WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT
As a leader, do you try to make the people around you do their work in the way that you think it should be done? Do you think of an employee as a challenge because they are not approaching the job the RIGHT way? Do you struggle daily getting your people to bring more to the table?
Are you fighting the way people naturally are?
The results of fighting people’s natural approach to the job are that you are not getting their best productivity, and you are surrounded by grumbling, unhappy people. Are you stuck on being RIGHT and winning the ARGUMENT. If you are, it has become more about your ego than the results.
I had a manager fight my natural approach to work (in the picture) by saying that people “at my level” were expected to “keep all the balls in the air”. If I tried to do that (believe me, I tried) none of the balls got any attention, they just got juggled. I tried to understand my manager’s values for which one of the work projects should be actually worked on first, and I was told that people “at my level, know how to prioritize”.
At the end of the year I got low performance marks because I had not done the right things and I had not done enough things. I had actually done some pretty good things, but they were lost because I hadn’t done the job “right”. I also know I wasted a lot of time juggling.
The second key that set apart great companies in “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, is “First Who”. The great companies assembled their team carefully, and made sure the team members were in the right slot. The teams in the great companies then focussed on a key concept, with great discipline, to make their breakthrough. The great companies leveraged the talents that their people brought to the table. They chose people who fit the team carefully. They let people who didn’t fit go find a place where they could fit, sooner rather than later.
Employees.
If you recognized any of this, you might be in a job that doesn’t fit. You might have a passion for the job, be well qualified and skilled, and you are fighting your natural approach to working without realizing it. The structure or rules of the company might be fighting the way you work best, or you got one of those managers I described. Maybe the job you were hired to do and the actual day-to-day work doesn’t match at all. If you know what you do best and the way you work best, that’s the most value you can bring to your employer. There is not a leader out there who doesn’t want people to bring their best to the table.
If you don’t know what you do best, and the way you work best, contact me; because that’s what I help people discover. If you are a company or leader struggling to get more from your people, contact me; because I help companies discover the best talent they have, and how to make the team fit together and thrive.
