Creating Initiative in a team!

Ordinary people find problems, above average people find solutions.

Were common sense really common, we would all be the better for it, sadly it’s not! What turns an average team into an above average team is having and taking the initiative.

Can people be trained to have initiative? Of course, but it’s always easier to just find and hire them. As a trainer, mentor and coach, I prefer the challenge of developing people to take initiative. I have always taken on apprentices in whatever organisations I have led. Interns, trainees, temporary staff, youth leaders, work experience and trade skills. The same rules apply. It requires initiative, to initiate initiative.

Either one provides a culture of initiative or the opposite of it will evolve. Humans have a propensity for taking the path of ease. Like water, we gravitate to the least point of resistance.

Regardless of team size, organisational resources, finances or skill set, the same principles apply. Individuals can implement the following strategies by engaging a coach or mentor to keep the accountability process fluid.

• Form a vision team

Ideas people are great! They bring colour and texture to the big picture. If you are personally threatened by someone dreaming bigger than you, it’s not for you. Creating a vision team will loosen the reigns and increase responsibility and resources. Detailed people are freaked out by such teams, (with the why, what, how, when and what if questions) which is why a Strategy team is a complimentary initiative.

• Establish why boundaries are a great resource

Good leaders that delegate do not give away authority lightly. Delegation must always carry with it accountability, with responsibility. It would be foolish to give your toddler a shiny new bike and let them use it whenever and however they chose. Learning to ride safely, requires insight with oversight until a relationship of trust serves both the rider and the gift.   

• Establish a “no failures” culture

Unless we appreciate failure as a learning tool for success, we will instil fear of failure in those around us. Repetition is a learning process that empowers us through the familiarity of the process. This puts us at ease whilst building confidence. By persistence, the snail entered the ark

• Value training and development

Performers on a high wire act have all the freedom they want, but there are immutable forces at work that must be obeyed in order to complete the performance successfully. The difference between amateur and  professional is training. If the budget does not prioritise consistent training, development ceases.

• Mentor mentors

People are more likely to initiate in others if they learn the key to being mentored themselves. Mentoring is relationship based and focused on instilling wisdom, experience and networks which support skill advancement. Every leader should develop leaders (see my site for pedagogy) 

• Strategy team

Keep in mind that the purpose of these groups are to build initiative, which in turn develops ideas that will mobilize people. Visionaries gravitate to fellow visionaries, but without the strategists, what started out as a vision can quickly become a dream at best and a nightmare at worst. Imparting the vision to strategists with a clear preferable future is the leaders responsibility. Finding tangible ways to achieve the vision is the role of a strategy team. Accountability and responsibility for the outcome is not given away, as initiative evolves and ideas flow.

• Celebrate milestones together

 Corporate celebration is critical in keeping the team focused and empowered. Public affirmation of “a job well done” is powerful, as is rewarding key initiatives. With over thirty years in training and development, I can concur; that teams who embrace positive and public affirmation of progress, build strong connections and ownership of the vision.

• Find it? Fix it!

Initiative is about responsible action, and the best way to initiate this initiative is burn it into the culture of the organisation. I once sought the advice of a seasoned leader in a large organisation, in regard to his selection process of his interns. His response was startling yet wise. He looked for individuals that voluntarily picked up litter and waste, or solved practical issues without being asked. Since then, I have made it a point of saying, “every problem YOU find, YOU are responsible for fixing”. No one else to blame, no one else to delegate to, (unless a specialist is required), initiative is about ACTION.  Once this simple principle forms part of the organisations culture, initiative grows and ownership ensues.

Tony Mckeown is a director and owner of coaching 4 life ltd. His services span academic programme management, course design and moderation to public and private training organisations. He also provides itinerant ministry and leadership training for none profit organisations and churches world wide.  

The Two Most Important Days In Your Life

Recently, I have been writing articles about time and the value we place on it, in the way we live out our days. One cannot help but be challenged by the magnitude and impact that time has on us, especially in the seemingly judicial way that it is allotted to us.


Sure, there are significant and life changing events that happen during our lifetime, (such as meeting our life partner, the birth of a child, the discovery of lifelong friendships and other fortuitous events), yet none more so than the two most important days in ones life.

I can point to several humongous events that have shaped my life and the way in which I live out my days, but without doubt, two specific time frames have served to direct my life, and for that reason, I believe they are the two most important days in my life (and perhaps yours too)!


The first most important day of my life, was the day of my birth.

It took place in a season in time when the world was changing as a result of the Second World War. Resources had been rationed, my home town recovering from the re-build needed as a result of heavy and consistent bombing. Prosperity was for a selective few and communities still worked for the common good.

