What are the Details of the Book?

By Bob Urichuck and Dave Urichuck, Publisher: Impackt Publishing, (April 12, 2014), Paperback: 106 pages, Language: English, ISBN-10: 1783000260, ISBN-13:978-1783000265

‘Leadership is about people. Take care of your people and your people will take care of your bottom line’. – Dave and Bob Urichuck.

If you want to achieve leadership effectiveness, read this book. If you want to acquire leadership tools and techniques to build successful team within 30 days, read this book. Bob Urichuck and Dave Urichuck's authored book Motivate Your Team in 30 Days is divided into six chapters. It is the ideal book for leaders who want to engage and empower themselves and others to a higher level of self-discipline and self-motivation, resulting in improved productivity and performance.

What is Inside?

This book asserts that one of the toughest parts of being a leader is giving and receiving feedback. Keep your feedback positive and, if anything, consider using the following hamburger technique for areas of improvement. The hamburger technique consists of the following: think of a hamburger – a soft bun with the meat in the middle. The soft buns represent the positive behaviours and the meat represents the area of improvement. You start by giving positive feedback, and from your point view, indicate the area of improvement, and end with more positive feedback. The book outlines tools to achieve consensus as follows:

Time must be allowed for all team members to state their opposition and state it fully enough to get the feeling that others truly do understand them.

Careful listening by all members to people expressing viewpoints different from their own is imperative.

Avoid arguing for the sake of ‘getting your own way’.

Avoid changing your mind for the sole purpose of avoiding conflict.

Avoid compromising techniques, such as majority vote, averaging, power plays, or coin flipping.

View differences of opinion as natural and helpful rather than as hindrances.

Be suspicious of initial agreement.

Verbally test for consensus by going around the table; silence or a few head nods does not necessarily mean consensus.

Team Takeaways

If we keep images of success, pleasure, and gain in our mind, we will be motivated towards them. However, if we keep images of failure, pain, and loss foremost in our mind, we will be motivated merely to stay away from them or just not be motivated at all.

Most of us go through life accepting too many external comments that lead us to believe that we are not good enough attractive enough, strong enough, experienced enough, and the list goes on. Until we realise who we really are, we can fall into these traps and stay there.

Attitude is the key success factor and the foundation to your success. Your past and present are a result of your past attitude. However, your present attitude will determine your future. Right now, you are the author of your future.

Success is based on good judgment. Good judgment comes from experience. And how does one get experience? Sometimes we have to fail often to succeed once. But that fear of failure stops us from even trying that is one of the reasons we procrastinate.

No one in the world has succeeded without first trying, failing, learning, making changes, and moving on.

When people fail, they have a tendency to beat themselves up through their self-talk. When you do this, you are lowering your self-confidence, self- esteem, self-respect, and self-worth.

By asking questions you not only learn a lot, you uncover needs, you make the other person feel important and that contributes towards building an empowering relationship.

You may find it hard to believe, but recognition is the most powerful motivator of all. In society today, it is fair to say that there is a stronger need for recognition than there is for sex and money.

There is a choice that you and your team can make – accept or reject change. If you reject it you refuse to grow. To grow you must flow with change, like water, and grow with it.

A dream will remain a dream until you write it down. Once it is written down, it crystallises the dream and increases its chances of becoming a reality.

Keep in mind that people go to work to make money. However, it is not truly money that motivates them, it is the lifestyle dream that they have deep down inside. Work is nothing but a stepping stone to help you get where you want to go. When you know where you want to go, you become more excited and motivated to go to work. Your job is to help your team members realise that each day of work brings them closer to the realisation of their internal and personal dreams. That is the foundation to permanent self-motivation.

Self-motivation and personal leadership include the ability to distinguish between defeat and setback.

In order to reach your ultimate goal, you must form a group of people with ambitions like your own, but differing in specialised knowledge. Together, the group can solve problems that no one person alone could solve.

Commitment is an agreement or pledge to do something in the future.

An action-oriented person is proactive. When you are proactive, you have initiative-you can see a need, figure out how to best satisfy it, determine the appropriate time to take the right action, and proceed.

When you are proactive, you lead. When you lead, you take control of yourself and get the things you want out of life.

Wake up every day with an attitude of gratitude, no matter what you are presently going through. You can take control of your thoughts and you can attract changes in your life when you shift your energies to being grateful.

The book concludes with amazing quote by Oprah Winfrey, ‘You get from the world what you give to the world’.

What is the Recommendation?

It is a good book with lots leadership wisdom. It is written in a conversational tone. It is a simple and straightforward book that converts theory into practice to build strong teams. It contains diagrams, charts, examples, illustrations and activities to ensure team takeaways. It offers tests, assessments and summary at the end of each chapter. The ideas and insights in this book are well punched. This book is useful for learners and leaders at all levels to build inspiring teams successfully and to grow as successful leaders. You can gift this book to your friends to inspire them to grow as leaders. Strongly recommended for reading!

‘A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a moulder of consensus’. – Martin Luther King, Jr, civil rights leader.

Compassionate Leadership