Years ago, as a coach,  I adopted a practice from the great John Wooden.  At the conclusion of each coaching season I would note 3 key items I learned – These axioms became strategic in my personal growth.  Recently, I assumed this practice with City Initiatives and scribed 5 significant lessons I learned from my past 4 years of work.

1.  Steward what I do

• The reality is there has to be accountability in any organization; therefore; it is imperative that I steward my role with an organization by carefully measuring and revealing the value I, and my team, deliver
• Some call it “stewardship”, some “self-promotion”, and some refer to it as “accountability”.  What ever you call it the truth is that somewhere a board and/or leadership team, who may know very little about who I am and exactly what I do, is looking at the numbers to determine the organization’s ROI regarding my particular program.  If I fail in clearly revealing my “measured” value it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for those boards and/or leaders to make proper assessment of my program

2.  Leadership is crucial to start and maintain any initiative

• People empower those who clearly cast a vision and continue to “fill their bucket” with this vision
• Find the “sticky message” and speak to it again and again
• No matter how great an idea is on paper if the right person is not leading it will go no where

3.  Humility is fundamental for collaboration

• Learn, learn, learn – Never, ever believe you have arrived…always remain in that learning, morphing, growing stage
• There is something amazing about the person and/or group that continually says, “How can we serve you?” or “We want to learn”
• There is no such thing as an “expert”; only those further along on the learning curve

4.  If collaboration/partnerships were easy we would see more of them

• Collaboration does not naturally occur – Someone has to wake up every morning thinking “what can we do together that we could never do alone”
• Whoever “leads” collaborative efforts must be willing to be walked on and often “forgot” in the process of success
• Collaboration by itself leads to nothing.  Collaboration around an issue can rock the world. (My “intuitive leap” two years ago was “What if we actually solved a problem?”)

5.  Find the right people

• Any innovative idea needs an initial core group who will continually motivate, inspire, believe, and empower others toward that imperative “tipping point”
• If you do not have several “leaders” who inspire others or “influence the influencers” any initiative will remain stagnant, regardless of how many people “believe” in the idea

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