So, what's your plan for 2012? Henry Ford said it best: Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right! What you decide to focus on has a huge impact on the goals that you set for yourself and your ability to achieve those goals. To truly create and align goals with your wildest dreams and aspirations, you have to embrace a bold and audacious attitude.

Everything in life is a choice.

How do you make your choices? What are they based on?

When we are clear about what is most important to us, we can make choices that are aligned with what we want in our lives. Guiding principles help keep us focused throughout the year and give us a foundation to determine the choices we make every day. It is through those daily choices that we build our lives.

Here's a quick visualization exercise you can try to help you create your guiding principles. Journal about the following:

Hello Everyone

I wanted to wish you all a very healthy and happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving for me is a time of reflection and a time to come back to the present. It is a time for me to be grateful for all of the wonderful things in my life- most importantly my wife, my family, and my family of friends.

What is your team's purpose?

What is your team supposed to do that no other team does?

These are important questions for all teams - whether you belong to a management team, a functional team, a project team, or other.

The challenge in most organizations is that teams don't have clarity about their purpose. They brush it off as something too fluffy to consider. Or, for other teams, their purpose ends up on a pretty poster in a conference room and does nothing but take up wall space.

There are two common and costly mistakes leaders make that can result in a loss of credibility and trust.

MISTAKE 1: Getting caught up in the Popeye Syndrome – “I am what I am.”

The implied message here is “I am the way I am and if you don’t like it, who cares?”

Hold each other accountable. Don't wait for the boss. It takes too long and generates politics.

Find your singularity of purpose. If you can't initially, raise it up a level.

What are you hoarding?

Time management should be more about what you will stop doing instead of doing what you currently do more efficiently.

Follow up, even if you don't observe the behaviors.

Why?

Did you do what you committed to doing in that meeting?

Step out of your comfort zone and into your learning zone, without overstepping.

Go directly to each other with issues - in person.

Give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Keep the overall team/organizational focus in mind when making decisions. Get rid of the ego.

Work on the most important things first.

Acknowledge your progress. Be aware of what's slowing you down.

Recognize that there may be more than one way to accomplish something. Be open.

Enough planning and talk. Start moving. Then adjust.

What should your team focus on that no other team can?

Are you tired of showing up at meetings and not knowing why you are there to begin with?

That seems to be the norm in most organizations.

The problem is that when there isn't a clear purpose and agenda for a meeting, people waste time and  energy endlessly talking around each other - never closing on decisions and moving actions forward.

Do you know what the Number 1 excuse is for not having an agenda?

"We don't have enough time."

People are too busy, overwhelmed, and overloaded.

In my last two posts, we tackled a few challenges that remote teams face. Part 1 was focused on getting your remote team aligned. Part 2 on building cohesion.

In this post we'll focus on process.

For remote teams to maximize their effectiveness, they need to have disciplined processes in place. Here are some ideas you might consider:

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed some of the challenges of working on remote teams and ideas for getting your remote team aligned. But, to truly be effective, your remote team has to find a way to build cohesion. After all, only when people are working together on the right things can we gain efficiencies.

Here are a few ideas: