Five Questions to Ask During the Transition to a New Year

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm a big fan of questions; to inquire, challenge, and inspire. Questions provide the fuel for reflection and the impetus for action.  And in this unique time of year where people are more willing to look back and look forward, these questions become especially powerful.

Today I share five questions with you – three that look back, and two that look forward – all designed to help you put action to the good intentions you likely have this time of the year. Grab a pen and a piece of paper (or your journal), or open a new document on your device. Ask yourself the questions, and start writing down your answers. Give yourself some time, because these questions are worthy of your consideration.

What Did I Accomplish?

It is always useful to look back and consider your accomplishments. Think about what you are proud of over the past year. Then lower the bar just a bit more – what else did you accomplish; even if not quite at the level you had hoped for. In other words, consider the accomplishment list in your eyes, and in the eyes of a third party who might remind you of things you overlooked.

When you review the list, you might have a variety of feelings. You might have immense pride about some items or even the full list. You might feel disappointment, as the list isn’t what you had hoped it would be. Whatever your feelings, notice them and then reflect on whether that is the feeling you want associated with your list at this time next year.

What Did I Learn?

There will likely be learning from the accomplishments, but I’m guessing when you reflect on this question, you will find there is much more you learned. Like the last question, don’t put a limit on this list. There may be things you previously knew, but had forgotten (or weren’t doing or using), that now you are applying. If so, put it on this list. This list isn’t just about brand new learning, but also re-learning that is having an impact on your life and results.

What Held Me Back?

Chances are you didn’t reach all your goals or accomplish everything you had hoped for in the past twelve months. This question lets you reflect on what dampened your results. This list could contain things you did or didn’t do, thoughts, habits or any number of things. Time spent identifying this list will be invaluable as you begin to look forward.

What Habit Change Will Aid Me Most?

You won’t get to your goals and aspirations in the coming year if you don’t change anything. Chances are there is one habit that you could alter, or replace that could have a significant impact on your results. This question challenges you to think about what that might be. The habit I'm cultivating in 2022 is to mindfully pause periodically instead of mindlessly rushing through the day.

Hopefully the answer will challenge you to implement that change, starting today.

What is My Focus Word or Phrase?

I am a big believer in having a word or  phrase that keeps me mindful of my highest and best use of time in the year ahead. Asking this question, and making that decision after asking and answering the previous five questions will help crystallize all of into your focus word.

Ask yourself: What word or phrase will move you and remind you of the feeling you have now? What word will help you create as much of the New Year as you have just described? What word will help you focus on how to best create the year you want to create? My phrase for 2022 is dancing with life. For me, dancing with life means learning to meet life with an equanimous response whether events are pleasant or unpleasant.

There are no perfect words or phrases here; just start writing words down as they come to you. At the end of the ten minutes, pick the one that is calling to you. You will want to “try this word or phrase on” and live with it for a day or so. Chances are if it doesn’t quite fit, you will identify a new, better word or phrase (whether from your original list or not) within a couple days. Just make sure that soon you do pick your focus word or phrase for the year.

To your greater success and fulfillment in 2022,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Why Santa Claus is NOT a Good Role Model for Managers

 

 

There are lessons to be learned from Santa Claus. Truth is, like most managers, his heart is in the right place. But as a leader, there’s room for improvement.

His performance review system is shallow. Naughty or nice. That’s it? Boys and girls worldwide are expected to perform by standards that really amount to just “good or bad” for the entire year without any feedback or definitions. How naughty was he? Under what circumstances? To whom? How many times was she nice? Was it sincere? Did it have any meaningful results? C’mon, Santa, the kids are in the dark. A little more clarity would go a long way to improving behavior.

His answers to tough questions are condescendingly blunt. “How do reindeer fly, Santa?” “Magic,” he says. “Ho ho ho.” One-word answers to a person who wants a little more explanation, depth or perspective are lame. “Hey, boss, how did we do on that Simmons contract?”  “Great. (Now get back to work.)”  You see where this is going?  Put a little tact in your communication.

He doesn’t help out in the trenches. The great delegator that he is, Old St. Nick lifts nary a finger in the production of the goods he distributes. Elves, toiling for what could be low or no wages (it’s never been discussed), take on all the grunt work, including loading the sleigh. It would be nice if Santa himself put down his pipe once in a while to show the staff that he’s a team player.

He hogs all the credit. One night of hard work and few weeks of taking children’s orders and he’s featured in all the songs, cards, displays and Coco-Cola bottles. Santa Claus is coming to town! The heck with everyone else who made it happen.

