My dad only saw the world as black and white. He had to be right at all costs. He’d argue it was raining outside even if it was sunny, and try to get you to agree with him. He was stubborn and bullheaded.
That was his way. He alienated his family, friends, co-workers and boss.
Ultimately, he ended up being alone and dying alone.
He ended up being right, but he wasn’t happy.
Do you know anyone like that in your life? What’s the cost for them?
I share this message with almost every one of my clients because at some point they refuse to take into consideration that they may be wrong. They shut down and refuse to listen to other points of view.
Many leaders rather fight, argue and steamroll over people to get their way no matter the cost. They are so certain of their stance on an issue, they refuse to see the other side. Or even if they listen, they’ve already have made their mind up.
They alienate people in the process, and that type of leadership kills teamwork. You also hurt performance, retention, creativity, problem-solving and so much more.
When you lead with fear and a whip, do you think that brings out the best in people? Do you think they are more engaged? Do you think they will come to you with problems and suggested solutions?
The answer is obviously NO!
The skills you should use here is listening and empathy. Seek to understand the other person and the overall situation.
Why is the other person taking the position they are? What information do they have? What are they feeling? What’s their payoff or what are they trying to gain? Is there common ground to meet in the middle? If you have to push your agenda, how can you make the other person feel better about the situation?
These are some of the questions you should be asking yourself.
Because you’ll win the battle, but lose the war.
You’ll have a lot more stress, problems, and distractions that go along with it.
It’s a sure-fire recipe to lower your key metrics, get people to leave the organization and decrease engagement.
Seek to understand and listen first. You’ll see everything in your organization improve almost instantly.
Here is the best team building game to increase performance in any size company, Cards Against Mundanity. It will also increase retention, creativity, collaboration, and communication. You’ll see a noticeable difference in 45 minutes. More than 100 organizations from Fortune 100 to very small business are using the game to build higher performing team. Executive teams, Board of Directors, Sales Teams, Human Resources teams, Operations teams, Marketing and PR teams, and more have already played it.
It’s free and comes with instructions and takes five minutes to set up. You can use it across multiple teams and accrue the results even when people aren’t in the same room. You can also use it over Zoom with remote teams.
Here are three example cards from The Cards Against Mundanity team building game.
I’ve studied and interviewed hundreds of successful managers and leaders over the past two years. I’ve seen psychological safety is the number one factor in every single high performing team.
Google found that same thing out in Project Aristotle where they studied their top 180 teams over a three year period and looked at more than 250 factors.
Here is a document Google created on how to foster psychological safety in teams. It’s worth a read. Check it out below.
Leadership is at the worst level in history. Training isn’t working although spending reached $50B. Only 14% of executives say they have the talent to execute their business strategies. 4 out of 10 technology executives have NEVER done a performance review. Poor leadership is killing all your metrics and money. Help is NOT on the way. Training is broken because it’s not attacking the root cause -poor self-awareness. I explain why this is.
The Global Leadership Forecast 2018 report by DDI, EY and Conference Board interviewed 25000 executives and 2500 HR leaders and notes the crisis in leadership.
The issue alone isn’t training. The challenge is more on the self-awareness side. Your level of self-awareness is never greater than your social-awareness. Most leaders are self-awareness is very poor. In fact, I’d say that number in the 90th percentile. It’s because their blind spots and poor habits derail their organizational success.
Change comes down to pattern recognition and then typically making small changes, 1-2% to get you massive lift and ROI. It’s pretty rare you have to do some major modifications.
I go into why this is and why if you don’t focus on self-awareness (first) all training either fails or gives you incremental change at best.
I give you an example of a CEO I recently worked with and how I dealt with his poor listening skills affecting the bottom line.
Hope you enjoyed, “Why Leadership Training Isn’t Working.”
Sorry, the video cut off at the end (technology!).
Here is my 2017 TEDxWilmington speech, “How to Get CoWorkers to Like Each Other.” I discuss how to build a high performing team quickly, along with data and research I collected over the last two years. I share my free team building game, Cards Against Mundanity, that you can use to increase performance, creativity and collaboration in 45 minutes or less.
I included the transcript below.
You may not realize it, but some of you are sitting on the secret to “showing up at work.”
Now, you might say, “Hey! I show up to work every day!”
But that’s not what I mean. I mean being heard, seen, even cared for at work.
And why would that matter? It’s the #1 challenge facing companies today. Almost 70% of US workers are disengaged.
And it’s costing businesses $550 billion in lost productivity.
Listen…I know I am not telling you anything that’s not shocking here.
The most transformative leaders understand and stay curious about how emotions affect them and understand the emotions of the people they engage with. I call this understanding their emotional landscape.
A critical skill set in being a great leader and in selling (ideas or products) is having empathy for others. Well, you can’t empathize with the emotions of other people if you can’t understand your own.
Also, your emotions are highly contagious. They spread faster than a cold on an airplane. If you are negative and unhappy, you will impact everyone around you including their performance.
What can you do? Spend time cultivating your emotional intelligence by:
Monitoring your impulsive actions: It’s rising above arguments, jealousies, and frustrations. The number one way here is to wait to respond to others especially when you feel strong emotions coming on. Also, don’t get involved in negativity or gossip. Bridge the conversation to something else if you are in a conversation where someone turns negative.
Improving your self-awareness: Be aware how your moods, behaviors, and actions are affecting you and other people.
Being more empathetic: It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing a situation from their point of view. Try to imagine yourself being them in a situation and thinking about how you’d feel and act. You don’t need to have the same experience as them though. It’s about a common emotional experience. For example, you don’t have to be fired to know what disappointment feels like.
Want to increase your team performance? Get your team to be more creative? You can do that in 45 minutes or less. Get my free teambuilding game, Cards Against Mundanity.
