Align, Engage, Pivot, Gain Momentum!
To keep momentum and reach your desired destination… be focused & nimble.
Focus is important. “You get what you focus on,” which in a business is typically what you measure. Keeping track of progress and outcomes helps with focus.
But you also must stay nimble – open, aware, and adaptable – to move around obstacles or to adjust a course. Sometimes what is being measured is not leading toward longer term strategic objectives. And sometimes strategy needs to change.
Who in your organization has a role in executing strategy? Answer: Everyone.
Who in your organization has a clear understanding of how they fit strategy?* Your answer indicates if there is momentum, or a stall, in your future. Continue reading “Who Executes Strategy?”
This first post in the Extraordinary Momentum Series offers 5 key ideas to help you get clear about best next steps, and how you can help others get clear about their best next steps.
When you are nimble, you are aware and open. You rarely get blocked or stuck. If you do – if someone, something, or even your own mindset or limiting beliefs – get in your way, you have what it takes to move around, over, under, through.
Whether you think you are over-explaining or you’ve just been told that you do this, you may or may not truly be over-explaining. Consider what you are explaining and why. And then do one more thing… (take a simple one-phrase self-assessment). Continue reading “Are you over-explaining? Assessing your own courage may give you the answer”
Those of you who know me or are getting to know me… understand that I am all about business vibrancy. In my terms, that translates to a nimble organization, continuously building its business value, and a great place to work. An organization with these traits has what I call “Aligned Momentum,” which I show in the visual above this post and write about in my book (you can find an excerpt here).
For over 20 years the average results from employee engagement surveys have shown a rate of disengagement at over 30%. Aon’s recent 2017 Trends in Global Employee Engagement reports that 41% of employees are disengaged and feel undervalued.
What this reflects, at least in part, is a lack of empowering employees to initiate change – a critical step in a Pivot toward Aligned Momentum.
Continue reading “Empower others to initiate change. Leaders orchestrate.”
A critical part of a leader’s role is to build others up. Great leaders are highly skilled at this. Good leaders sometimes give up because they are not yet skilled in communicating in a way that empowers and inspires others. This is a skill worth developing.
“You cannot change a person, but you can change their context.”
~Lori Michele Leavitt, The Pivot: Orchestrating Extraordinary Business Momentum
You can create a safe place in which you and others become aware of how you each see the world. You can adjust how you communicate so that there is understanding of what you say, in the way you intended it, and that you care.
My intention is to speak to leaders, developing leaders and those who support leaders. My intention in sharing this video is not political (given our country’s turmoil from miscommunications and hate, I need to make clear that I am not speaking directly to this). Please watch and listen to JFK in the video below, perhaps more than once, and consider how your own communications might combine power and caring, as he does:
Continue reading “As a leader you can’t change a person but you can change their context.”
We often hear about pivots and pivoting in the context of quick shifts by an individual or in the early days of a startup.
A quick “turn on a dime” pivot does not result in lasting change for a business beyond a handful of employees. Perhaps the mental model that a pivot must be quick has stopped you from considering it for your business. Consider The Pivot.
The Pivot leverages one of the most effective means for long-term change: collaboration. It inspires action in terms of best next steps.
Continue reading “Any business can be nimble. It starts with true leadership.”
We love our heroes. They stay alert for danger and then swoop in to save the day.
Everyday heroes may not be looking for danger but they are wired to be the person who saves the day, or in a workplace perhaps it is that they are the go-to person to solve a sticky problem.
A great leader isn’t the person to solve every problem, even if he or she could do so.
A great leader builds up others so that they solve the problems they encounter or foresee.
This is especially powerful when it creates closer collaboration within a team and across teams.
Does this mean you never help solve problems? No. If you (still) are an expert in a particular area or topic, and the team asks you to step into the problem as an expert, then you’ll do so. At that time you are in the role of the expert and not in the role of the leader.
“A great leader feels no need to be the hero. A great leader builds a team and supports them being a hero in their role.” ~ Lori Michele Leavitt
To learn more about building a great workplace and realizing performance breakthroughs (without being the hero)…
> Get my new book <
The Pivot: Orchestrating Extraordinary Business Momentum.
Are you including effective communication as an area for growth in performance?
An important aspect of coaching for better performance is aimed at communication. This includes improving the dynamics and effectiveness in meetings as well as helping individuals be more clear and concise in their delivery of ideas and feedback.
A recent article by weforum.org speaks to the unheard voices of women in the workplace.
Continue reading “Safe to speak up. Power to be heard.”
Today’s news shouts that traditional performance management is “bad.” “We’ve killed performance ratings!” and “We’ve killed the annual performance review!” are phrases being touted as if, by removing a process, the company has instantaneously changed its culture. In many cases this feels more like marketing than real change. It takes courage to change the behaviors driving the culture that may not be working for you right now.
You came to this post to hear about performance rating, and whether to kill this process or not. Continue reading to explore 5 dos and don’ts related to rating performance in a healthy, growing workplace. Continue reading “Kill Performance Measurement & Ratings?”