He’s mired in tradition. For centuries, the jolly old CEO has run things pretty much the same way. Where’s the innovation? Progress? Growth? Can presents be delivered  more  efficiently? Maybe Santa should team up with Amazon...just saying.  Can the sleigh  be  updated?  How about an easier way to get inside of a home? Maybe Santa can get away with the “if it ain’t broke” model, but you can’t.

He offers no promotional opportunities. It’s all about the star performer Rudolph. Does Prancer have a shot at leading the team? In fact, it might be beneficial if Santa brought an elf or two with him on the big night as part of a coaching and mentorship program.

Santa could learn something about shared leadership by observing a flock of geese. (Check out our blog WHAT GEESE CAN TEACH US ABOUT LEADERSHIP & TEAMWORK)

Seriously, Santa does have one great quality that every manager covets: He can make everyone smile.

How?

That’s magic!

While Mr. Claus may not use the best management practices, the incredible spirit of Santa embodies some of the greatest human virtues like kindness, caring, and generosity. 

Wishing you the best of the Holiday Season and in the New Year.

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The Great Mystery

 

Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, once told shareholders, "We've long felt that the only value stock of forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie [Munger] and I continue to believe that short term market forecasts are poison and should be locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children."

In his book One Up On Wall Street, Peter Lynch, one of the best mutual fund managers of all time, wrote, "Thousands of experts study overbought indicators, oversold indicators, head-and-shoulder patterns, put-call ratios, the Fed's policy on money supply, foreign investment, the movement of constellations in the heavens, and the moss on oak trees, can't predict the markets with any useful consistency, any more that gizzard squeezers could tell the Roman emperors when the Huns would attack."

These men understood that humility is essential to investment success--as it is to so much else in our lives.

In my humble opinion, humility doesn't mean selling yourself short or not exercising your talents to the fullest. It means making an honest appraisal, the limited knowledge, experience and understanding that we all bring to life.

It means having a realistic perspective, understanding that -- whatever our particular talents--we are not the center of the universe. "We are all worms," Winston Churchill remarked. "But I do believe I am a glow-worm."

Humility is becoming. It wears well. Truly confident people don't need to brag or boast. It's much more attractive for people to discover your many charms.

Secure individuals don't lord their status over others. evevn if you are truly one-in-a-million kind of guy or gal, in a world of 6 billion people that means there are thousands more just like you.

A companionable friend or dinner guest knows better topics of conversation than just himself. "There are two types of people in this world observed Frederick L. Collins, "Those who come into the room and say, "Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are!'"

Could anyone really prefer spending time with the former?

A modest attitude also demonstrates maturity. "Let us be humble," said Jawaharlal Nehru. "Let us think that the truth may not perhaps be entirely with us."

Live long enough and you're likely to learn that life is one long lesson in humility. Things don't always turn out like we planned over even imagined.

Our happiness is determined, in large part, by how we handle these inevitable surprises. Because uncertainty will always be with us. Perhaps that is why Pulitzer Prize--winning columnist George Will once described his idea of heaven as "infinite knowing."

Recognizing the limits of our knowledge in invaluable, whether we're analyzing problems, figuring out relationships--or even puzzling over the big existential questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? What is it all about?

Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have struggled with these for thousands of years. And still wrestle with them today.

As Nobel Prize-winning particle physicist Leon Lederman wryly observed, the universe is the answer. What we still don't know is the question.

This humble attitude has been embraced by great minds throughout history, from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein to Gandhi.

As Sioux Indian Chief Ota Kte observed a century ago, "After all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in books and embellished in fine language with fine covers, man--all man--is still confronted with the Great Mystery. 

Stay hungry and humble,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The "Secret" to Inspirational Leadership

 

What would Tesla be without Elon Musk? Amazon without Jeff Bezos. Or Virgin without Richard Branson.

On the flip side, 21 years ago WorldCom had the most impressive array of telecommunications assets on the planet. But with Bernie Ebbers at the helm, it didn't matter. He drove the company right into bankruptcy.

 Ebbers served 13 years at the Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex for orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in U.S. history before dying in 2020. (And I need hardly remind you of what chieftains Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling did for Enron employees and shareholders.)

In the business world, physical assets are essential. Patents and trademarks are invaluable. Positive cash flow is wonderful. But, at the very heart of things, every organization is a team of people. And just as a winning sports team requires a great coach, every organization needs inspiring leaders at every level. Because if the team isn't rowing in the same direction--the right direction--you won't get far.

I was reminded of this while attending a conference years ago where the keynote speaker was one of America's all-time great football coaches Lou Holtz.

Holtz is not just a multiple winner of "Coach of the Year" honors. He is the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games. And the only coach to have four different teams reach final top 20 rankings.