All of these environmental issues, served to fashion the world which I entered into, yet had little impact on the effect upon the Kairos time-frame, although it was marked by the Chronos schedule with a chronological date, which I celebrate annually each October.

Without this event, the second most important day in one’s life isn’t possible. All that life is and can be, is dependent on the magical event of conception, gestation and safe birth. The first most important day in ones life!

The Second most important day in one’s life, is equally as important. 

None of us where ever created to fill in time, or occupy space until we die. Socrates said. “The unexamined life is not worth living”, yet all too often, life is not examined by us (to the point of self-discovery) and we are the poorer as a result.

“The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings”. Henri Frederic Amiel

Many events impact the way we live and a multiplicity of circumstances shape the way we live, yet unconditionally, the second most important day in one’s life, is the day we discover WHY we were born!

I do not believe life is haphazard nor is the individual’s part which they play in it. Therefore, whilst the most important day in one’s life is life itself, the second most important day, must be the day we discover what we are to do with it.

“In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years”. Abraham Lincoln

Many people are pre-occupied with “Making a living” and miss out on “Making a life”.

My world is consumed with individuals who struggle to find purpose and meaning to their life and as a result, fill their day with pursuits rather than reason. Many have a fatalistic view on life and as such, use time as a means to an end. I believe this is living life in its poorest form.


“We do not remember days, we remember moments”. Cesare Pavese


So here’s the challenge, when all is said and done, it’s not what’s said, but what’s done!

As you are reading this article, we can assume we both share the most important day (our birth), but do we share the second most important day WHY?

Life is more about making an impact than it is making an income, and as Albert Einstein once said, “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value”.

All Out Of Booooos

All out  of boo's and I don't mean booze!

You gotta love the Aussies!

Recently I was watching a game in the N.R.L. where my local team were playing a match. At almost every opportunity the crowd would jeer and boo when any one on the opposition got the ball. Later on towards the end the commentator said, "Well it sounds like the crowd are all out of boo's!" 

As hilarious as the comment was, it got me to thinking. Why do people boo?

"When they boo you, you know they mean you". George Halas

Gladiatorial games were introduced to Rome in 264 BC, when the sons of Junius Brutus honoured their father by matching three pairs of gladiators. 

In 65 BC, Julius Caesar commemorated his father, who had died twenty years before, with a display of 320 pairs of gladiators in silvered armor.
Most matches employed a senior referee (and boy do they get a good booing at every game). We know the practice was used frequently in theses games in the crowd voting process as to whether a gladiator lived or was put to death, so its connotation is to derive displeasure with an outcome. Audience participation often determined whether a competitor lived or died. The crowd decided by booing or cheering  the wounded gladiator
by yelling 'missum' or 'mitte' (release or send away) as a gesture of mercy and conversely yelling 'iugula' (to kill).

When the democratic reformer Cleisthenes came to power in the sixth century B.C., audience participation came to be regarded as a civic duty.
The audience applauded to show its approval and shouted and whistled to show displeasure.

Historically, there is lots of conjecture and myth in its regard, however it appears an old English word boo was first used in the early 19th century to describe the lowing sound that cattle make. Later in the 1800s, the word came to be used to describe the disapproving cry of crowds.

Hoot, another onomatopoeic English word, was used as early as 1225 to describe the same phenomenon. Ancient Greek and Latin both contain words resembling boo that mean "to cry or shout aloud."

"A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. If you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing". Lance Armstrong

Back to todays usage!. It is regularly seen on the news as a negative reaction to politicians speeches, sports players, poor performances and outcomes, but almost guaranteed whenever Australians play sport, and an odds favourite whenever the National team plays superior opposition. Booing has become an art form for many, but is it as effective as its counterpart, "cheering and applauding", in terms of affirmation and encouragement? I think not!

Nice to see your home fans boo you! Thats what loyalty is all about" - Wayne Rooney

Human nature responds to encouragement and affirmation, and has been said " One can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

Bosses, leaders and team members will always get more superior outcomes in the long term by using terms of empowerment, than a means of degradation or disapproval.
There is nothing more disappointing than living in a negative environment. It saps creativity, persistence and consistency. It demoralizes both the initiator and those in its environment, so whilst in the right environment, an appropriately delivered boo can be funny, encouraging and a true consensus of the crowds feeling.

"Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn't hiss or boo me." -James Dean 

Does it change the course of a game? 

Elect or depose a candidate?
Determine whether someone lives or dies?

Well who really knows, certainly in the game I was watching, No!

The outcome was a resounding victory to the opposition, but it didn't stop the crowd booing the victors off the pitch...........

"If I would have paid for a ticket to watch myself, I would have booed myself too" - Randy Johnson