Outcome Thinking^® Blog

As a leader your job is to continually coach and mentor those around you so they can grow in their performance.  This can be really tough to do, especially if your team, just had a dismal quarter.

John Maxwell was sharing a story about a basketball coach that, during half time, put up three columns on a white board in order to help the team turn around their performance.  Those three columns had- Did Right- Did Wrong- Will Change- just six words.

Notice how different that would bring your mind if you knew you would build on what was right, analyze what went wrong and then looked at what you would change to make things different.

So why not do that in your business?  Why stay in a rut? Why allow people to wallow in misery?

Those three columns create hope because

They don’t focus on the past; they learn from the past

They don’t defend what went wrong; they look at what to change

They don’t inject blame; they assume the power to make things happen

TAKE ACTION:

At your next team meeting use the three columns to change how you all view a project, process or client.  Create hope for a next quarter that is off the charts.

I remember my report cards as a child and they all had written on them “poor listener.”  So it confused me when a few years back (okay more than a few)  I was asking what I need to work on and what continually came back from people is “well not listening, you are a great listener”.  I would laugh and say, “no I am not. I can show you my report cards and how that has been a weakness my whole life.”

Then one friend offered some insight I hadn’t thought of before.  She said, “Anne when the teacher gave an assignment did you always do it exactly like she asked?”  I said, “no if it didn’t make sense or I thought I could do it better or faster a different way I would do that instead.  For example, I remember my first grade teacher telling us we had to draw a snowman before we could do recess.  She then put out stacks of colored paper.  I thought it was ridiculous to color in a white snowman so I went to the copy paper, got a piece of white paper and drew my snowman lickety split.  She didn’t like that.”

So my friend said, “You are always thinking of how to do things more efficiently so consequently in school that meant you didn’t always do things the way the teacher asked.  So it wasn’t that you weren’t listening, it was that you saw a better way of doing things.  They just interpreted as that you didn’t listen.” 

Now here is the important part- you will always get feedback on what you do well and what you can improve on.  Your job is to make sure you get the background information- the why- they think that about you so you can put the feedback in to the right context.  As a kid I didn’t get to do that with the teacher but as I got older I would always ask the “why” behind the “what” so that I knew exactly what to work on.

TAKE ACTION:  Try to find one area of your life that you need to improve.  Find out “what” you are doing that is off and then have others help you with the “why”.  Then just try to change the one thing.  I became perceived as a great listener because I started to explain to others “why” I was doing something different than asked rather than just doing it.  I never thought that one thing could spring me from being perceived as a “poor listener” to being an “insightful thinker.”

Let me know what you find out and what you change as I am dedicated to your success with Outcome Thinking.

I was amazed when I got Jennifer’s email.  Jennifer, a high level senior director in a company , was looking to be promoted.  I was coaching her on what she needed to do in order to demonstrate leadership at the next level.  She had  a few glaring issues that she didn’t even see as important.

I am going to share them with you now so you don’t make the same mistakes.

1. You are always on.  Jennifer thought that emails were suppose to be written fast and demonstrate your ability to quickly resolve issues.  So Jennifer typed in all lower case letters-even the word “I” was done as “i”.  As a leader you are always on so make sure your emails, memos, and presentation of your thoughts is consistent at all time.

2. Ask more than Tell.  Great leaders ask great questions.  They are always probing to get the right information in the right way so they can make well informed decisions.  Watch in a week how much you tell others what to do and how much you draw out the knowledge in others.  You don’t have to the most knowledge to be the best leader but you do have to know how to access knowledge when you need it.

3. Balance counts.  A really good leader who is ready to be promoted to the next level is rarely the last one there with their light on.  Each time you are the last one there you are telling the topp executives that you are at that threshold of what you can handle.  The top executives we work with find that they are able to reduce their work time by over 25% WHILE INCREASING hhow much they are able to get done.  Be more efficeint by blocking off time to think ahead of pprojecs instead of just being reactive to events.

In order to move ahead you have to look, not at your performance to date, but to how your performance aligns with the next level up.  Operate at that strategic level today and when the next opening comes up you will naturally come to mind.

Have you ever been talking with a person and you just felt they weren’t telling you the truth?  Have you ever tried to explain why later on and not been able to really point out what they said that made you not believe them?

You probably couldn’t point it out because it is not the words that tell us if a person is lying but their body language. Literally when a person is lying to you their brain is sending them a signal that they shouldn’t be lying.  This signal is then acted out in their body language.

Here are the common signs a person is lying to you and why they do it:

1. Break eye contact.  It is their brain’s attempt to not look at the person they are lying to

2. Cover their mouth.  It is their brain’s attempt to not let the words out of their mouth.  This is often disguised with a cough.

3. Tug on their ear or put their finger in their ear.  It is literally their brain’s attempt not to hear the lie.

These are just three of the possible signs a person is lying.  Notice how they follow the “Three Monkees” that cover their eyes, ears and mouth.  It is your brain saying “I will hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil.”

In your corporate meetings look for open body language that shows a person is not hiding anythhing.

Arrogant leaders gain momentum when their ego is feed and rewarded by their actions.  They begin to think they are invincible.  Now many arrogant leaders can be turned around so they are confident but not arrogant.  As I demonstrated in my earlier blog with the example of the Ship Captain from the Costa Concordia Ship, arrogance, left unchecked can be deadly.  By now you have probably heard all the scoop about this not being the first time this captain has pulled his ship off course so the employees can wave to their friends on the island.

So how do you turn around someone who as moved from confidence to arrogance?

1. Be direct with them.  You need to spell it out in no nonsense language what traits you are seeing, why they bother you, and what you expect the person to do to turn them around.

2. Watch what you are doing to “feed” that arrogance.  Are you letting them talk over others in meetings? Do you allow this person to go “rogue”?  Do you hold them to the same rules as others or do you let the results dictate the rules? 

3. Once you know what you are doing that allows this to exist, let the person know you will be STOPPING those behaviors so you don’t feed in to the pool.  Tell them EXPLICITLY what YOU have been doing wrong and how you will stop doing it.  I recommend you make part of this change public.  For example, “Bill, I have been remiss in allowing you and your team to operate outside our sales guidelines.  This causes disruption in the entire process for the company but I have been so focused on the revenue that I didn’t see the repercussions of allowing this to happen.  I want to be clear that I won’t allow it any more and that if it happens I will point it out .” Remember they are “in tune” to your behavior so far so they won’t believe the changes until they see them.

4. Remember this will require them to change how they operate with others and their team so elicit from them exactly how they will do that.  Don’t just assume it will happen.

5. Set clear consequences if change doesn’t happen.  Define with them how you both will know the changes are happening and what will be done if the changes AREN’T made. 

It is a fine line between confidence and arrogance.  The big problem with arrogance is that it causes the person to put blinders on so they miss critical information, they read a situation incorrectly and they can not anticipate and evaluate risks accurately.  So reign them in now in order for both of you to enjoy the crown of confidence and not the thorns of arrogance.