Throughout his career, Holtz earned a reputation for both developing winning teams and quickly rebuilding broken ones. He has written six books on leadership (My personal favorite is "Winning Every Day: The Game Plan for Success"). He claims he is the only man in America who has written more books than he has read.

Don't let him fool you. Lou Holtz is a living example of inspirational leadership. I hadn't intended to take notes, but a minute and a half into his talk I was scouring the table for a coctail napkin.

"Leadership begins with recognizing that everybody need four things," said Holtz, "something to do, someone to love, something to hope for, and something to believe in. Strategic plans don't excite anybody. Dreams excite people...And every employee, every team member, wants to know the same thing: Do you really care about me? Every successful organization shows its people they genuinely matter."

You may not coach a university football team or run a Fortune 500 company. But I bet you're in a position to provide inspirational leadership. How? First, by setting an example. Second, by letting the people around you know how important they are.

In a piece entitled "Godly Work" in an issue of Forbes Magazine, Columnist Rich Karlgaard related a story he was told by Nancy Ortberg, an emergency room nurse who was finishing up work one night before heading home.

"The doctor with whom I was working was debriefing a new doctor, who had done a very respectable, competent job, telling him what he'd done well and what he could have done differently.

Then he put his hand on the young doctor's shoulder and said, "When you finished, did you notice the young man from housekeeping who came in to clean the room?' There was a completely blank look on the young doctor's face."

"The older doctor said, "His name is Carlos. He's been here for three years. He does a fabulous job. When he comes in he gets the room turned around so fast that you and I can get our next patients in quickly. His wife's name is Maria. They have four children.' Then he named each of the four children and gave each child's age.

The older doctor went on to say, "He lives in a rented house about three blocks from here in Santa Ana. They've been up from Mexico for about five years. His name is Carlos,' he repeated. Then he said, 'Next week I would like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don't already know. Okay? Now, let's go check on the rest of the patients.'"

Ortberg recalls: " I remember standing there writing my nursing notes--stunned--and thinking, I have just witnessed breathtaking leadership."

Fostering mutual respect among colleagues is perhaps the most important ingredient for building and sustaining a healthy organization. It is people who matter most.

Yes, business will always be about meeting the deadline, closing the deal, finishing the project, and growing the business. But if your work life is nothing more than the single-minded pursuit of wealth, recognition, and accomplishment, you will wake up one day and find that SOMETHING is missing.

That's because true success is not just about achieving your dreams. It's about helping those around you reach theirs, too.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Thanksliving: Practicing an Attitude of Perpetual Gratitude

 

It's been said that life is a good news, bad news proposition. The good news is that life's challenges help us grow. The bad news is that there is more good news coming!

In his book Discovering the Laws of Life, the famed money manager and philanthropist John Templeton coined the word “Thanksliving.” He recommended practicing an attitude of perpetual gratitude.

That's not hard when times are good. But in these times, fraught with uncertainty, an attitude of continual thankfulness can be a tall order. Yet Templeton offers a radical solution. Don't just give thanks for your blessings. Be grateful for your problems, too.

This seems wildly counterintuitive at first blush. But facing our challenges makes us stronger, smarter, tougher, and more valuable as leaders, employees, parents, mates, ...and human beings.

"Solving problems is what were made for" it's what makes life worth living," remarked Templeton.

He goes on, "Adversity, when overcome strengthens us. So we are giving thanks not for the problem itself but for the strength and knowledge that comes from it. Giving thanks for the growth ahead of time will help you grow through--not just go through--your challenges."

What ever problems we're grappling with--personal, social, health, or financial--the best course is to face them with all the courage, patience, and equanimity you can muster.

And if possible be grateful.

On occasion, of course, our problems are simply bigger than we are. In an address in 1859, Abraham Lincoln recounted the following tale:

It is said that an Eastern Monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and in all situations. They presented him with the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

That's something worth keeping in mind.

Whatever your problems, few of them can withstand the onslaught of optimism, persistence, and a genuine spirit of gratitude.

As the poet Robert Frost reminds us, "The best way out is always through."

Check out a related post: Winning By Giving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

Elevate Your Culture By Having Better Conversations (The 4 Core Skills for Better Conversations)

 

 

 

 

 

The quality of your workplace culture depends on the quality of the conversations. The stories about the past, present, and future shape the identity of your organization. From watercooler conversations to passionate meeting debates, how people engage with each other (or not) is a true indicator of your company culture.

Poor conversations are frustrating, keeping your team stuck in the past.

Better culture starts with better conversations. Teams create better solutions via dialogue. Transform your company culture with effective conversations.

