After I've read Kenneth H. Blanchard's book Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service I fell in love with the author. The next book on my list from Blanchard was The One Minute Manager.  It was less entertaining than "Raving Fans..." book but it answered the questions I was looking the answers so hard - "Do I belong to high performing team?", "am I high performing consultant?"

The High Performing Team

Kenneth H. Blanchard attributes the following characteristics to the high performing team. [I have made it brief, though Blanchard elaborate each more in the book]

1. Purpose and Values. Clear commitment on common purpose, strategies, and roles.
2. Empowerment. Initiative and involvement are values. Information is available to the team.
3. Relationships and Communications. Different views are respected. Listen and understand - do not judge.
4. Flexibility. Build leadership together, meet challenges, respect different styles. 
5. Optimal Performance. Focus on results. Incremental results.
6. Recognition and appreciation. Accomplishments are recognized by the team and by the leaders.
7. Morale. Trust, enthusiasm, and pride to be part of the team.

The High Performance Consultant

To become a high performing consultant I decided to align to the characteristics that Blanchard attributes to high performing team:

1. Purpose and Values:
• Values (what I do day-to-day)
• Be on the edge – constantly learn and research.
• I am MS platform advocate – I believe our platform is most secure and fastest. It is all about the optimization.
• Share the knowledge among the team and with the customers.
• Provide first class service – I strive to meet and exceed my customers’ expectations.
• Look for new opportunities – I am thirsty to explore new challenging horizons. Doing the same is boring.
• Optimize processes – internal and with the customers, save on logistics and other non-productive activities. End result is what matters.
• Research on high ROI activities – search for low hanging fruits first, then iteratively refine.
• Open discussions – I believe in shared and open vision. I believe in flat org.
• Mission (what I am )
• I provide world class expert security and performance consulting on the Microsoft platform.
• Vision (where I am going)
• I am (and the rest of the team) the world’s best security and performance packaged services global provider for MS platform.
2. Empowerment. What empowers me the most is readily available information. Since I am a mobile worker the Internet is not always available. That is why I manage my knowledge base offline using Outlook. It also helps me effectively write my blog posts:
• Consume patterns&practices Guidance Explorer Via RSS Using Outlook 2007
• How to Use Outlook 2007 RSS To Effectively Aggregate And Distill Information
• On Writing - John Lennon, Gerald M. Weinberg, Me, You, And Outlook 2007
3. Relationships and Communications. Strengthen current relationships with the team members by getting involved into shared projects. Build new relationships. Communicate your achievements to the team and up the chain to my management. That way I strengthen my brand and make my accomplishments visible.
4. Flexibility. Consultancy is very flexible by itself. It can also be my enemy. Follow simple discipline of time budgeting and prioritization - this is key to achieving results while keeping flexible lifestyle:
• Time Is Not Money. Time Is Budget.
• Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works]
5. Optimal Performance. Results is what matters. Doing is not accomplishing. Working is not achieving. Keep my goals and objectives in front of you.
6. Recognition and appreciation. Recognize my achievements.  Spoil myself a little for each accomplishment. Do not let failure drain me. When failed - learn my lessons, succeed next time.
• Conclude The Day With Positive Reflection
• The Mindset Of Failure
• Motivated By Failure
7. Morale. Look around. Are you part of the high performing team? Do you trust your team? Do they trust you? Are you proud?

This template is made with PracticeThis.com plugin for Windows Live Writer