6 members sat around a table at 8am in a hotel lobby outside of Leeds. The question landed just as the caffeine was kicking in. Each persons had a unique response. Along with an explanation of how they arrived at their response, and why.
Here are the headlines:
- Jonathan Bradley | Take everyone with you. Build a team, set a goal and involve everyone in the journey.
- Andrew Rimmington | Don’t expect people to be mind readers. Make everything clear for others.
- Mick Clarkson | Take more risks, listen to the inner voice and lower your pride.
- Jonathan Nichols | Ask for more help. Don’t let your pride get in the way.
- Bryan Chung | Find your identity. Let that guide everything you do.
- Declan Armour | Everything is about relationships. And good relationships are about empathy.
As always, the stories behind the headlines are always more interesting. Here are the details.
Don’t expect people to be mind reader’s. It’s difficult to get everything across to everyone. You’ve got to communicate well. That’s why we move towards standard operating procedures to make things clearer. We need to explain it as they need to hear it. Not as we think we need to say it.
When we put operating procedures in to manage cash flow recently, it had a huge impact. It gave the business new opportunities to re-invest and develop, without borrowing or injecting cash.
IIts also brought a lot of alignment. All of a sudden people are working together.
I’d tell myself to ask for help. That’s part of being a better subordinate – to use your manager more. I used to try to prove myself too much. I wanted to be independent. And it might have been my pride that got in the way.
But I should have got over this, and I would have got more wired in to the purpose of the group.
This only became apparent really. when I became a manager. Suddenly, I wished everybody in my team would ask for more help.
We should teach this to our team members. We can’t expect people to lead if we don’t teach them to become better followers.
After all, to lead well you must know how to follow well.
It is important must care because people are very important. The best return on investment is often when you make comes when you make people happier.
Take more risks. Listen to the inner voice and lower your pride.
I spent too much time playing not to lose rather than playing to win. You’ve got to lower your pride and start to go with your gut.
One of my favourite phrases is from Jordan Peterson. He says that you should always assume that the person that you are listening to now something that you don’t
I now tell myself not to be insecure. about not knowing enough. It’s okay not to know it’s not okay. Not to find out.
Making mistakes is part of making decisions.
There’s a saying that 85% of what we worry about does not happen. And 85% of the things that may happen won’t hurt you.
We worry about a lot of things that can’t hurt us. And if what you’re doing is taking you in the right direction in the long term, even if it’s painful in the short term, then it cannot truly count as a risk.
I would tell myself to give complete consideration to my identity.
Identity helps you set your values, your direction and your goals.
Carefully defining the words needed to define your identity, makes it easier to live by them. This allows you to be authentic. Once you know who you are. You don’t need to worry about what to do.
This helps me position myself. It helps me market it myself.
Once I know what I am – once I define identity – then everything else follows. Look at identity first.
For example, I asked myself I am I a performer or an artist and I had to figure it out. I can tell you I’m not an artist. I do not create my own work.
I would tell myself that it is all about relationships. And relationships are about empathy. Empathy is a superpowe.
Never Split the Difference is a great book. It is written by Chris Fosse, a CIA negotiator. And he used to negotiate with brute forced. But many negotiations failed. So then they tried to negotiate by getting people to say yes, but negotiations continued to fail. Once empathy led the negotiations, everything changed.
Everyone is seeing things from their point of view, so empathise so when you manage anyone.
Even crazy people are sane from their own perspective.
Empathy underpins everything. Listen properly for a long time
Usually, there will be some outcomes that you don’t expect. Find out everything, what agenda the person has, and go through a process similar to the one in the book that I mentioned.
The books recommended during the discussions were:
