If you’ve been reading my recent posts, you know that I am becoming a bit obsessed with the idea of discovering your strengths, both personally and organizationally and using them as the building blocks for growth. Seems pretty obvious. But we continually focus on our weaknesses, beating ourselves up over them, and spending inordinate amounts of time trying to shore them up. At what cost?
Yesterday I had coffee with a cohort who is an expert at improving performance, both with individuals and organizations. Here are a few quotes from our conversation that ring home with me and gave me some insight into why we shouldn't get so worked up about our weaknesses.
“No one ever beats the competition by getting good at what they do. You beat them by getting better than they are at what you are good at.” That’s quite a mouthful. Especially when you consider this next quote.
“You only have the capacity to be good at a few things. When you spend time working on improving a weakness, you end up weakening an existing strength. That strength just might be foundation of your current success.” Ouch!
I’m still thinking through all of this. One can’t just ignore our weaknesses and the strengths of our competitors. We need to be aware of them. But I am more convinced everyday that the way to address them is to work harder on what are strengths are.
Comments?
A question that I find particularly revealing to ask an entrepreneur is, “What is one behavior in your life that regularly sabotages you as a business owner?”
The answers are varied. Some individuals can’t say “no” to any request, some have to keep their fingers in every detail even though it bogs things down, and some procrastinate on making decisions. Each sabotaging behavior is rooted in a corresponding fear: people won’t like me if I refuse them, things won’t be done correctly if I don’t control them, and I’m not smart enough to make the right choice.
These sabotaging behaviors, or flaws, are most likely to reveal themselves in stressful conditions. And, interestingly, an individual’s biggest “flaw” is often his or her greatest strength being inappropriately applied. Empathy is a strength; being a pushover is not. Gathering facts and opinions and doing what you need to do to feel confident about a decision is smart; delaying your decision for so long that fate makes the choice for you is less than genius.
A behavior that I recognized in myself when I worked in the family business was that I always stopped short of confronting people. With the behavior recognized, I was then free to imagine, “What would situations look like if this behavior wasn’t there?” It meant there would be some tougher communication and some tense moments. However, it also meant that my employees would grow and flourish because they would get more honest feedback. And, after a period of adjustment, it meant a lot less stress for me.
Once you acknowledge and name the fears governing your actions you can define strategies for changing them. And it’s like ridding yourself of any bad habit, you don’t focus on what you want to stop doing, you focus on what you want to start doing in place of that default behavior that’s standing in the way of your success.
Last week some emails flew around one Inner Circle regarding a member’s problem with a poorly performing staff member. While all the advice was good, one email included an insightful analogy that makes so much sense that I wanted to share it. Here my paraphrase of Alan Greer’s “Babysitter” Analogy.
“There really aren’t any employees out there that will do things exactly like an owner, they didn't really shed blood, sweat and tears like you did. I even have an analogy for you. My analogy is this: You can't pay a babysitter enough to love your kids like you do. Now some babysitters genuinely cared for our kids and took the responsibility very seriously, but they didn't love our kids, they're a babysitter. Some babysitters did a poor job and we never asked them back, some babysitters did okay and we continued to use them but nothing special, then there were babysitters that the kids just adored and wanted them to come over even when my wife and I were home, now that's a great babysitter. Employees fall into categories like babysitters.”
What I like about Alan’s contribution is that it helps you acknowledge that trying to get employees to act like owners might be an unreasonable expectation. And it gives an easy to understand way of determining which employees are the ones to build your business with.
Which kind of babysitter do you have as employees?
The Acid Test: Finding Work that Feels Like Play
On a regular basis I encounter individuals who are floundering to find their life’s work. They may have lost steam for what they are currently doing and don’t know what they should pursue next, or they may have been presented to two enticing choices and are having trouble choosing.
I tell them to apply the acid test. That is, to answer the question, “What is the work you would do (purely for the pleasure of it) even if you were not being paid?”
Entrepreneurs do not always make more money than those in the corporate world. They seldom work fewer hours. The greatest payoff in being an entrepreneur is that you choose your own path. It’s pointless to choose one that doesn’t bring you joy.
Thanks to the Prouty Project (www.proutyproject.com) for this quote from Francois-Rene′ de Chateaubriand, that seems to sum it up:
“A master in the art of living draws no sharp line of distinction between his work and his play; he simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”
I can think of no better definition for the life of an entrepreneur.
Seems like everywhere I turn in my reading and conversations recently I stumble across someone who, essentially, says, “Here’s a question I ask others all the time that always gets a powerful response and always leaves me feeling I know that person on a deeper level.” While I don’t think it’s effective to incorporate planned or rehearsed statements in a conversation, I do think that it can be very effective to have a small number of meaty questions in your arsenal and to consciously slip those into conversations on a regular basis to take discussions beyond the surface level. Here are some of my favorites:
Question One: How did you do that? This from the book Change the Way You See Everything, where authors Kathryn Cramer and Hank Wasiak advise that the most important question you can ask anyone after they have accomplished a task is, “How did you do that?” The question affirms the importance of the accomplishment but more importantly, it allows a person to reflect on what personal assets were tapped in order to succeed. Whenever you recognize or praise someone in this way, it lasts. The more common question that people ask is "Why did you do that?" That question sets the stage for a defensive explanation.