Everything your team members do is facilitated through conversations. They envision the future through dialogue. They uncover new possibilities to move the organization forward. Conversations bring culture to life – both what's working and what's not.

Crucial conversations lie all around us – all the time.

Curiosity starts conversations. Conversations spark action. Action drives change.

From performance appraisals and brainstorming solutions to making decisions, conversations are the foundation of effective team collaboration.

Your organization's culture is created and reflected in the conversations people have – and the ones they avoid.  

How to Have More Effective Conversations

Defining moments in the workplace are the result of crucial conversations – they shift our mindsets and behaviors.

Facilitating candid conversations is not easy. It requires courage. You must be able to work with people rather than through people. Take the first step. Listen more than you plan. Reflect, learn, and explore possibilities.

The purpose of conversation is to grow as a team, not to win an argument.

Better conversations are built on the four most important core skills, according to research by The Center for Creative Leadership:

Listening to understand: There are multiple levels of information we must tune in to during conversations. Move beyond the facts. Listen to the values at play and understand the other person's perspective.

Asking powerful questions: Great questions spark curiosity, opening new paths for more interesting conversations. Open-ended questions drive clarity, promote critical thinking, inspire reflection, and challenge assumptions. Often beginning with 'Why,' 'How,' or 'What do you think about…,' they set the stage to uncover new perspectives.

Challenging and supportive: Successful teams embrace cognitive diversity by challenging underlying assumptions. Psychological safety is vital to encourage candid conversations – to challenge the idea, not the person. Providing support is about ensuring that people have been heard. Find the right balance between challenge and support.  

Establishing next steps and accountability: Great conversationalists go with the flow – they focus on the journey, not the destination. However, regardless of their relentless curiosity, they always wrap up with concrete next steps. Your team should walk away from a conversation with a shared understanding, clear agreements, and next steps.

Check out a related post: How to Get Clarity, Accountability, and Results In Five Minutes.

Fortunately, the four conversational skills can be developed. You can use them one at a time or together.

Building a strong company culture starts with candid conversations. Which conversations are you avoiding? Which ones harm or nurture your culture?

We help organizations facilitate better conversations through our leadership programs and performance consulting.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The Single Most Expensive Mistake a Manager Can Make

 

 

 

 

 

The single most expensive mistake a manager can make is buying into the management myth:

"There isn’t enough time to coach people."

This myth comes from the fact that there are only 168 hours in a week and you have zillions of demands on your time—you have your own tasks and projects besides your management responsibilities.

What is the reality? Since your time is so limited, you definitely don’t have time not to manage-coach your people. Managers who do not prioritize time coaching people always spend lots of time managing people anyway. That’s because when a manager avoids spending time up front in advance making sure things go right, things often go wrong. Small problems pile up. Often, small problems fester unattended until they become so big they cannot be ignored. By that point, the manager has no choice but to chase down the problems and solve them. 

In crisis, the manager is virtually guaranteed to be less efficient, a further waste of time. So, these managers run around solving problems that never had to happen, getting big problems under control that should have been solved easily, recouping squandered resources, dealing with long-standing performance problems, feeling even more pressed for time.

That means in all likelihood, they will go right back to avoiding coaching people, and the next time they’ll make time for coaching is the next time there is another big problem to chase down and solve.

Remember, that the time you spend coaching is “high-leverage time.” By coaching, you engage the productive capacity of your people. For every, say, twenty-minute coaching conversation you have with an employee, you should be engaging hours or maybe days of the employee’s productive capacity. If that twenty-minute conversation is effective, that twenty minutes of coaching should substantially improve the quality and output of the employee’s work for hours or days. That’s a good return on investment—that’s why it’s called “high-leverage time.”

When managers do not coach and proactively communicate: 

• Problems hide below the radar. 
• Problems occur that never had to occur. 
• Problems get out of control that could have been solved. 
• Resources are squandered. 
• People go in the wrong direction for weeks or months without realizing it. 
• Low performers hide out and collect paychecks. 
• Mediocre performers start to think they're high performers. 
• High performers get frustrated and think of leaving. 
• Managers do tasks that should have been delegated.

Also, your team should be getting more capable over time. Think about it this way. As a leader of a team, on day one, your team has a certain capacity. Your team can deliver a certain amount of work, in a certain amount of time, at a particular level of quality and complexity. They have a certain amount of knowledge and particular level of ability to perform. This is their capacity on day one.

If, after a year goes by, you have delivered everything you been asked, you have done part of your job. But if your team is not more capable in some way--if they can't deliver more, better, faster, or higher quality--or if they have no new knowledge, skills or ability to perform at a higher level, you have not done the second part of your job. You have not coached and developed in order to increase the capacity of the team.

