reading and rereading a lot of books (including the Bible!). Another thing that I did, was to become a client of the process, and hired my own coach, who has also helped me to prioritize what is important, to listen to subtle and not so subtle clues, and to try to figure out what God is really calling me to do.

I believe it was Larry Buxton who explained to me that the word Enthusiam is actually derived from words meaning “God within”. I found this tidbit at the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

What is the history of enthusiasm?

… Enthusiasm entered the English language around the beginning of the 17th century. It was borrowed from the Greek enthousiasmos, meaning “inspiration or possession by a god.” For the first two hundred or so years that it was used in English, enthusiasm was primarily employed to refer to beliefs or passions that related to religion…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enthusiasm

So what if God is the source of our enthusiasms? If so, then things that we are enthusiastic about, are things that deserve attention. What things are you enthusiastic about? What things bring you joy? What do you get lost doing? At this point it doesn’t really matter if it makes you money, unless money making or spending money is your calling. Usually the money comes as a byproduct of pursuing your calling or passion, but that’s not to say that you may also need to make money to be able to pursue your passion. At any rate, list down those things which you are passionate about.

If you are feeling stuck or wanting to talk about a transition in your life, please schedule a time to talk and see if we can help you to Activate Your Passion! You just may find it helps to Optimize Your Performance!

Contact TackShip today!

October 10, 2022October 10, 2022

Columbus Day: The Perfect Day Off

What Columbus Day Means to Me

The original meaning behind Columbus Day was to celebrate the European discovery of the Americas. Like many things, this has become divisive and offensive to certain people, especially Native Americans, whose lives and communities that have been impacted ever since. Today, I think other than the federal government, there are not many people celebrating Columbus Day, but as a defense contractor, it was one of my favorite holidays. How often do you get a day off for just you? A day where you don’t have to do or be anything except the things you want to do? Do you ever feel like you would love to go where you want to eat or do what you want to do for fun?

My Perfect Day

Honestly, I prefer to be with my wife and family. But for one day a year, it has been awesome to be able to drop my kids at school and then get on with a day that I enjoy. Sidecar donuts for breakfast, on to the beach, as typically the weather and water are mild to warm, and often the waves are decent. After the beach, the next thing on my list is a great taco shop for a carne asada burrito and maybe some ice cream at Handel’s. At some point, it is back to real life, grabbing the kids from school, getting dinner ready, and back to family life. Typically that day is very refreshing as it is all about me and what I like to do. I do like other holidays, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day for remembering important people, and Labor Day for picnics and barbeques with family and friends. But Columbus Day tends to be about me, and if it’s the only day a year, it’s great to make the most of it.

Schedule Your Own “Me Days”

I think it’s so important to schedule days like today because everyone deserves time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It’s good to make sure you have some time to pursue your passions and get away from the day-to-day. On the seventh day, even God rested. So take the time to do some things that you like to do. Start with one work day a year. If you could plan your one perfect day, what would you do?

Tackship Consulting Is Here To Help

Activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting. If you’re ready to make a change, please set up a time to meet with me here.

September 10, 2022September 11, 2022

Remembering The Heroes Of 9/11

Remembering The Heroes Of 9/11

We are coming up on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This moment was a defining time in American history where sadly 2,996 individuals lost their lives that day.

Even though September 11th, 2001 was a day of fear and terror, there were heroic men and women that worked hard to serve and rescue as many people as they could that day. One of the men was known as “The Man in the Red Bandana,” and his name was Welles Crowther. Welles worked in the Twin Towers as an American Equities Trader, but he was also a volunteer firefighter.

When the plane struck the building, Welles was working above the impact area on his tower. He was able to find the only stairwell that was not blocked due to the damage and fire of the impact. Welles jumped into action allowing his training as a firefighter to take over and he demonstrated the characteristics of teamwork, courage, perseverance, love, leadership, and zest. Welles repeatedly went back into the building to save as many people as he could.

