Today, don't do something that you do habitually, every day, that you know you shouldn't be doing at all. What?

Oh, like reading the same emails twenty times (if anyone wants an explanation of this - I can do it next week!) - like talking crap about the state of the world or "the state of your man!", when there are so many nicer things to talk about - like letting other people waste your time - like wasting your own time...

Choose just one thing... and don't do it!

I'm following, with interest, the ongoing tussle between the nation states on both sides of the Atlantic and the big global corporates... specifically, I've been watching the Pfizer Astra Zeneca bout (seconds out!!!) and the attempts by the governments in the UK, Sweden and the US to tell the big boys what's what!

In our globalized world, big business seems to think that it can do what it likes and to hell with the "little people"... and, of course, they're correct - pretty much all of the time. But, whilst I'm watching those Governments attempt to act with their citizens in mind (well, at least they're good at pretending), I'm intrigued by the French approach. "As always" you might say, but this is good...

Inward foreign investment into Germany grew four-fold in 2013, in France it plummetted 77%. And whilst governments the world over are bending over backwards to attract foreign investment, the French geniuses have introduced new rules to make it more difficult for global business to invest in France.

"Ah, mais oui" it's a very special approach by very special people. But, then again, in France, "speciale" has a whole different meaning!!!

I've just been reading some research about transformational leaders and high-performance teams... sorry about the jargon - I'm effectively talking about exceptionally successful people: you know, the kind of people most people aren't! The research confirms that teams that go through a significant positive experience together end up having a clearer focus and shared values. In other words, they are more likely to not be one of the 85% of management teams (I may be understating it!) that are dysfunctional.

What are we talking about? First of all, it's easy to explain what we are not talking about: paintball, wargames, building a life-raft together, building a Lego skyscraper (yes, for the uninitiated Lego is now into leadership development... no doubt pottery and modelling clay are next for the innovation-minded!). When team-mates shoot each other, it's often only a positive experience for one of them!!! And when a team gets together to be colour-coded by an expert (I use the term loosely) in personality-typing, well, they'd be better off paintballing!

The research mentions two words together: significant and positive. In my experience, that means that all the team members, together, discover some deeper understanding that they hadn't previously known, understood or fully understood. For example, a team that, together, discover the limitations of ordinary-mindedness and then discover the possibilities we each have to achieve effortless extraordinary success, they end up being one of those rare things: a fully funtioning team that can achieve the amazing... or, at least, amazing in comparison to the pathetic little perspective of the ordinary-minded.

Note that I've used the word effortless... more about that in the coming Ezines.