What Leaders Could Learn From Keith Richards

As December 18 was unofficially Keith Richards Day, I have found myself revisiting his autobiography and his most recent interviews - particularly in the context of the release of the new Rolling Stones album. Within these great quotes, there is one that resonates so true for me as we approach a time when we are either reviewing our half yearly performance or in some cases our end of year performance.

"...the idea was to make the ......band slam together.......The fascination has always been that four or five guys can create a sound that sounds a lot larger than the actual number of members actually involved"

So - as a Leader, are we developing teams, and the people within these team, that are delivering more than what would typically be expected from your team?

In essence - does your band "slam together?"!

Some questions to contemplate during this reflective period:

• Are we accepting that capability is that combination of high levels of competence, clarity and delivery on the core, agreed behaviours and a culture of discipline?
• Are you accepting high skill levels but poor behaviour and an undisciplined approach?
• Do you have a good team, great team, or an unstoppable team? Do we have a team that every now and then does something exceptional and then drops back to just doing enough? Or, do we have a team that consistently delivers exceptional outputs, but is driven by the same 3 or 4 people? Or, do we have a team that consistently delivers exceptional outcomes, no matter who is in the team - a team that is led by many?
• Has your team got absolute clarity on what exceptional performance looks like and can we track progress on these elements?
• Are you clear, agreed and committed to the same goal or purpose?
• And finally - and most importantly, do members of the team have the real conversations within the team about performance? If not, then what sort of professional relationships exist in the team, and equally - where are the trust levels?

A lot to think about I hope.

Keep in mind too, if you feel that you do have a lot of the elements mentioned here in place, have you identified some potential successors and are you developing them?

I know - Leadership is hard! But without it, your people will sound like every other band!