Sadly, as he was leading firefighters back to the building, in search of more people to assist, the tower and he died. What he did on 9/11 and what he died doing was incredibly heroic. He had made it out safely, he didn’t have to go back inside, but he chose to make a sacrifice to try and give other individuals a chance to live as well.

Welles was personally responsible for assisting around two-thirds of those survivors who were stranded above the impact zone. He helped a total of three separate groups of people to exit the building, and after his passing, they went to his apartment and found an application to the New York Fire Department. Welles wanted to get out of equity trading and get back to helping the community. When his story got out, the city made him an honorary firefighter, and Welles was honored as one of the 343 firefighters that died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center.

One of the other character traits that described Welles is prudence. Dr. Ross Porter created a video about Welles Crowther and how he demonstrated the character trait of prudence.

Porter describes prudence as “putting first things first.”, I think of it as doing what needs to be done, before doing what I want to get done while making sure it aligns with my goals and purpose, and that’s what Welles demonstrated that day.

Leaving A Lasting Legacy

While we never know when our time will come to an end, we can live each day to the fullest, demonstrate the characteristics we want to be remembered for and work on the important things. We can all take the lesson of living with prudence and focusing on things that need to be done, before doing what we want to do.

Activate your Passion, and Optimize your Performance with Tackship Consulting

As an executive coach, I can help you incorporate the character trait of prudence into your life and your company while helping you achieve your goals. To learn more, fill out our contact form today!

September 9, 2022September 11, 2022

Listening

Listening

I am the type of person who has to get a thought out of my head and into a conversation before I lose it, because I think I am so smart and witty. My contributions to the conversation are critical and must be heard, or at least from my perspective.

When I was living with my fiancé in Hawaii late last millennium, we used to go out to The Shack in Kailua for trivia night with a few other couples. My then fiancé (now wife) would get so mad at me, because I would talk over other people and not even bother or consider what they had to say. My own arrogance and self-importance trumped whatever contribution someone else might have had to say.

It didn’t start there, though. If I go back a bit earlier to my Naval Academy days, I studied a book for the Navy called “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in Naval Leadership.” I did not take too much away from this book at the time, but since I was almost 21, I thought I had it all figured out. The thing is, though, I didn’t.

Habit 5 is “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.” Based on my behavior later in life, it is apparent that I did not take this habit to heart because I think being respectful, kind, and having empathy for people is really what this is about.

Active Listening vs. Passive Listening in Business

When it comes to active listening, we are present, listening to understand rather than trying to get the next word in, and trying to see the viewpoint of the speaker. But if we’re listening in a passive way, we’re not truly present and only listening so share our own opinion.

In my coaching certificate program, we practiced the skill of active listening while understanding their feelings and the technical term is called “attunement.” It’s essential to try and put yourself into someone else’s shoes and experience their perspective and feelings for the situation they’re currently experiencing.

Now, as an executive coach and consultant, it’s critical for me to listen to what people have to say, what they are feeling and try to understand what their needs and perspectives are. I was facilitating a “Vision Day” the other day for a client, and one of the values that we discussed was customer awareness. The client wanted to have a close relationship with customers, and have a deep understanding of their needs, where they are trying to go, to better provide solutions to these problems ahead of the competition.

But in my opinion, it even goes beyond that. I think for business development, we need to have the ability to listen to what potential customers are saying, ask clarifying questions, and provide intellectual capital that can help lead to solutions. Doing this goes a long way in building trust, a strong relationship, and possibly even a contract or business deal.

Build Relationships First

It’s hard to not be trying to build your business and sell a product or service to someone who you think needs it. But at the end of the day, I also don’t believe most people want to be “sold.” They may not even want to work with you, but if we can serve people, the right relationships will follow.

When serving others, we need to listen to them. We need to listen with emphasis, and we need to listen with empathy. At the end of the day, we need to take time to listen at a deeper level than just listening to respond.

