One morning as the anchors of the Today show discussed a breaking human interest story, weatherman Al Roker kept throwing in remarkably relevant statistics and factoids. At one point, the anchors turned to Roker and ribbed him about his superhuman knowledge. Roker turned to the audience and winked.
“We don’t actually need to know anything! We just have to have a control room!”
Although Roker was joking, he made a good point. He and the Today show producers whispering into his earphone know something many of us have yet to learn: no one person can know everything. Certainly no one person can run a whole show. And yet, that’s exactly what many leaders try to do, day after day.
Wouldn’t life be easier if we all had a control room – someone whispering in our ears what we need to know just when we need to know it? Whether it’s a producer delivering the details into a reporter’s ear, a coach yelling to his players on the field, the President’s personal advisor helping him make world-changing decisions, or the wise words of a mentor guiding you through a critical moment, the best leaders surround themselves with people who support them. You will, too, by building your personal team.
You might have aspects of this team in place. Friends, colleagues and mentors probably already support you in your personal goals and aspirations. Your next step is to learn how to strengthen that support into a complete, custom, comprehensive personal support team. With your personal team in place, you will find new answers coming to you from those who want to see you succeed as much as you do. You will no longer be one person with big dreams going it alone.
Building your Personal Support Team is one of the ideas I share with leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more.
When you learn to build your most powerful personal support time, you will become a veritable force, championed by some of the best leaders around.