Values LeaderShift 1 – What’s your story?

Values LeaderShift 1 – What’s your story?

Great leaders are individuals who have successfully developed (or taken over) a story that appeals to the values of their followers.

A leader needs to know and understand his or her own values and the values of their followers.

You do not necessarily need to know the detail of their values, but some real knowledge will greatly help you weave the story that will work best.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying “You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
And that is probably the issue that many leaders face. Each individual in your team, your organization, your community, even your family – has their own set of personally held values and their own hierarchy of those values.

Let’s consider a fairly typical situation, one that I have heard in slight variations many, many times from leaders I have worked with:

“In my team I have 8 direct reports, one person is a real star performer – always hard working, always achieves the goals and targets. One person  is always calling in sick, looks miserable all  day, just about makes the target, one is a real  low performer and  complains about too much work. The rest, are OK. I’ve tried everything but what can I do about these two low performers?”

This informs us several values of the leader.

  • That performance or is important for them.
  • That to be seen to do hard-work is important.
  • That they are not keen on people who look miserable and complain.
  • That they value doing something about the situation and are willing to learn.

Whilst you would benefit from more information to be more certain, the leader’s values might map thus:

Leader’s words

Core Values

Performance

Achievement

Hard-work

Achievement

Not complaining/miserable

Hedonism

Desire to help others

Benevolence

Willing to learn personally

Self-direction

For the two “low-performers” – whatever their personal values, it is likely that their own hierarchy of values does not include ‘Achievement’ at such a high level. It may be that ‘Self- direction’ is low also.

In such situations, the responses I have heard in one-to-one coaching sessions form ‘low-performing’ staff is myriad but most show a core theme when asked about their performance at work.

  • Most frequently: “I don’t see/understand why this is so important.” And that’s right; they do not see it or understand it. The leader may not be communicating the value of performance to them.
  • Often: “I try to do the job but I don’t ‘have the right support/tools/resources.” This may or may not be accurate and it is the leader’s role (as manager) to ensure that the right resources are available and how to get them and use them.
  • Too often: “There’s nothing wrong with my performance, it’s the market/ environment/ economy/ etc.”  Shifting blame to something outside of one’s personal control is possibly a favourite ‘excuse’ and in my experience and with further probing, this usually relates to either a security value (if I blame someone else, I’ll remain secure), or a hedonistic value (I don’t gain enjoyment from this, or I dislike doing this, and I feel better if I blame someone else for my failure to achieve).

At this point I want to stress that understanding your own values and those of others is NOT about judging the merits of those values. One individual’s values are not better than another person’s values – they may be more aligned with your own and thus you would consider them to be ‘better’, but they have worked well so far for that individual. Once we begin to know and understand another person’s value we can weave our story to appeal to them.

Leadershift!

Make your “story” compelling

  • First. What is truly important for you? (work, career and life)
    • Write this down.
  • Second. What is important for your people, customers, suppliers, shareholders?
    • Ask them! And write it down.
  • Third line up the lists. Look for the matches and the mismatches.
  • Now write your “story” that is compelling to your audience. Communicate your “story” again and again and again and again and again… and yes you are saying the same thing over and over and over again. Live it, love it, tell it.
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Better experiences, better stories, better brand

Three years ago, I had a conversation with one of our internal recruiters around the TVP (talent value proposition – like an EVP for a particular talent segment) for his area. He was recruiting IT people for an engineering firm, and attrition was high in that team. People weren’t staying for more than 6 months, and we were looking for a solution.

We sat down and read the ads that had been used in the past, looking for clues. They were pretty standard ads – list of skills, what you’ll be doing here, the usual jazz. There wasn’t much to inspire there, not a lot of cultural discussion. So we started writing new copy for all the ads to talk about the team from a human perspective.

And we hit a snag.

We were looking at recruiting into a team with an obvious problem around staff performance and culture. We were looking at recruiting into a team that suffered such quick turnover that only the staff who didn’t leave became the culture. We were recruiting fast moving fish into a stagnant pond, and watching them jump out straight away.

via Blog post: Better experiences, better stories, better brand | All articles.

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Blog post: How to figure out which managers are net positive to your culture in one question…

There’s lots of talk about how to build the best culture possible at your company. Regardless of how you define your culture, you can figure out what your team members really think, and what they want culturally by asking the following question:

“If you could pick any manager (other than the one you’re working for) in the company to work for (regardless of functional area), who would it be and why?”

via Blog post: How to figure out which managers are net positive to your culture in one question… | All articles.

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The GAINMORE™ Leadership Advantage Handbook 3rd Edition

Open the Leadership Advantage Handbook

Open the Leadership Advantage Handbook

In conjunction with the launch of GAPPS3, we are updating, revising and reworking our Leadership Advantage Handbook.

This is a work in progress for publication of the 3rd Edition in December 2010.

The handbook is being re-written online here, and we welcome your comments and feedback and contributions to make it even more useful, effective and real.

Join us and collaborate on this 3rd edition of the indispensable leadership development handbook.

Sign up to access all the leadership advantage handbook or collaborate with us.


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Follow through! Getting out of the sand trap of recession

The ‘expert’ pundits around the globe are now predicting a long, slow haul out of the current economic crisis. Previous ‘expert’ predictions of the turnaround in the second half, third quarter. President Obama is, however, sure of recovery in spite of the dire jobs data – seems that the “recession is slowing” but where is this bottoming out that we’ve all repeatedly heard?

Billions of dollars have been poured into world economies. Millions more into civic projects. Yet, just as with Madoff’s ill-gotten loot, the whereabouts of all this money is still in question.

So, just how can the small business get itself out of this recession sand trap?

bunkerballFor some, the sand trap is the scariest place on the golf course. Sand traps have the ability to intimidate even the most skilled players every now and then. No-one intends to get the ball in there and very few people relish the thought of playing out, but the experts all agree on at least one point with regard to getting out. Follow-through!

There are rules in golf that make this particular shot more challenging because you are not allowed to touch the sand near the ball before making the shot. You judge the need to open the clubface (to slide the club beneath the ball and sand for greater loft) or to close it (to ‘dig’ through the sand to get under a deeper embedded ball) is by eye and experience. Judge this badly (or indeed, execute wrongly) and you might hit the ball thinly, taking too little sand, or thickly, taking too much.

The key is to commit to the swing and follow-through. Stab at the ball without follow-through and there’s a 90% chance that the ball will remain in the trap with the club abruptly stopping (especially in wet sand). Ideally you hit the sand directly behind the ball, allowing the club and the sand to carry the ball out of the bunker.

Like many golfers, business people don’t practice enough, and they certainly don’t practice the tricky shots. (Pop down to any driving range and count the number of people practicing in the sand pit in front of the bays.) So, every business down-turn becomes a novelty. Fear and panic set in quickly and we witness many people trying to hit the ball out. Cut prices, sell ‘hard’, slash costs. Does it work? For some yes, they hit the ball thinly and the ball ends up on the other side of the green and often, out of bounds. Some attack the problem hard and hit the ball thickly – taking too much sand and burying the ball deeper a few inches further along.

sand_trap_outThose that get out well, judged the situation, chose the right tool for the job, adjusted their stance and clubface and then they committed to the shot, took just the right amount of sand with them and followed-through.

Maybe you just misjudged that first attempt. There’s no point berating the green keepers, the course designer, your tools, your competitors, or worse, your customers. Learn from the experience, stop complaining, quiet your mind, judge the new situation, take your stance, adjust the use of the right tool. Aim for the sand not the ball! Commit. Follow-through.

 

 

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