Question Two: How did you acquire that skill (or characteristic)? This is similar to the previous question, but has a different objective. One of the fastest and most effective ways to develop a skill is to shamelessly imitate someone who has already embodied the kind of change you want to make. Think of a skill or characteristic that you most want to develop in yourself. Now think of somebody that you know who demonstrates mastery in that area and can serve as a role model for you. Ask them questions about how they acquired the skill you’re seeking. Tell them you admire them and intend to imitate them. They will feel highly complimented. You may even want to enlist their informal coaching and feedback support. Then practice what you observe and learn and continue to return to them for feedback and advice.
Question Three: What else? If you’ve ever watched a skilled facilitator work a flipchart in front of a group, you’ll notice a little trick of the trade…as they capture an idea on the flipchart on one line they immediately put a bullet point on the following line. This gives a visual indicator to the group that there’s always time and room for one more answer. This is essential when brainstorming because the best answers often come late in the game, long after the obvious solutions have surfaced. You can do this verbally by asking, "what else?" When a conversation seems to have lost steam or reached a natural conclusion, it forces everybody to go one step deeper. And it provides one more open invitation to air an idea that might be percolating.
Question Four: What gives you satisfaction? This is an interview question that Mark DiMassimo, CEO of DiMassimo Brand Advertising asks of every single job applicant he speaks with. He says it is the most effective question he’s found for understanding a potential team member. He hands them a piece of paper and a pencil and asks them to make a list of ten things they’ve done in their lives that they remember with satisfaction. Here are the rules of the game: - The list shouldn’t include politically correct “interview answers.” He encourages them to be candid and authentic. “That ‘I broke up with my boyfriend’ could be an excellent answer,” he shares as an example.
- Five of the answers must come from before their 18th birthday, because those early successes reveal a lot.
He studies the lists, both with the prospective team member and after the interview, looking for themes, like courage, creativity, independence, adventure, rebellion, belonging and discovery. Once he has a sense of a candidate, he finds it much easier to match the satisfaction to the job and to anticipate from the beginning how things will go right and how things will go wrong with that person.
Question Five: What’s the most important thing we should be talking about today? In her book, Fierce Conversations, author Susan Scott offers advice about engaging others in meaningful conversations that move us closer to our stated business and life goals. One of her suggestions for initiating conversations that go deep and go there quickly is to set aside uninterrupted, one-one-one time and allow the other person to drive the agenda for the meeting. If you always drive the agenda, you may be missing something important. Here’s how she suggests you could set the stage:
"When we meet tomorrow, I want to explore with you whatever you feel most deserves our attention, so I will begin our conversation by asking, “What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about?” I will rely on you to tell me. If the thought of bringing up an issue makes you anxious, that’s a signal you need to bring it up. I am not going to preempt your agenda with my own."
No other style of communication is as effective in encouraging others to open up and engage with you as asking a question. A question is an invitation, by its nature, and requires a response. That's what makes asking a well-phrased, appropriately-timed question your most valuable tool for taking conversations and relationships below the surface.
Two weekends ago I went away for a long weekend to meet with other Inner Circle Facilitators to work on our businesses and play golf. I have a few takeaways from the meetings that I want to share:
--I need to work on my chipping and putting. Really bad. Only broke 90 once. Mostly because I chipped to the wrong places on the greens and then couldn't put away the downhill putt. Not that you are concerned about this.....
--Everyone spends too much time working on fixing what is wrong instead of working on improving what is going well. I know this seems fairly obvious, but we all fall into this trap regularly. We get so much feedback about what we do wrong that it's hard to avoid. It seems as though everyone is picking at our faults so that they get magnified so much that they become obstacles that seem insurmountable.
--The next time I get feeling this way, and it will happen, I'm going to try to follow the following steps to map out my next few weeks. This process is called "Appreciative Inquiry"
1. DISCOVER or rediscover my strengths and the things my organization does well (maybe just remind myself that these are my advantages
2. DREAM about what my business would look like if I was able to leverage those strengths to the max. (If I was really good at doing these things, what would a great day look like?)
3. DESIGN a plan to make sure you get to do the things you do well.
4. Execute the plan so that it becomes my DESTINY.
--I know that this seems awfully touchy feely for me. But I've been researching this since the symposium and I've been finding solid data that supports that organizations that work this way do much better than all the rest. I'm finding all kind of connections between this process and Jim Collins, book Good to Great which I am already a believer in. Marcus Buckingham seems to be the guru on this subject. I'm going to be working my way through his books over the next several months. Those books are: First, Break All The Rules; Now, Discover Your Strengths; and The One Thing You Need to Know. The reason I'm looking into this is that all of his books are based on solid research done by the Gallup organization, not just his own high falutin ideas.
--At the same time, we do have to look at our real obstacles, like competition and market condition, etc. But look to our strengths as the way to overcome them.
--That being said, I was a driving machine in Palm Springs. On my final two rounds, I was hitting every fairway off the tee, 220-250 yards. Building on that strength, should I be putting and chipping with my driver? ;-)
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