 LATEST
NEWSLETTER
More With Less
THE NEWSLETTER FOR HIGH ACHIEVING LEADERS AND TEAMS WHO WISH TO HAVE MORE IMPACT WITH LESS STRUGGLE
IN THIS ISSUE
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Relationship Builders
Pleasure Mosaic
FEATURE ARTICLE: Gallup, Tribal Leadership & Strengths: What is the connection and why should I care?
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ANNOUNCEMENTS: Relationship Builders
According to extensive Gallup research, Relationship Building is one of four distinct domains of leadership strength that are necessary components of all great teams.
Relationship builders are the glue that holds a team together. Strengths associated with bringing people together transform a group of individuals into a team capable of carrying out complex projects and goals.
If a leadership team is comprised of individuals all weak in relationship building, the effectiveness of the team and likely their performance could be seriously limited.
True relationship building, versus a series of feel good exercises done as a group, is not a simple process.
Leaders who know how to connect with people, how to speak, and how to design relationships and at the same time ensure accountability for performance, garner collaboration, ownership, alignment, discretionary effort, and trust.
Many leaders and teams haven’t made the shift. They don’t know how. This is new territory.
Nor do they know how to have the conversation that holds people accountable without derailing relationships.
Leaders and teams work with me because I know how to help them create the conditions for relationships to be productive, fulfilling, and sustainable while at the same time driving focus, accountability, and results.
Let me be your Chief Relationship Officer.
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Call me for further information on high achieving coaching and team programs or to schedule a complimentary one-on-one sample session. Take advantage of the opportunity to leverage all my learning and use simple tools that work.
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Feel free to forward More With Less (in its entirety please) to anyone you think might be interested. This is how I grow. Please include full authorship and subscription information. Thanks!
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Pleasure Mosaic
Teresa O’Neill is a friend, colleague, and professional coach who has designed a personalized video solution to your sense of overwhelm and stress and desire for more pleasure and fulfillment in your work and in your life. She is highly creative and loads of fun.
Do yourself a favour and check out her site http:///www.coachteresa.com. Though she speaks to women, she is fantastic at distilling what works for men as well. I too have taken her up on her sassy offer and am amazed at her insight and ability to capture the essence of what I want my life to be. No excuses.
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FEATURE ARTICLE: Gallup, Tribal Leadership & Strengths: What is the connection and why should I care?
“To build on a person’s strengths, that is, to enable him to do what he can do, will make him effective...to try to build on his weaknesses will be...frustrating and stultifying.”
Peter F. Drucker, Shaping the Managerial Mind
“Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at your with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer.”
Peter Drucker
I’m part of an inaugural group of professionals who are participating in the Tribal Leadership Coaching Challenge. It is based on the work of Dave Logan, John King & Halee Fischer-Wright as described in their book Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization.
Amongst many other things, some of which I will like share in future newsletters, this experience has refocused my attention on strengths.
There is a significant link between Tribal Leadership and Gallup research.
Nearly a decade ago, Gallup research concluded that spending time building strengths was far more productive than logging countless hours shoring up weaknesses.
Great leadership, they contend, starts with a deep understanding of the strengths you bring to the table. They are the foundation upon which we create our own competitive edge.
However, we spend so much time ruminating on how we fall short and what we need to do to shore up our weaknesses, while our talents are taken for granted or remain unexplored.
The Gallup Organization asked 198,000 employees within 36 companies the question: “At work do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” They discovered the following: When employees answered “strongly agree” to this question, they were 50 percent more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38 percent more likely to work in more productive business units, and 44 percent more likely to work in business units with higher customer satisfaction scores.
Globally, only 20 percent of employees working in the large organizations they surveyed feel that their strengths are in play every day. Further, the longer an employee stays with an organization and the higher he climbs the ladder, the less likely he is to strongly agree that he is playing to his strengths.
When an organization focuses on the strengths of its employees, the odds of an employee being engaged goes to 73% from 9% if it does not. While it’s possible to have a productive team that is not engaged (and there are countless examples of these I’m sure), research suggests that this is not sustainable for the long term. Unless engagement increases, performance will likely deteriorate.
For tribes (which can be formal teams or not) to progress to the highest level of contribution and performance, there is a need for the individual, and thus the team, to find their groove, acquire confidence, and recognize their gifts and strengths. This awareness and ownership provides the stable foundation to go to the next stage (to be discussed in future newsletters).
Below are 5 things High Achievers know about identifying, owning, and leveraging strengths:
- According to Gallup there is no single strength that all good leaders possess. The most effective leaders are not well-rounded at all. Their teams are and in four specific domains: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking, all of which must be present. The best leaders surround themselves with people who provide a balance of these talents and attributes.
- The most effective leaders are always investing in strengths. They are very aware of their and others’ personal talents and use them to their best advantage. Those who strive to be competent in all areas become the least effective.
Development programs tend to promote well-roundedness and to correct deficiencies. The return on investment can be very low for individuals without the basic talent set. Apply the same principle as in financial investments – focus on those areas of highest potential return. Anything less is a relative waste of time, energy, and money.
- People who have the chance to use their strengths in the workplace are likely to reap the benefit of a “cumulative advantage” of having higher income, higher job satisfaction and better health over time. Leaders who help employees capitalize on this cumulative advantage will create more rapid individual and organizational growth.
- Leadership is not just about technical proficiency and knowledge but is an attitude and a behaviour, such as the capacity to influence people, create followership, and create a positive effect on the lives of those they lead.
Effective leaders create the conditions for people and teams to be highly engaged. This is done by helping employees understand and leverage their strengths. They show that they care about people. They operate with high levels of trust and they inspire hope and optimism among their followers.
- These findings translate to Tribal Leadership in the following ways: leaders and teams must continue to build confidence, acknowledge and invest in each person’s strengths and potential, and create more connected and different relationships among tribe/team members. Gallup findings give teams a partial roadmap for doing so.
Using the common language of strengths changes the conversation, creates more positive dialogue, gives a platform for mentoring and coaching and recognizing each person’s contribution, simplifies the assignment of projects based on where people are most likely to be successful, and boosts the team’s overall engagement and connection to a common purpose and to each other.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- Where does your energy flow naturally, without forcing? What would your return on energy and output be like if you spent more time there?
- At work do you have the opportunity to do what you do best, every day? Does your team? If not, why not? What can change?
- What supports you in your very best work? What you would like to request from your team members? From yourself?
- Consider buying StrengthsFinder 2.0 and do the assessment. Give your employees a copy of the book and have them do the test. Coach the group on how to use this information to enable higher engagement and improved business performance.
If not you then who? If not now then when? Take charge of creating More with Less and remember, CoachingWorks!
Sincerely,
Sharon Miller, B.Comm., CPCC, PCC
CoachingWorks
sharonamiller@rogers.com
(416) 484-8018
http://www.sharonamiller.com
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
Henry David Thoreau, Naturalist, Poet & Essayist
Sign me up: Call for more information and to see if you qualify for a free sample session and an opportunity to use simple tools that work.
Copyright, CoachingWorks, 2010 |
