Concept MEL

No, MEL is not an ode to one of my great friends of all time (sorry if you are reading Mel, but this isn't about you), but MEL is a simple concept I instilled in my team 8 months ago, in that, no matter what role you play on a team - from individual contributor to manager to executive, that you need to live and do MEL every day to make waves.

So, what is MEL?

Managing the Business
Empowering for Excellence
Leading for Growth

Let's look at each aspect a bit further and how it applies to you no matter where you fit in your organization:

1. Managing the Business
Why are you making that investment? What are the goals you need to manage to achieve over the next 12 months?

• Executives: Have you defined the vision for the next year and communicated the goals you want to set to achieve the vision? How are you tracking to your goals and what tools/dashboards do you provide your team, and yourself, to measure goal attainment so to proactively respond to red flags in achieving the goals.


• Managers: Are you making decisions based on the goals in front of you for the year? Have you broken the higher level goals into your team's action plan? You are the guiding light for your individual contributors - continuously make sure they know what you want out of them.


• Individuals: Do you know what you need to do to help your team achieve the goals for the year? Do you know what you need to know to deliver, and thus, continuously learn? When was the last time you asked your manager "how can I help you achieve our goals"?

2. Empowering for Excellence
Are you carving for yourself or your team ways to deliver excellence? Getting rid of obstacles preventing your team from being excellent? Are you an "excellent" role model?

You need to start by defining what "excellence" means to you and/or your team and live it, no matter where you fit in the organization.

3. Leading for Growth
This comes down to everyone, no matter the level, contributing towards two things

• Continuous business improvement (becoming more efficient)
• Harvesting new opportunities (innovation)

You need to make sure mechanisms are in place to become more efficient and to identity and build on new opportunities.

As you embark on embracing MEL, there is one more think to remember - keep it simple, silly. For example, those above me set 2 goals, yes only 2 goals, for my team to achieve this year - a revenue goal and utilization goal. That's it - bottom line goals.

So what are you waiting for - Manage, Empower and Lead today to achieve your goals for 2008! 2 months are already past you.