Tackship Consulting

As an executive coach, I have the necessary training to help you and your company become better equipped to actively listen and build relationships with possible customers. If you’re ready to Activate your Passion and Optimize your Performance, fill out our contact form today!

July 7, 2022July 7, 2022

Focus: Urgency VS Importance

What is Focus?

Focus is when you concentrate or put your attention on something. In today’s world, there are many things competing for our focus. Work, kids, notifications, social media, games, parents, pets, etc. Many of these things are necessary, and some are distractions. What sorts of things grab your attention? What are some strategies that you employ to keep your focus on things that are important and minimize distractions?

Day and age of distractions

As humans, especially in a day and age of technology, we often can get distracted by non-essential things. My daughter has her focus on one thing and one thing only: her iPad. Unfortunately, there are many other things that I would rather she focus on, so we have a saying: “Do what needs to be done before you do what wants to be done.” Brush your teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to school, play the piano, do your homework, attend practice, and eat dinner and then you can play on your iPad.

Admittedly, I sometimes have to do the same. When I get distracted by apps on my own phone, calls, emails, texts, or even a thought in my head that makes me want to research things, like why can kids not focus, when I should be searching for why can’t humans focus?

It reminds me of the movie, “The Social Dilemma.” The film reveals that most of the games and social media we know so well have been invented in the past 10-20 years and actually incorporate things that help us focus on them, based on some behavioral psychology courses taught at Stanford.

Maybe we could harness this idea to help us focus on what needs to get done in our daily life, as opposed to how many aliens we can kill, blocks we can destroy, gems we can link, or likes on our blogs and posts, or pictures we post. I believe this proves that the ability to focus is limited. What do we do about that? I found this video the other day and used it to talk about rocks for a company the other day.

Focus and the rock analogy

Essentially, rocks are Imperatives. Now, let’s apply this analogy if you’re a business owner. Rocks are the essential things in your life and things that need to get done to help your business grow. Next is the gravel. Gravel is the things that are less essential and are tasks that need to be executed for your business to run because your company needs to be making money to pay the bills. Finally, there is the sand, which represents hassles, interruptions, and other things that take up your time while creating friction and may even keep you from getting the important (rocks) things done in your day-to-day.

Important vs. Urgency

Another way of looking at this would be to graph the things you do in your day, week, and month and figure out which of the boxes below you spend most of your time in?

If I can spend most of my time in the green box, then I am likely not getting too many things in my red box. If I spend most of my time in the black box, I probably have a lot to do in the red and blue boxes.

Remember, the rocks are the essential things in your life and business. When you focus on working on the important things with a plan for decomposing larger goals into smaller tasks to complete work, this can help you minimize the red. That to me is something I call focus.

In our last blog, we talked about vision and visionaries. One of the best ways to create a vision is to figure out what you want your future state to look like, then create a focused plan to make it happen.

With the plan, you need to focus your effort on executing it as opposed to making decisions that pull you away from your plan.

In EOS, (Traction), how you should review and reset your plan every 90 days because human beings tend to start to drift by this point. In addition, the utility of frequent meetings (weekly) keeps people accountable and focused on getting important stuff done.

But the Distractions…

In the video, you notice the things that keep filling up the time, are smaller than rocks, the gravel, and the sand. Maybe it’s the liquid mud that are the distractions that we spend too much time with and return almost no value to us. The social media, the video games, etc. It’s not that these things are not enjoyable or valuable to keep abreast of, but the concept of putting first things first and focusing on what needs to be done vs. what wants to be done is also important. Just like my daughter’s iPad, look at these things as extra rewards for completing the “rock” tasks that you need to get done.

Another idea is to silence your notifications on your computer and your phone. This can help keep your focus on the task at hand and not be pulled into other things that are not as critical. I have one friend who removed all apps from her phone that distracted her and left all her social media and games on her tablet, which she could then decide when she wanted to use those things, but would switch devices. There is also a new phone, the Light Phone, which comes, pre-unloaded. Free of distracting apps, and with no way to add any to it.

