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What Does Success Look Like?

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While moving into a new office recently, I stumbled upon four boxes of unused staples that were more than 30 years old.  Flash back to my first business.  I certainly knew my craft, but I hardly knew how to manage a business, yet alone how to manage a team.

The details.  I had a business – my first.  This was before computers and cell phones were the norm.  This was a time for AT&T land lines, receptionist or answering machines and you certainly couldn’t conduct business from your home (or the beach or your camper….).  My first of three employees was Bev.

Bev was earnest, wanted to make a difference and needed to be kept busy. I didn’t have the first clue how to set success measures for her.  So, without a plan to successfully manage the organization as I practiced my craft, I ended that business. I returned to a corporate environment with boxes full of file folders, file labels, legal pads and STAPLES!!”

Without a success rudder and left to her own devices, Bev thought she was doing what the business needed by ensuring we would never run out of office supplies!  Needless to say, my lack of ability to articulate a clear plan with success measures for each person on the team led to the business’ demise and the beginning of my journey on how to be a great leader and manager.  This was my fault, not Bev’s.  She was doing the best she could with what she knew.  I didn’t help her to know any better.

Moral of the story…you must teach your people what success looks like, make sure the training and resources are there and then check in on the progress to inspect the expectations.

Here is what I’ve learned along the way:

  1. Expectations begin with the first interview.  Plan your behavioral interviewing questions to ascertain a fit for your environment.  In doing so you also plant the seeds of expectations for success.
  2. On boarding is all about letting your new employee know what success looks like.  From the lay of the land in the office, to introductions to important work partners, to how the welcome tone is set…each of these becomes implicit measures of success.
  3. First week to 30 days of training are for naught without clearly communicated success measures, pointing to the resources available and agreeing on what the check-in process looks like.
  4. Inspect your expectations.  When you have the check-in process articulated, do it!  Check-in and use this time as celebration or re-calibration.
  5. Use feedback and coaching wisely to continue the successful outcomes, redirect the unsuccessful and to re-negotiate or introduce new success measures.

As managers and leaders, we are often lost in our own unconscious competence and we fail to communicate what success looks like.  We assume people know or will figure it out.  Left to their own devices, they may turn into the best purchasing clerks in the world and you, too, could find four boxes of staples thirty years later.

 

Stay Inspired!

 

Be The Bridge of Communication

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You are a bridge.  As an emotionally intelligent leader, able to navigate emotions and needs, you provide a bridge to those who have diverse styles of communicating. You know how to meet people where they are. You are at one end of the bridge and at the other end of this very long bridge somebody needs to receive your message. If you deliver your message in the same way time and time again, you’re only going to meet a quarter of the population as three-quarters of the population receive information in a different manner than the way you’re communicating. The world needs your message, let’s make sure you are heard.

Communication is behavior and behavior is observable, situational, flexible, dynamic and based on your thoughts and beliefs. That means communication can change by your own conscious choice.

Think about the diversity of communication and its impact on how you do or don’t get along with certain people. If you were to make a list of people who were easy to be with and people who were difficult to be with, you would see that the people who are easy to be with are similar and those more difficult are different than you. Your styles are similar or different and when you don’t know how to shift your style to meet the need, hardship and pain are the result.

The Four Behavioral Styles

For the sake of simplicity, let’s morph all the many behavioral profile results and distill them down to four behavioral common styles.  You will be able to recognize yourself and others in your work and life as we discuss the four styles.

Pretend you’ve drawn a cross in the middle of the page.  At the top, you have outgoing and on the bottom reserved. You have someone task-oriented on the left side and you have someone people oriented on the right side. Which one is better?  None are better than the other, they simply are. They are ways that you are wired and show up, and all four parts of the matrix are absolutely needed and invaluable in running a business.

One style of communicator is the Driver. The driver is task-oriented and outgoing, they want to drive an agenda, they want to make things happen and they do it through tasks. They see the world as filled with problems that need to be resolved. They easily take risks and move rapidly.

A second style is the Seller. The seller is outgoing and enjoys being in the spotlight and being at the front of the class.  They are people oriented and want to lead a team that wins with people. They are very verbal and often charismatic. Relationships are important to them so they will accomplish their tasks through people.

The Analyzer is reserved and task-focused. They don’t need to nor do they want to be in the spotlight. They are too busy focused on getting a task accomplished by analyzing facts and data and historical information. They ask, “why?” and make certain that key corporate metrics are achieved correctly. They avoid conflict and look at the world from the prism of standards.

Our final style is the Team Player who is reserved, yet people-centric. They don’t necessarily want to be in the spotlight yet they’re also very people focused. They’re committed to making sure that the team wins together. Steady eddy types, they accomplish task with stability and harmony and don’t like change.

