How your team works is just as important as what your team does. Your team’s values build metrics and a common focus.Those values may include collaboration, innovation, customer focus or zero-defects.

For values to become more than a poster on the wall, team members must see them as personally meaningful. They then can become an important, emotional connection for employees. The key to developing passion is to allow team members to interpret or internalize the values as their own by having them ask questions such as:

• What do these values mean to me>
• How do these values make me feel?
• Is my on-the-job behavior consistent with these values?
• How can I do my job differently to better reflect these values?

If you do not value your team’s values, no one else will. Take the time to communicate your team’s values, and more importantly, live them!

Thanks to Pointsec Mobile Technologies, we now know that forgetfulness qualifies as a major IT concern. The company contacted taxi companies in nine countries asking them how common it is for customers to leave cell phones, PDAs, laptops and other tools of the mobile professional behind in cabs. The results were staggering to say the least.

In Chicago alone, the survey suggests that more than 100,000 devices were left behind in a six-month period. But the news isn’t all bad: passengers were reunited with their cell phones 80 percent of the time, and with laptops and PDAs 96 percent of the time.

If you’re not practicing the password and encryption features of your device, you better. Oh and remember to tip your cab driver. Most items were returned thanks to the efforts of the drivers themselves.

I wanted to note the top-ten excuses I run into when following up on tasks, but lengthened the list to twelve. So here it goes:

12. I wasn’t hired to do that.
11. I thought I told you.
10. I’m so busy I just can’t get around to it.
9. I didn’t think it was very important.
8. I forgot.
7. Wait ’til the boss comes back and ask him.
6. That’s his job, not mine.
5. I’m waiting for an Okay.
4. No one told me to go ahead.
3. That’s not in my department.
2. I didn’t know you were in a hurry for it.

And the Number One reason tasks, processes and/or projects are not implemented. . .

1. That’s not the way we’ve always done it.

To save time you can now refer to each excuse by number.

I’ve recently read a couple of books that made me chuckle along. If you have sat through boring sales presentations, listened to cliche-laden speeches, or tried to decipher an e-mail from a consultant, please read Why Business People Speak Like Idiots : A Bullfighter’s Guide. The book provides a good “value proposition,” and will help you develop a “synergy” with your staff, clients and vendors. Did you catch all that bullshit? If not, read the book, or at least download the FREE Bullfighter software.

The other book is House of Lies : How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time. Since I am a consultant and have used and worked with consultants, I could really relate to the author’s experiences and found myself laughing out loud.

I think these books could be sold as a set, an entertaining duo of books. They are not “deep exposes” of consulting or business speak, but you may learn a thing or two. And most of all, enjoy, and don’t read in a public place. When you start laughing, everyone looks at you with a weird smile on their faces.

A recent survey by Salary.com determined that an average stay-at-home mother would earn $131,471 annually, including overtime, if she received a paycheck. It’s estimated that she works about 100 hours a week, and would be entitled to a base pay of $43,461, with an additional $88,009 for 60 overtime hours a week. Get more details at Yahoo and Happy Mother’s Day.

Management involves coping with uncertainty. There are potentially endless factors that may go against your business plans. For example, your information systems may go down at a critical moment, your accountant may predict that you will miss earnings expectations, or a competitor or vendor may suddenly move against you. When one of these unexpected events ruins our plans, our first instinct is to find an excuse: “It’s not my fault. Everything is just going against me.” It’s easy to find excuses and many times there is, indeed, little we can do. Winning managers, however, take full responsibility for all aspects of their business.

Taking full responsibility is crucial. Managers and executives who don’t take full responsibility will devote the bulk of their psychological energy to defending themselves against their mistakes. Rather than focusing exclusively on observing their business or department, they tend to get sidetracked by a burning desire to avoid blame. In addition, while one is finding an excuse for an adverse event, no time and energy is devoted to anticipating adverse events and thinking of preventative strategies to neutralize them. Taking full responsibility doesn’t necessarily mean blaming yourself for “mistakes,” however. Taking full responsibility can merely mean sifting through all possible negative events and taking precautions to minimize their potential negative impact.

An awareness of all possible adverse events allows you to make specific plans. For example, if you know that your Internet line may go down unexpectedly, or that your computer may crash, you can make a backup plan. When all seems to go wrong, you won’t panic, but you can effortlessly take decisive action. If you intuitively feel that an adverse event will likely thwart your plans, you can stand aside or cautiously manage risk should time go against you. The more you consider all possible adverse events, the better you can plan, and the more easily you will come out of it unscathed.

It’s useful to consider all possible adverse events. That said, it’s important to remember your limitations. Some people go overboard when trying to figure out what can go wrong. It’s possible to take things a little too far. If you become obsessed with every possible catastrophe, you may become an extreme perfectionist who has trouble setting goals and starting projects. Other people may take so much responsibility for negative outcomes that they become excessively pessimistic. It’s important to take a more balanced approach. Be realistic. There’s only so much you can account for and only so many precautions you can take. But, if you consider what you can control, take all possible steps to control it, and at the same time, accept what you can’t control, you’ll work your day more effectively. You’ll remain calm and make moves decisively.

Everyone tends to avoid responsibility to some extent. There’s a very human tendency to build up our egos and feel good about ourselves, and when events don’t go our way, we try to block it all out. This general tendency usually helps us cope with most of the adverse events we encounter in our everyday lives, but it usually interferes with our ability to take preventative measures to control potential adverse events. In the end, by becoming astutely aware of what can go wrong and taking control, you can maintain your winning edge.