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Master Your Game
This Issue: Leveraging "Who" and "How"
Dear Reader,
Summary
As a leader, you will turbo charge your organization
when you shift from a narrow focus on processes and
results (what you are doing and the results
you need to achieve) to transforming the players in
your team (who you need to execute these
processes). Leaders with great communication skills
have the power to shift people's self-perception and
improve their potential. When you understand who
your people are and are able to assist them to be
brilliant in how they undertake the business
processes, success will follow.
Current Practices
Current wisdom and management practices have us
almost exclusively focusing on strategy, tactics and
business goals - the "what." Many hours are spent in
management meetings discussing the what with very
little time spent on the who - the people needed to
ensure success. In today's ever changing,
competitive world of escalating goals, we need to
spend more time focusing on the latter.
Jim Collins in Good to Great states
that
the foremost focus of leadership in great companies
is on who not what. By focusing on
who, you can determine if you have the
right people and if they are in the right positions.
Collins also notes that the effectiveness of our
people at implementing processes is impacted by not
only what they know, but by how they approach new
challenges.
The Shift Required
To exceed our goals, we have to be better at
how we execute the processes that will
allow us to achieve these goals. That means either
the processes have to change, or our thinking needs
to shift in order to improve our process performance,
or both.
If a standard goal for you is to sell 1,000 units and all
of a sudden you are challenged to sell 10,000 units,
how will you and your team respond? If someone
believes that reaching the goal is impossible, then
that someone will be right and it will be impossible.
However, with good leadership and communications
skills you will have an opportunity to coach people
and shift their thinking to overcome their personal
barriers.
To succeed, you need people who can approach the
challenge with big thinking mentality. You need
creative thinkers who will tap into all the resources
at their disposal in order to come up with new
approaches. You need people willing to embrace new
ideas, use others as sounding boards and do what
has previously not been thought of - people who can
envision many options, and to whom the idea of
selling 10,000 units is within their realm of
possibilities.
Your Role as Leader
Great leaders and managers understand that they
need to support and challenge their people. It is
necessary to manage and connect with each person
as an individual and to understand what inspires
and/or holds them back.
To understand who our people are, we need
to know:
- what success looks like for them
- what they are passionate about
- what they love to do
- what they fear doing
- whether they have a fear of success
- whether they have a fear of making mistakes
- whether they fear failure
- whether they are uncomfortable when others
know more than them
- whether they avoid certain interactions because
they don't have all the answers
Because how we approach something is dependent
upon several things, including the way we think, our
frame of reference, our fears and beliefs; one or
more
of the above may be hindering you or your people
from being brilliant and reaching your goals. By
understanding who you are, you can enhance your
communications with your people and build a better
understanding of what inspires them as individuals.
Coaching will assist you to enhance your
communication skills and shift your leadership style.
Next month, I will discuss how to support a shift in
behaviour in your people by using a simple
performance development system.
Success in Leveraging "Who",
Jacque Small
Catalyst
Business
Coaching is a corporate development organization. It
works with people who want to achieve a greater
sense of success for both themselves and others in
the organization. It supports people to define and
achieve both personal and business targets. Jacque
Small, principal and owner of Catalyst, founded the
company in 2000.
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