With that cursory description, can you guess who you are? Are you a driver? Are you a seller? Are you an analyzer or are you a team player? It doesn’t make any difference which of the many behavioral assessments you may have taken, you’re generally going to fall into one or two of these four styles

Pick Up the Clues and Customize

Now that you’ve seen all four of these folks, what does it mean for you? Take what you see about yourself and then pick up the clues on other’s behaviors and customize your leadership communication. Each guest, client and associate is unique and they all have a preferred method of communicating.  Without conscious thought, most selling or managing is based upon the behavioral style of the seller or the manager. If you truly are the bridge for communication, you will see that this is backward. Know thyself and adapt to serve the person on the other side of the bridge.

Conflicts in style can result in tension, discomfort and lost opportunities so adapting your approach to the needs of the others will improve your chances of collaboration and results, simple as that.

Put It into Action

To sum this up and make it actionable, follow these tips:

  • Recognize your responsibility to create the bridge so that your message is received.
  • Understand where you fit in the behavioral matrix and how you prefer to communicate.
  • Pick up the clues from those around you to determine their preferences.
  • Adjust your style to meet their needs
    • Bottom line for drivers
    • Create connection with sellers
    • Provide details and data to analyzers
    • Create a clear playing field for team players
  • Rinse and repeat until this all feels natural to you.

The Ideal Leadership Team

There is a distinct benefit of having all four styles on the team. The ideal leadership team is comprised of the driver who generates the ideas and insists on the results and the seller who will go out and promote the ideas and generate the enthusiasm and the team players who make certain that ideas are carried out and bring stability to the group and then finally the analyzers who make certain that key details are covered and that the project is done well. You need all four. There’s not one right and there’s not one wrong. Drivers, sellers, team players and analyzers, they complete the puzzle so you need to customize your style to their preferences. That creates your leadership choices of how you will communicate.

Emotional Intelligence is strengthened with practice and consciousness. The idea of communication diversity, creates an expanded playing field for the EQ leader and, in turn, creates a diverse customer service experience, stake-holder experience and employee experience. It pays dividends to customize your communication.

Stay Inspired!

 

Leader or Manager?

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“Bad leaders care about who is right.  Good leaders care about what is right.”
– Simon Sinek

Per the Gallup Organization, 75% of workers who leave jobs do so because of poor relationships with their boss (aka – manager).

Assumption. Everyone reading this is a manager of people, process or project. Even if you are a sole business owner, you’ll sit in the management function because you must run your business. Management is the job of running the business.

  • Needed?…
  • Yes. 
  • Coveted?…
  • Sometimes.

In our signature system, Leadership Mastery™, we always begin by sorting the behaviors and characteristics of managers and leaders to understand the distinction. Imagine a sheet of paper with a line drawn down the middle and on the left side is manager and the right side is leader, what goes in each category?

Manager versus Leader

Managers are responsible for executing and delivering the strategy either through people or process. Your list may include P&L’s, defining goals, hiring and firing, inventory and other executable tasks. You own the daily list; the monthly list; the annual list of things that move your business forward. This is needed in any kind of a business. From a sole entrepreneur to a fortune 500 company, there must be a management process in place.
The Leader board will be different. Here is where you will find inspiration, vision, listening, motivation, and coaching. These are all characteristics that define a quality of being.

There is a distinct difference. Managers are doing and Leaders are being. 

Do you have to be manager to be a leader? No.  A leader can bubble up from any strata of any part of any company. Think about a line level employee who, without title, has a group of people willing to follow their lead?

Positional Power

Here is the important question – have you ever been managed by a manager (maybe this was you) who did not have leadership qualities? This is the manager who has a title and has not yet developed the necessary skills or attitudes to lead, but rather uses positional power to maneuver.

The manager who has not been trained or encouraged to adopt leadership behaviors is trouble waiting to happen.  You might be feared and maybe respected, but never fully followed. When you top-down manage by relying on your title, your employees may never own their own power and never be fully accountable for their own outcomes.  Positional power kills engagement.

Versus Personal Power

A leader works from the inside out with personal power. A leader moves people into action with influence, understanding and managing emotions, empathy and clear communication. The result is that employees are led to their own outcomes, there is a greater likelihood of accountability and people are willing to function as a team.

Now imagine your management duties imbued with leadership qualities. The outcome is likely engagement, satisfaction and enhanced discretionary effort (results!).

The manager tells and the leader influences. Those who are told are taught to be dependent and those who are influenced are taught to think for themselves from a place of purpose.

What kind of business team would you like to manage?

Leadership Tip

If you are ready for a leadership upgrade, take stock of how you are showing up in your business. Make a list of the leadership qualities that are strong in you and those that are not.  From that list, choose an action to practice for the next few weeks to elevate your leadership ability.

Stay Inspired!

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