Tackship Consulting Can Help

Activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting. If this is something that you would like to work on within your company, please set up a time to meet with me here.

July 7, 2022July 7, 2022

Visionary In The Workplace

What is a Visionary?

In the EOS world, there is a concept called “the Visionary,” which is someone within your business with big ideas who can see potential opportunities and manage strategic relationships.

The visionary is not the person who holds other people accountable and is not the leader, decider, or the person in charge of conflict resolution. Instead, this individual is the keeper of the vision for where the company is going and communicates it to the organization. Often they are the entrepreneur who started the company in the first place.

Interestingly enough, only approximately 50% of companies have someone filing a visionary role. But now, that begs the question: how do you create a vision if you do not have a Visionary? How do you create a personal vision if you are not a visionary person? The simple answer is you can, but it takes a lot of discipline and work and may suck the energy out of the people involved, because they may be more energized in accomplishing the execution of the plan or the company. If you want to build your company purposefully, you need someone who is a visionary.

And if you are a visionary, ensuring that you are delegating the actual running of your company to an “Integrator” role is essential. Integrators are good at execution, good at holding people accountable, and good at resolving issues.

Everyone needs a Vision

As I have been working with companies and individuals, there is a consistent topic throughout all my clients that we spend a lot of time discussing, and that is vision. It is essential for people to have a vision of where they want to go, both professionally, personally, and even corporately for a company.

Vision begets a purpose for why you or your company exists. It sets a larger objective or goal and can help you know if you are on the right path. If your vision gets created, it makes your decision-making almost evident, as that is where you want to get to, like putting it into your map app or GPS. Even if you make a wrong decision that might distract you from your vision/purpose, the ways to get back on course tend to be evident.

EOS Worldwide resource

I think the book Traction by Gino Wickman is a helpful resource. It is the foundation of EOS, and provides a good framework for companies looking to figure out how to simplify, delegate, predict, systemize, and structure their organizations. Part of this is going through the exercises to cast a vision, which can be done with the leadership team and a facilitator to help tease it out.

EOS is the desire to get the leadership working ON the company instead of working IN the company. I know that when there are so many deadlines and things to work on, it can be hard to pull out of the day-to-day tasks to actually take the time to look around and see where you are. Scheduling time to be strategic, whether you are a visionary or not, it is essential.

EOS Worldwide has also recently implemented EOS1 as an online software tool and can help execute EOS within your company. I am still playing with this software, which is free in beta right now, but will cost from $5-$12 a seat/month, depending on the size of the business. If you are interested in learning more about a facilitated implementation, please reach out, and let’s discuss.

Visionary resource

Another resource is a book called Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt. Hyatt found himself at the head of the worst-performing publishing division in a publishing house. He took a weekend to create a vision plan for what he wanted to see out of his division and then set the intermediate goals to achieve the vision. The company was so impressed that they decided to do it for all the divisions and the company.

Activate your passion & optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting

Sometimes talking to someone about your ideas, your gut, and looking at where you are at can help you break through to a different level. In our next blog, we will discuss the focus and how maybe doing less can make you more effective. Tackship Consulting is here to help! Schedule a free consultation today.

June 7, 2022June 7, 2022

Developing A Healthy Mindset

What Is Mindset?

According to Verywell Mind, “mindset” is “a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation.”

What this means is that the way you see things, and how you think or behave can influence your perspective on not only yourself but also the world around you.

The Importance of Your Mindset

Your mindset is essential when it comes to how you deal with the things, people, events, and ideas that shape your life. If you see things in black and white, or as good or bad, then you’ll get into a habit of seeing and reacting with that perspective.

The same is true with the people that you surround yourself with because if you start out with a positive attitude and a positive mindset, but then surround yourself with people who only see the negative, their negativity will start to impact you. Surrounding yourself with people that will support you will help reflect the type of person you want to be (or become).

