The Five Enemies of Unity

by | Life Application

photo credit: jasoneppink (creative commons)

“People don’t naturally unify; they must be led to do so.

I agree. If you’re a leader, are you going in the direction of creating unity in your company? If you are an employee are you doing your part to keep unity with your team members?
Ramsey gives Five Enemies of Unity in the book that I wanted to share with you.

1. Poor Communication – A team is only a team by definition when they are unified, they are on the same page. If you want a fabulously unified team and all the good stuff that brings, you will have to work unbelievably hard to create and maintain high levels of communication.
2. Lack of Shared Purpose – Shared goals create unity. There is no unity where there isn’t a common goal, a common mission, a common vision, flowing from a common dream.
3. Gossip – Hand your negatives up and your positives down. Otherwise it starts to sound a lot like gossip.
   Here’s what I have learned about gossip: if you are not part of the problem or part of the solution, then you are part of gossip. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Small minds talk about people, mediocre minds talk about events, and great minds talk about ideas.”
4. Unresolved Disagreements  – These paralyze people. They remain unsolved when the EntreLeader doesn’t know they exist. Teach your team to either resolve conflict or openly talk about it with leadership so they can get some help solving the problem.
5. Sanctioned Incompetence – Team members will often take their direction from the way you treat other team members. When a team member is incompetent, for whatever reason, and leadership won’t act, the good team embers become demoralized.

We have all been a part of this list of enemies at one time or another, whether in a leadership role or being led by others. Perhaps we should print these bullet points out and place them at our workplace. We don’t even have to let others know the list is there; we can simply use it to remind ourselves of what not to do.
Perhaps if we fight against these five enemies, others will pay attention to it. We are all leaders in one sense. We’re either teaching people what to do, or what no to do.
Pick up Dave Ramsey’s newly released book, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. I think you’ll enjoy it.
How have you dealt with these five enemies in any given situation? Be as specific as you would like. Comment below…