The Secret of the 5% Solution

Many managers when exhorted to coach more and boss less will rightly say, “But my plate is already full. I can’t handle one more obligation. I rarely see my people because I’m so busy and they are scattered all over the place. There’s no way I can do all this.” 

You face a dilemma: Simple solutions don’t work for development, yet you don’t have time for complex solutions. So you need a coaching process that attacks the true challenges of getting a variety of people to change and yet is still manageable in light of available time and resources. That process is the 5% solution. 

You can be effective and efficient if you focus 5% of your energy and attention on coaching and development. Working smarter—not harder—helps you make the best investment of your time. The secret of efficient coaching is to know your priorities and then to create and seize coaching opportunities that arise in the course of your everyday work. If you are prepared, you can leverage a relatively small investment of your time into a walloping payback. 

There's a time management maxim that says, "We always find time for the things that we think are important."

Start scheduling time for One-on-One coaching and watch your people grow and and improve.

Research by the Gallup organization supports the notion that you don't have time NOT to coach your people. Gallup's conclusion is that Failing to develop leaders is the single most expensive mistake a leader can make. Click here to read the article.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

Why Leaders Must Give Up Control to Gain Influence

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the difference between control and influence? How do the differences between these two words affect the way you empower the people that you lead? And does the difference really matter in your life as a leader?

To answer these questions, let’s start by taking a closer look at the definitions of control and influence. According to Dictionary.com, the primary definition of each word is

❍  Control—to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.
❍  Influence—the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.

Notice that control is direct—you can control the things that you can make happen without the cooperation of others.

Influence, on the other hand, is more indirect. It begins with you and your behaviors, and then it extends to other people. Once other people are involved, you need their cooperation. In other words, you cannot directly ‘‘produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.’’ Their actions, behavior, and opinions are their choice. To expand this idea, consider a concept that comes from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. In this classic self-improvement text, Covey writes about what he calls the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. For my purposes, I will modify the description slightly to speak specifically to people who work as leaders.
 

In a very broad sense, everything in your role as a leader fits into three categories.

 There are things you can

1.    Control (your personal circle of control)
2.   Influence (your personal circle of influence)
3.   Neither influence nor control (Concern or everything else)

The things that fall within your circle of control are those things that you can make happen without the cooperation of others. Your circle of control includes your own words and actions. There might also be some work rules and other procedural items that you can control, and that’s it.

Your circle of influence includes things outside of your direct control that you can cause to happen through the help and cooperation of others. This list includes their words, actions, motivations, and desires. Everything about other people is outside your circle of control.

You can influence other people. You cannot control them.

As a leader, the difference between control and influence is a critical concept to grasp. You will be responsible for the results of your team.

You will be responsible for influencing their behaviors to get tasks accomplished. And you cannot control them.
 

I often get questions like

❍    ‘‘How do I get my team to?’’ or
❍    ‘‘How do I make my team members do?’’

The intent behind these questions often stems from the leader’s desire to get results and to make things happen. I see no problem with the desired goal in asking the questions. I do see a problem with how they are phrased and the assumptions implied. The problem is that they are control questions rather than influence questions. By the way the questions are asked, the person asking them is asking how he or she can control another person.
I suggest rephrasing the questions above to something like this:

❍    ‘‘How do I change my words and behaviors so that I communicate with my team more effectively?’’ or
❍    ‘‘What can I do to create an environment where my team members want to do?’’

Rephrasing the questions in this way shifts the focus away from controlling others toward controlling   your own words and actions so that you can gain greater influence with them. This shift in focus helps you concentrate your energy and efforts where they have the greatest impact.

Attempting to control something that is outside your circle of control is usually frustrating, tiring, and ineffective. When you realize that something lies in your circle of influence rather than in your circle of control, you will begin to look for different, more effective strategies and tactics. You will waste less time and energy on activities that simply do not matter and will not have a positive impact on your results.

Likewise, realizing that an issue lies outside your circle of influence, in the Circle of Concern or everything else category, frees you to not worry about it or to waste energy on attempting to change it.
 

For example, most company policies and procedures lie outside the circle of influence for front-line leaders. If you are a front-line leader and you invest time, effort, and energy into discussing these issues beyond casual conversation, you are wasting your time, effort, and energy. Rather than worry about, complain about, or discuss these items, focus that energy on what you can control (your words and actions) and where you can have influence (the people with whom you have a direct relationship). 

SMART Principle: Control what you can. Influence who you can.

 

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

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