TEAM building is one of the most important elements in improving organizational competence. It’s advisable to do it at least once a year. But you can’t do team building solely with fun activities and various games. You have to set the direction with something big and a brief lecture on leadership communication should help capture managers’ minds.

Last week, I was invited by a repeat client to talk about leadership communication lessons. After accepting the invite, I listed down over 50 lessons that I whittled down to 15 — enough to cover the hour given to me. Given more than 35 years of corporate management practice, it was easy for me to remember the following:

Understand the other person and the context. Be an active listener. Paraphrase as much as you can. Ask a lot of hows and whys.

By wearing their hats, you should be able to understand what they’re saying. After all, we are all rational human beings.

Say less when necessary. A leader is not a talkative parrot. A leader is one who gives clear problem assessments and allows people to solve them, subject to minimal limitations. A leader is a coach who directs, not does, the play.

Win with actual results, not through best effort. Some people are resigned to their jobs because their efforts are not recognized by their bosses. This is wrong. Why ignore the kilometric difference between best efforts and actual, tangible results?

See things from different perspectives. You can be a flying bird for the overview. Be a crawling insect to see the minute details of the floor. Be a fish to see the water flow. The best approach is to be like a child with so many questions.

Discuss things based on the workers’ best interests. Go into a casual engagement dialogue. Explore how you can help people remove difficulties in doing their jobs. Above all, offer assistance on how workers can achieve their career goals.

Preach continuous improvement by doing small things.

Kaizen and lean thinking are about the creation of an army of problem-solvers plugging all small leaks that can sink a great ship. It boils down to this: 1 percent ideas from each of 100 workers is better than a 100-percent idea given by one manager.

Be process-oriented rather than result-oriented. If you continuously devote your time to improving the process, you’ll end up with the best possible result that is easy, better, faster and cheaper for both of your external and internal customers.

Be kind to the workers but be aware of the expiry date. Kindness is the magic formula that motivates people up to a certain extent. When sanctioning erring workers, it’s best to do it with positive discipline until the boiling point is reached.

Empower workers and be surprised with what they can do. Give limited authority and responsibility to people. If you do that, they can move heaven and earth to accomplish almost all things you want them to do.

Define a problem and let the workers solve them. Don’t spoonfeed people with the solutions. They know what to do as they are privy to almost all operational issues and are most qualified to think of the best options.

Keep your hands clean all the time. Literally and figuratively, it means keeping your integrity intact in and out of the workplace. It will be very difficult to recover, assuming that you get the chance.

Make things easy for workers to do their job. Modern-day expert Peter Drucker (1909-2005) once said: “Most of what we know about management is how to make things difficult to do their job.” That happens because of managers’ penchant to do commandand-control.

Never outshine your boss. If you do that, what’s the assurance that you will take his place should he be kicked out of the job? Nothing, right? Therefore, your only option is to give credit to the boss as he knows where he got the idea anyway.

Think before you leap. The word “think” refers to the first letter of key words in the following questions: Is it true? Will it be helpful to all concerned? Is it innovative? Is it really necessary? Is the person relaying the information knowledgeable?

Avoid free lunches. There’s really no free lunch. If you can’t avoid it, return the favor as soon as you can. Having lunch with an outsider may create trouble that you may not see while you’re enjoying a sumptuous meal with people.