I have been struggling to come up with something interesting to talk about in this weeks post but when I read Ken Hiatt latest post @  http://blogs.msdn.com/kenhiatt,  I was inspired and began to look at things a bit differently.

The first thing I realized was that an interesting blog entry does not have to be about technology.   This realization helps me quite a bit because while I hate to admit it my days of being a techno-geek are pretty much over.  Don’t get me wrong I still have surface knowledge about more things than the average person; it’s just that I don’t have enough depth about any particular product or technology to write a lot compelling blog posts.

The second thing I realized is that while my posts won’t be technology based there are interesting aspects of my job as a middle manager that if explained properly could be at least entertaining and at times maybe even useful to some.

My final realization from Ken’s post is that our efforts to become a true team have been successful.  I get to see teamwork happening every day but to hear a team member say that “this is the best “TEAM” that I’ve ever worked with” means a lot to me.   

Building a truly cohesive team has been a trial and error effort for us but I believe that we found the final magic ingredient about this time last year.  For the longest time I believed that clear vision, goal alignment and clear and consistent communication were all you needed to achieve optimal team health.   One day however I read a book called Managing By Values written by Ken Blanchard and Michael O’Connor and realized that it’s not just what you accomplish that is important but how you behave while accomplishing something is even more important.  

In the next few posts I’ll talk about how we came up with shared values, how we are learning to live by our shared values and also attempt to illustrate some of the subtle (and not so subtle) differences living by values have made.  I hope someone finds this interesting.