How To Develop A Healthy Mindset

When it comes to developing a healthy mindset, it’s important to look at the two common ways that people often view situations, in both their personal and professional life. Those two ways of thinking are called “growth” or “fixed” mindset. To get a better sense between the two, let me share a table that showcases the differences.

Growth Mindset	Fixed Mindset
You can develop your intelligence throughout your life	You can’t grow your intelligence; it’s fixed
Always willing to try something new and to challenge yourself	Don’t want to chance failure, so you avoid challenges
Effort and continuous practice can help you master something	Your skills are intact so practice isn’t essential
Failure is only temporary; use it as an opportunity to learn and grow	Temporary setbacks are seen as permanent failures
Seeing other people succeed is a form of inspiration to continue to work hard and achieve your goals	Seeing someone else succeed can lead to jealousy
Feedback allows you to grow, learn, and do better next time	Feedback is an attack on you personally, and you choose to ignore the recommendations

What this table makes clear is that someone with a growth mindset isn’t afraid of failure; they accept it as an opportunity to learn, and evolve, so that they can reach their goals. Someone with a fixed mindset wants to hide their mistakes and imperfections so that they don’t feel ashamed of their failure– in a sense, they want to seen as having their act together and looking “perfect” on the outside.

As humans, we need to continue to learn, expand our horizons, and so a growth mindset is important. Now, we aren’t saying that if you have a fixed mindset that there is something wrong with you because there isn’t. What we mean is that to help continue to become the best versions of ourselves, we have to be willing to step outside of our comfort zone to grow.

We are here to help

As an executive coach, I’ve been trained and certified to help clients explore their goals, work on creating a better mindset, and how to implement these steps into their everyday life.

If you’re interested in how you can activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting click here to schedule a FREE consultation.

June 7, 2022June 7, 2022

Teamwork

Work together as ONE

There’s a phrase that says “teamwork makes the dream work,” and yes, it might be cliche, but regardless of that, there’s a lot of truth to it. When you work together as one, as a team, and rely on each other’s strengths, you’re all able to shine while being the best that you can be.

There might be someone on your team that has a large variety of talents, but when they take on more responsibility than they can handle or don’t let other team members work in areas that they excel at, then it might lead to problems with the culture and the ability to complete the task in the right way.

Think of it this way – if you have too many “superstars” or “superheroes” on the team and not enough people that act as the glue, then the team can fall apart. When you work as a team, then each individual can take on a task, and help get the ball rolling towards the universal goal of the company.

Build Upon Each Other’s Strengths

We see superheroes as someone that can do it all. The most common ones I can think of are the Avengers. Captain America has strength, speed, fast reflexes, and senses. Iron Man has the agility and flying abilities. The Hulk has super strength. Lastly, Black Widow doesn’t have any superpowers but she’s one of the most well-trained humans out there. Now, each of these individuals is great on their own, but when you have them work together as a team, they are unstoppable.

In a real-world environment, if a company has too many superheroes and they’re not working together as one, it can lead to failure, goals not being accomplished or even worse.

By knowing your role (what you excel in) then you can focus on becoming the best person for that role. Let’s say you’re in charge of the marketing department. Rather than having five people that are mediocre at graphic design, have someone that is a design expert and can focus on the graphic design tasks. Other members of the team then can focus on each of their own specialties, say typography or color palettes.

As we talked about previously, finding complementary strengths for your team may be a better way to succeed than trying to find ways to improve your team’s weaknesses. By finding teammates who get lost in doing the things that others find tedious or intimidating can help everyone focus on what they do well and keep the organization moving forward.

Sometimes teams can have people who want to get the glory – score the goal, close the deal, find the critical data or insight. My philosophy for teams I have led and coached has always been, “I do not care if YOU score a goal, I care that WE score a goal.” If we can all focus on the larger goal of winning versus a personal goal of scoring, we are aligned, and often the personal goals are achieved along the way. In college lacrosse this year, the University of Maryland had the best player in the nation on their team, but their team was always talked about as being unselfish. The players often made another pass before scoring a goal, recognizing that the next guy might have the marginally better shot than the previous guy. This team play leads them to a national championship and an undefeated season. Other teams, with great recruiting classes who got many 5-star recruits, this year did not even make it into the final tournament. I don’t know for sure, but it begs the question, were they unable to get their superstars to play as a team?

