February 2018 Leadership Lessons

February 2018

VIDEO OF THE MONTH:

"John Cena: Pick Yourself Up "

John Cena reminds us that everyone fails, and says that our character is judged not by how we celebrate victories, but how we pick ourselves up and overcome life's obstacles.

Watch the Video

ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: "Pivot" by Tracy Knofla

I live in a very small house with an even smaller garage. The garage holds one vehicle and not much else. I only put a car in the garage in the winter. To save space, I repurposed a shelf that had been in my office and put it in the garage to hold assorted junk. The shelf has been there for three years now and it's working beautifully, until it's time to put the car in the garage.

The shelf sticks out. Just a bit, but enough, that I'm always worried that I'm going to scratch my car by scraping the shelf. So last winter I got the great idea of putting some towels around the part of the shelf that sticks out. That worked well until I got the towel wrapped in the front wheel well of the car.

"The Boys of Winter" by Wayne R. Coffey - Book Reviewed by TLP Cohort #5 Member

I would recommend this book to my colleagues, due to the fact that it is an extremely quick read with historical significance. The U.S.A. hockey team, who were huge underdogs, defeated Russia in the semifinal game of the 1980 Olympics. There were many tactics used by their head coach, Herb Brooks, that can be integrated into a work environment to better become an effective leader.

A couple of the key leadership lessons I learned from this book were the importance of training and preparation. With proper training and preparation employees develop muscle memory and are able to respond to tasks more quickly and accurately.

Utilize your staff's different unique skill sets to put together a strong team that makes up for each other's particular strengths and weaknesses.

"You're Also a Teacher" - A T2 Center's Supervisor's Signpost

You're busy every day doing your scheduled jobs, learning new ones, and switching off to other ones that come up suddenly and have to be done right away.

There's always something to do.

But every now and then there's one more thing you are called upon to do, and it's an important one: you need to teach someone else how to do something that you know how to do. Yes, you're called upon to be a teacher. You may feel confident when you do it, or maybe not, but take heart. It's easier than you think because 1) you don't have to be a college professor to teach someone how to do something and 2) there's a simple four-step process of communicating information to a coworker in a limited amount of time. We call it "training on the fly."

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Introducing T2 Center's "Resource of the Week"

Next week, the T2 Center will launch a Resource of the Week. We will highlight different resources for you to share with your crews.

We will post on the CT Public Works Listserv (if you are not on the CT PW Listserv please contact Mary McCarthy , to get subscribed) and on the T2 Center's Facebook Page.

Stay tuned...