Effective Business Teams-How Diamonds Can Help

Everyone likes to be successful and to be in a winning team. However success takes time and as a leader, you must be prepared to put in a lot of work to build the right foundation for your winning team.
If you have just assembled a team, it is like graphite or pencil lead, soft and breakable because this is the start stage. Theoretically speaking, graphite could metamorphose into diamonds with extreme pressure and heat.
Therefore your team has the potential to also produce sparkling results like diamonds with appropriate pressure. You would then be able to unravel a shiny attractive and desirable diamond with perfect colour, cutting, clarity and carat.
To find out how diamonds can help you build an effective business team, you would just have to read on.

1. Colour. Diamonds within the colourless range are the most rare and valuable of all the colours.
Just like the colourless diamond, your team should be colourless. If your team members are able to offer honest and constructive feedback to one another without fear, you would have built the basic foundation of transparency.
2. Cut. The cut of a diamond does not refer to only its shape, but how effectively the stone can reflect light back to your eye. A well-cut diamond will appear brilliant and fiery; while poorly cut stones can appear dark and lifeless, regardless of colour or clarity.
Just like the reflective diamond that went through the vigorous process of polishing and cutting by its maker, its end result would be that of sheer reflective brilliance.
Your team must thus be able to go through all these external pressures as well as internal pressure. Legal Laws, uncooperative clients, demanding work schedules, and all these would exact a toll on the team. But if you can treat all these problems as gifts, then everyday would be Christmas.
So do not wish for the problems to go away, but rather wish that your team and you were better in terms of skills and knowledge to overcome it.
3. Clarity. Clarity is a term used to describe the absence or presence of flaws inside or on the surface of a diamond or other gemstone. A perfect stone with perfect clarity--clearness--is rare, and most flaws that do exist in jewellery grade diamonds cannot be seen without looking at stones through a jeweller's magnifying loupe.
And just like that rare perfect stone, you should not crack your head to develop a fully perfect team. Once you accept that there would always be flaws in a team, you are able to build on these, as a good team is one which leverages on each other strengths and improve each other weaknesses.
4. Carat. Carat is a measure of weight. You could say that the bigger the diamond, the heavier and bigger the carat.
Just like the diamond that is of optimum size and weight, the products that you create together with your team must be optimum for the market. Too small or unnoticeable, and the products would be mistaken for yet another one in the market. Too big or expensive, and you would not appeal to the masses, but only to the most ostentatious crowd.
Always remember that service for the mass leads to greatness. That would enable your goods and services to gain enough ground support and finally enough momentum to sustain itself for the future.

In summary, your team is a reflection of yourself. When you take them under your wings to nurture them, it is always good to understand each team member, and have clear and specific goals set aside for them. This is the sparkling diamond-like quality of a true leader.