Superstars are people who are relied on to score the goal, do the work, etc. Sometimes when we have these people on our teams, others will just stop to watch and wait for them to do the work. I see this sometimes in lacrosse. Often times there is a dominant scorer, and everyone just gets him the ball, and by everyone, I mean coaches and players, so that that person with his wicked shot can score the goal and the team can win. But what happens when that player gets injured or is unable to play? The rest of the team has become so reliant on that person, that they have let their fundamental skills wane and they are unable to perform. They stopped practicing moving and getting open because they knew that all they had to do was get the ball to the superstar and he would carry the load. Now all of a sudden they are required to step back in and score their own goals, make good passes to their teammates, etc.

Assemble the Right Team

It can be confusing knowing where to start with this process. Here at Tackship Consulting, we can help your team discover and implement their strengths into their everyday tasks. Whether restructuring or transitioning employees into other roles where they’d shine the best, we are here to help you.

Activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting. To learn more, schedule your free consultation today.

May 31, 2022June 7, 2022

AI vs. Human Interaction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the rage right now. As a defense contractor, there were all sorts of applications, trying to make sense of uncertainty, automation of unmanned systems to go into hostile places, and even just processing data that would take people much time and effort to process, were all applications.

With the constant evolution of technology, and with the increase of growth in the meta-universe, Artificial Intelligence is growing dramatically. But is it more beneficial than the proven method of human interaction when conducting business?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Workplace

As I have established TackShip over the past couple of years, the number of people willing to help me get qualified leads has grown exponentially. Recently, people are now applying technology, specifically AI, to this process to automate messaging, scan profiles, and identify key markers for different people who may require your services.

I struggle with this because as a trained oceanography and meteorologist, I personally love data. I love models that can predict the future. I love the whole idea of trying to generate some sort of capability to reduce uncertainty. There is a lot of desire to throw a bunch of data into a computer and come up with an answer you know will be right, even if you can’t understand how the computer came up with the relationships.

Business development and discovery of new clients is the relational aspect of having conversations with people and figuring out their needs. What I might do to help them does not seem to be able to be replaced by a computer or robot.

I get 5-10 connection requests a week from people saying that they can generate hundreds of leads, but how many people can I actually have a relationship with to see if I am the right person to help them with their problem, or maybe I can connect them with someone else? A real-life conversation can work wonders for people, unlike letting the machines do all the work.

To me, the real-time effort is in relationship building, not constantly getting new contacts. How do you prioritize 500 new leads a week? Can AI really qualify them? How many clients can you serve a week, as well as figuring out if you might be able to serve the new ones? Please let me know when AI can get that part done, not just send cheesy messages like: “I was looking at <Insert Category> professionals, and your name came up, let’s connect!”

Is Human Interaction Essential in Business?

The simple answer is YES! When you take an inanimate object and try to make it act like a human, it might look or sound like it, but the AI program lacks the essential cognitive activity that influences and creates what is known as human interaction.

But when you’re communicating with anyone, you want to offer the person you’re speaking with two things: active listening (listening to understand instead of listening to respond) while working to see and understand their point of view.

Since the beginning of time, people have built relationships from personal interactions with one another. Artificial Intelligence can be programmed to generate new leads, but it will not provide the same benefits.

Get Professional Help

You don’t necessarily need AI for your business to build a relationship. Rather than trying to replicate something that doesn’t provide the same personal touch, try spending more time talking directly with your leads, building a foundation, and when they become a client, you can start work right away.

If you’re interested in incorporating more human interaction into your company, I am here for you. Activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting today. To learn more, schedule your free consultation.