What a fabulous weekend! We held our immediate Deterding Family Reunion this weekend and had an absolute blast celebrating memories and making new ones!
When my Dad passed away this past year, my brother, sister, and I made a commitment to each other to be intentional about having an annual reunion with our family as we wanted to insure that we continued to get together on a consistent basis. After all, once our family leaders were gone it might be easy to get out of that habit and not see family as often. We did not want that to happen.
We made the event a big deal! Each first generation family, and each second-generation family (our kids) were responsible for a particular meal. We had a beanbag tournament, we shared memories, we fished together, we boated together, we ate together (a lot) and we worshiped together. It was a grand weekend!
We also set the date for our 2nd Annual Deterding Reunion next year.
I think there are some leadership lessons to be learned from this weekend of sharing and making memories.
It is a servant leader’s responsibility to build a high performing team. Most high performing teams that I have observed are intentional about creating community (chemistry) within the team.
Servant leaders are intentional about creating activities and an environment that will build relationships within their team and lead to high performance. They…
- Take their teams to offsite meetings and events to get them away from the normal day-to-day activities.
- Have some competitive events to build camaraderie within the team.
- Build shared responsibilities into the events so everyone has a leadership role at some time during the event.
- Build a time of relaxation into the event so people can unwind together.
- Allow for a faith component to take the team relationships to another level.
These things don’t happen by accident. A leader needs to be intentional about creating these opportunities for making memories that will lead to a close-knit, high performing team.
I know our family unit is stronger after this weekend, and we can’t wait for next year.
What are you doing to build community and high performance within your team?
Mark Deterding
“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 5:16
Beautiful family, beautiful post. And so valuable your message Mark. Extraordinary relationships are the foundation which make achieving extraordinary results possible. Well said, my dear friend.
Vinay, thank you so much for your very kind comments. I really appreciate it! I love your comment “Extraordinary relationships are the foundation which make achieving extraordinary results possible”. Awesome!