What My Run-In With A Bear Can Teach You About Leadership
Because let’s face it: Life’s a bit of a zoo.
My fiance and I once spent 27 hours hiking and camping in the back country of central Colorado. On our way back to civilization, we hiked near a large clearing north of Boulder Lake. The sun was high, the evening cold burned off quickly without a cloud in the sky. I saw two movements (brown and bear-like, if I had to be specific) out of the corner of my eye.
And nothing to hide here: bears outside of a zoo are new to me. I'm confident that's true for many of you. You can laugh all you want but tell me how you feel when you come in contact with one. I've yet to do so. (Or had yet to do so at the time...)
Without identifying what they were, my heart instantly jumped. I stopped, looked over at Jason and asked, "Honey, did you see that?" He stared off into the distance in the direction of my worry, paused, and said, "Yes, it's those two people we saw yesterday. They must have camped across the way."
It was two people, hiking back out of the woods, just like us.
No bears, no threat.
Nothing to worry about.
It made me think of how often we allow ourselves to assume we know something and then take action based on false or missing information. It's our human instinct and our brains trying to be efficient by filling in the blanks with information we've learned (and perhaps never used!) and/or past similar experiences. And in the most dire of circumstances it helps us survive.
But in most day-to-day situations, our assumptions don’t help us.
Taking action with missing information can lead you to form inaccurate assumptions or draw incomplete conclusions and take action on them. Assuming you know the answer to ‘how can I most effectively/authentically lead {translation = inspire} my team to grow the business and love what they do at the same time?” without confirming it with your team could cause you to follow far down the wrong path (or take fast action in the wrong direction). The pitfalls here are many.
Conversely, when you elect to get curious in the moments that you feel oh-so-certain, you open yourself up to huge benefits. It increases your empathy for others, boost your learning, engagement, and performance at work, and helps you respond to change more effectively.
When my client Greg, started asking more questions (both in his head and out loud), instead of making statements, he experienced some significant changes in his work life:
“I now start by looking at trust first when it comes to my team, which enables me to quickly get to the heart of underlying issues/challenges instead of focusing on the tactical details first. Our team has more productive communication and skills to support their roles as leaders.”
3 questions to ask yourself in order to stay curious in any situation:
How are my emotions about my past experiences impacting my response/behavior to the current situation? Is my reaction helping the greater/bigger goals?
Who in my professional circle do I trust that I could I ‘check my thinking’ with on this to gain additional perspective?
Is this a real or perceived threat?
What is my impact to this right now?
What might their good intentions be?
Do they feel heard/understood by me? How do I know (or how can I tell?)
If you find yourself “spotting bears” around every corner, take time to engage yourself in curiosity. Not only will it help you see what’s actually happening around you, it will also help you create solutions when you actually do encounter the occasional grizzly on your path. Because let’s face it: Life’s a bit of a zoo.
If you’re ready to shape your own vision of powerful leadership with the help of a trusted partner who can push you toward a renewed level of curiosity and confidence, schedule a consultation with me today.
Let’s Talk About The #1 Blocker Impacting Your Team’s Performance
Why do we take action on things that aren’t actually supportive of our missions and goals?
I’m fascinated by the way people act, interact, and react. And by how so much of what they do does not serve them well. And how so much of it is not useful to their greater missions, because it’s unproductive in keeping them positive and helping them maintain healthy relationships.
If you’re like me, you might often wonder why, as human beings, are we addicted to drama? Or why do we think we are or have to be? Why are we addicted to the speed at which we think things have to move? To the need for solutions and fixing things?
The answers to those questions are often demonstrated in the work I do with leaders and teams. When talking about the climate of their team, the three things that are consistently present in our conversations are:
“We’re moving too fast”
“We’re making bad or wrong decisions” - due to #1
“We’re not involving others or the right people sooner” - typically due to #1, which then causes #2
Despite following their instincts and coming up with solutions to “fix things,” these teams don’t solve the problems they set out to and overlook the actual problems at hand. What inevitably follows is hurt feelings, wasted time, weakened relationships, and unnecessary work (and it always shows in the bottom line).
So why do we do things that aren’t actually supportive of our missions and goals?
We’re so tied to our own perceptions that we’re blind to the most valuable possibilities available to us.
Stephen R. Covey puts it well in his Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People:
“Now, with all of differences, we’re trying to work together – in a marriage, in a job, in a community service project. So how do we transcend the limits of our individual perceptions and come up with Win/Win solutions?” The answer is seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
The key to consistently creating Win/Win, breakthrough solutions is increasing understanding between everyone on your team—building avenues and structure into your company that foster opportunities for understanding is equally important.
To do this, you’ll first want to start by getting your top leaders together to answer two important questions: why and who.
WHY - When you first come together, ask yourselves and each other “Why are we here? What’s our purpose?”
WHO - Then, do you have the right people? If not, go back and revisit the why. Figure out who stays and who has to go.
From there you’ll want to answer ‘WHAT?’, as in “What are we doing? Trying to do? Or want to do?” You can also look at this question as “What are your goals? Which outcomes are you driving for?”
Last, have the team create the ‘HOW’. Or answer the question, “Now, how are we going to do it?” It’s at this point that I would recommend having your top leaders engage their top team players. The more buy-in and creation from across the teams, the better sustained engagement and implementation of the plan.
In my work with Fortune 25, startup, and small to midsize companies I’ve helped leaders introduce understanding into their teams in the follow ways:
Building trust so they can be stronger and more sustainable, rather than just delegating tasks
Hiring for impact, keeping the right people, and getting rid of the wrong ones...and doing it in the right way
Creating environments that foster autonomy, purpose, and mastery (because it takes teams much farther than pay raises and free lunches
As you can see, shedding your blinders can take many forms. Done right it leads to productive, healthy relationships (and a stronger bottom line). Start challenging your long-held perceptions today to improve your team’s overall performance.
And if you’re looking for a trusted partner to help build your perspective and develop the strategy, structure, and support that removes roadblocks and leads you toward your best performance, schedule a consultation with me today.