The capacity of teams to waste time and resources staggers the imagination. It’s one thing to tolerate one person wasting time. But, the amount of time and resources stalled teams waste is incomprehensible.

Failure is easy:

- Pretend things are fine in order to keep the peace.
- Stay the course when it isn’t working.
- Focus on what you can’t do. Nothing is worse than a self-affirming loser.
- Ignore momentum. (The ignored function of leadership.)

Momentum always slows apart from leadership.

13 reasons teams lose momentum:

1. Feeling unsupported by upper management.
2. Engaging in tough conversations without the skill or resolve to solve them. “Lets just fight.”
3. Slow progress. “It’s taking longer than I thought.”
4. Dominant members who cause others to feel insignificant. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
5. Uncommitted participants. “Why should I engage when other’s don’t care?”
6. Unresolved friction between team members. “I don’t trust him.”
7. Undefined or lost focus. “What are we doing here?”
8. Lack of recognition for progress. “No one cares.”
9. Undisciplined meetings. “Why are we going around this tree again and again?”
10. Negative inevitability. “I knew we wouldn’t make progress.”
11. Failure to address important issues. “Doesn’t anyone see that elephant?”
12. Stalemates while seeking consensus. “My way is the best way.”
13 Lack of leadership.

Success requires momentum.
Momentum is a series of small wins.

Leaders are responsible to fuel momentum.

10 behaviors of momentum building leaders:

1. Monitor and fuel energy levels. Success requires energized people.
2. Invite upper management to pat backs.
3. Define today’s win.
4. Celebrate today’s win.
5. Create positive surprises.
6. Don’t punctuate compliments with suggestions.
7. Get your hands dirty.
8. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t.
9. Believe in people.
10. Expect people to step up.

What drains momentum?
How can leaders build momentum?b[

Dan Rockwell is pastor of Good News Bible Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania., and a workforce development/leadership consultant. Besides his blog, which is viewed by thousands of readers each day, he coaches leaders and presents seminars on leadership and management.

To find out more about his blog, go to leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

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