Something to develop in yourself and in others

1.Questioning

Assuming that you know when the time is right, it is very useful and powerful to share and not hold back your questions. Questions about the way business is done, questions when you have doubts about what your are asked to do, questions regarding habits and routines. This may be challenging on both sides of the questioning, however, the possible new ideas and perspectives, can generate discussions and thought processes on a deeper level and from a different perspective.

2.Forward thinking

With the questioning comes the suggestions and the problem-solving, even when others don’t see a problem that needs solving. You can make it a habit to construct and suggest new methods of approaching challenges and ways of improving processes as well as opportunities that others can’t even imagine yet.

3.Offering help to others and being the one others go to

More than ‘just’ being a team player, people who gladly and abundantly help others become more successful. They add tremendous value to the organization and to their own development. Make sure you are known as the person to be asked for help even if you’re not an expert in what they are struggling with. Sometimes active listening, sharp questioning, and directing the person in the right direction will do the job. You can be the one others on the team go to for guidance and advice. This way you’ll be noticed in the most acceptable way possible. Of course you want to make it a conscious and consistent effort to notice and acknowledge other people’s contributions.  

Three simple things to develop in yourself and in others – which one is first on your list? 

Healthy Debate, Effective Meetings

Have you ever been part of a meeting that started late, that did not have a clear agenda, and that went on to discuss relatively irrelevant topics and avoiding the real issues? Have you ever been present at a meeting that did not allow for honest sharing of information and opinions, that droned on forever, where people were domineering the discussion, and that never seemed to get to the point? If your answer is no, I’d love to talk to you and your team.

Very likely your answer is a full-blown yes with a deep, frustrated groan.

Many different aspects make meetings effective, but it boils down to candid, healthy debate on topics that matter and that everyone prepared for and participates in. You have to plan, prepare, and effectively execute your meeting or you will lose time, energy, commitment, and revenue. It’s as simple as that. So if you don’t want this to happen, you want to avoid the following pitfalls:

-       Inviting people to the meeting who are not necessary for reaching the objective of the meeting. The next one, knowing what you want to accomplish, helps you determine who needs to be present.

-       Going into a meeting without considering what the desired outcome should be. Do you need to inform, discuss, generate, plan, decide? What is it that you want to accomplish? Everything that happens in your meeting should support your objective.

-       Starting late and allowing latecomers to disrupt and receive recaps, thereby allowing repetition and needlessly long discussions. Allowing reading time during the meeting is another mistake that is often made. Reading is part of preparation and should happen ahead of the meeting. Sounds too good to be true, right? But if you respectfully but promptly and consistently redirect people who want to read papers during the meeting, your meetings will be known for the ones you better prepare for.

-       Going into a meeting without a specific time management plan. To integrate some of the most common pitfalls: Without an objective, with the wrong or too many people, without a specific agenda, without a good clue on how long each item will take, and without the skills and courage to handle tensions constructively and to curb needless discussions, ego-tripping, and domineering behaviors you will be lost, for sure. You will be lost in time, and you will be lost in results.

In addition you want to note items that need further discussion and at the end of each agenda item, you want to quickly summarize what was said and get agreement on your summary. Don’t forget to agree on what needs follow-up by whom and by what date. At the end of the meeting, take time to debrief and evaluate the meeting's effectiveness based on how well you met the objective and what you want do differently and better during the next meeting.

My recap: An effective meeting needs structure, preparation, order, active participation, and candid and guided conversation.

I’ll leave you with some questions:

a.    Are your meetings compelling? Are important issues being discussed during meetings?

b.    Are your meetings focused? Do you know the objectives of the meeting and how to best reach them?

c.    Are your discussions time effective and do they result in conclusions and actions?

d.    Do you engage in unguarded and relevant debate? Do you honestly share thoughts and opinions, do you honestly and respectfully confront each other?

e.    Do you ever get out of line? Do you apologize if you get out of line?

f.     Do you really understand each other?

g.    Do you avoid gossiping about each other?

h.    Are you clear about possible next steps when leaving your meetings?

Just remember, effective meetings leave you energized and feeling that you've really accomplished something, together. Otherwise you might as well have done it all by yourself and saved others a lot of time and energy.

The power of an angle, the power of errors and biases

Not everything is always what it appears. Often it is not, even though we might be convinced it is. Too many times we look at situations from a limited number of perspectives, from only a few of the many available angles, and with many biases and errors. We neglect or dismiss certain viewpoints, we create realities that only we can see, and that’s what we often base our interpretations, conclusions and judgments on. Are you aware of the many biases and errors in perception and judgment that cloud your responses and decisions? Are you aware of the limitations of your personal perspectives?

I’ll mention a few of the many possible errors and biases that we are all subject to. Some examples of perception biases are seeing things according to the conventions of your profession while ignoring other views or overlooking and ignoring unexpected data as well as overestimating what you know and seeing patterns where they don’t exist. Biases referred to as comfort zone biases occur when people ignore information that is inconsistent with their current beliefs or when they keep doing the same things even if they don’t longer work well. Examples of motivational biases are the tendency of people to remember their decisions as being better than they were and the tendency to unconsciously distort judgments to look good and get ahead.

I could continue this list with all the possible errors and biases involved in groupthink and in other processes, but I think it’s clear: Understanding your likely perception and judgment biases and errors and seeing the bigger picture can totally change the narrative, it can change interpretations, and it can change responses and outcomes. The following half-minute video commercial of The Guardian provides a good illustration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU

Questions To Trigger You

I don't have all the answers, I sure don't. I do like to trigger you with bold questions. For different perspectives on many of the topics in these questions, please feel free to browse this blog with many different articles, all related to leadership, change management, and personal development. Over to the questions: 

1. How do you best recognize and resolve the tensions between flexibility and control both with customers and in the office with your subordinates, peers, superiors?

2. How do you avoid becoming the prisoner of your personality and tendencies?

3. How do you ensure not to be exaggerating your strengths to a point where they turn into your liabilities?

4. How actively do you combine perspectives, skills, and knowledge in new ways? How can you improve in this area? Who would be a good example and mentor for you to accomplish this goal?

5. Can and do you adopt new ways of doing things without necessarily being under pressure first? How do you stay sharp, how do you stay away from complacency?

6. How are you working on creating a culture, a tradition, of constructively challenging the status quo at  your company?

7. The majority of effective leaders have worked hard on themselves. Very hard. How is your ‘work-in-progress’ coming along?

8. In which ways do you actively encourage yourself and others to challenge ‘business as usual’?

Wishing you a reflective time resulting in the necessary insights, energy, and courage to make things happen. To make different things happen. To make things happen differently. 

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