Helping those you lead to apply lessons learned enables them to broaden their horizons and chart a course that requires less direct supervision. -Photo by ClickerHappy on Pexels.com
Learning to establish measurements sets leaders and their followers up well for the step covered in this post. If you have not read the post on measuring success, go back and read it now or you will be lost here (click here). In this step, we analyze the progress made on the goal. If one is meeting expectations, help them reflect on what actions are achieving those results best. If things are lagging or there is lots of friction, help them identify the causes of the problems. In both cases, both you and those you lead learned how to do things better along the way. Use this time to discuss applying those lessons so others may replicate them and achieve positive results. People accept change better when they are the ones discovering how the change is better rather than someone telling them to change. Successful people reflect on things they learn, good and bad, so they repeat the behaviors that helped them and avoid those that caused them to fail.
I find it is helpful to begin the meeting with the challenges facing the person you lead. Look at the shortfalls in the progress of their goal. Use questions to help them examine the perceived causes of those failings. Discuss what behavioral changes might improve the situation and how they will apply them in their work and life.
While I served in the National Guard, I was also a police supervisor. Police work involves working various shifts, and at that time, the supervisor job entailed working a weekend night shift. Well I learned I could work the night shift, have someone cover a couple hours for me, and still attend a full day of training for Guards. However, on the weekends we had to complete a physical fitness test, it was not so good. With only a few hours of sleep, I often failed the test. I would retake the test later the same week and pass it. I figured out that instead of working the night shifts on the weekend of the fitness test to take time off instead of working. Being well rested, I passed the tests. Making that simple change set me up for increased success, paving the way for promotions to positions of increase responsibility both in and out of the military.
When people fail to identify things they learned that helped them succeed, they end up having to relearn those lessons. Helping those you lead figure out what helped them achieve success ensures they only have to learn the lesson once. -Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
When I met with the leaders I led who faced challenges, this lesson allowed me to help them understand how a person’s personal life affected their job performance. We could discuss ways they could appropriately inquire about things happening in their followers lives that might be taking them away mentally or physically from their work. Understanding how those issues impacted the leader’s success or failure helped them become more empathetic to those they led. Modeling the behavior with those leaders taught them how to work their employees. Once these personal issues were identified, the leader and worker collaborated on ways to implement changes.
While this example focuses on personal problems and issues, the same process applies to any area someone is struggling. You may learn through this meeting they need additional training in some aspect of the job, a piece of equipment is not working correctly, or some other issue blocking success. Use this information to develop a plan to improve the situation so those you lead achieve their goal and help the organization succeed.
This is not a disciplinary meeting. As the leader, understand people make mistakes as they learn and grow. There is a big difference between deliberate misbehavior and making inadvertent mistakes. If a person knows the standard, and behaved in a fashion that violated that standard, there may be an opportunity to learn from that mistake, but the consequences conversation must be separate from the learning conversation. For example, miscounting change for a customer and coming up a few dollars short in the cash drawer and deliberately stealing company funds are different behaviors requiring different responses. The two should not be treated the same.
The lessons learned conversation creates new behaviors to help your followers be more competent and independent. Working through the learning process develops them professionally in two ways. First it helps them improve with their specific assigned tasks. Second, you model the behavior to help them become the next set of leaders in your organization. Every leader will eventually leave their organization. These kinds of conversations ensure quality leaders are groomed for the next level.
Anyone can be a boss. A leader invests time with people to help them learn to independently succeed. -Photo by https://kaboompics.com/ on Pexels.com
Investing time with those you lead to help them identify and apply lessons learned as they pursue professional goals is a critical leadership task. Coaching them demonstrates your concern for their personal and profession growth and well-being. Leaders who assist others to achieve their goals develop trust and greater influence. People learn to evaluate their own progress, and develop critical thinking skills. As these people grow, they prepare to move into leadership positions and require less direct supervision. In the beginning, this process requires leaders to invest more time with individuals. As those individuals grow, leaders create more time because they directly supervise less. Most importantly, leaders following this process improve the likelihood their people successfully achieve goals that help the leader achieve his or her goals. In turn, the organization accomplishes its goals and mission. Invest time this week with someone you lead to help them identity and apply the lessons of their profession development goal.
References
Brown, J. (2006). A leader’s guide to reflective practice. Trafford Publishing.
The goal setting cycle is a great model for leaders seeking to help their followers achieve success. The model provides guidance about the process in a way that is easy to explain and understand. There are six steps or stages in the cycle, assess, identifying your starting point, determine your detestation, periodically check and adjust your course, identify and apply lessons learned along the way, achieve your goal. Like many models, some of these stages and steps overlap and rely on other stages for completion. While the model serves as a road map for success, know that the route you select may not be available so you as a leader, you need to be ready to help your follower chart detours. Let’s dive into the stages and how to use them with those you lead.
Assess
This is the foundational state of the cycle. How you apply the assessment depends on how much experience the person you are working with has in life, on the job, and in their current position. The chairman of a board of directors is going to have a much different conversation with the organization’s president than a front line leader with a brand new, right out of school hire. Both can use similar techniques however through the use of appropriate questions. Martha Lask teaches a method called appreciative inquiry. The foundation of appreciative inquiry is leaders asking questions that require positive responses, from a place of gratitude. They must also listen to the answers without thinking about how they will respond. These questions require narrative responses about actions that resulted in achieving successes in the past, and how to apply those lessons and practices to achieve future goals.
Using appreciative inquiry in the assessment step allows leaders and followers to develop an understanding of the followers strengths and weaknesses, interests and desires, hopes and dreams, and experiences that made them who they are. This information is used to identify the starting point for any professional goals, which are the desired destination. The responses inform the leader about the qualities a person possesses so they can determine what tasks to assign in order to achieve the team goals supporting the organization. Additionally, you learn about any additional developmental training or assignments benefit this person’s professional growth.
Conducting a quality assessment is important. Do not confuse good for perfect. The reason a leader helps followers with assessments is because of their experience. The more assessments you conduct, the better you become. Working with those you lead allows them to conduct better assessments soon because of your experience. A direct consequence of showing those you lead how to conduct good assessments is they increase their competency to conduct assessments for any assignments received, and improve the quality of their work.
Starting point
The purpose of assessments is to find your starting point. The assessment finds where you are. When lost in the wilderness, you look for landmarks that help you determine where you are so you can determine which direction you need to move to arrive at your destination. The more landmarks you identify, the greater the accuracy of your starting point.
Think about driving to a location two states away. If your starting point is your home or office, you probably don’t need to input your full address into your GPS because you probably know how to get out of town. If your starting point is in an unfamiliar city, you need those local directions to get started.
The same is true of those you lead. If they are new to the organization, they lack understanding of their surroundings. As their leader, you are responsible to orient them through the assessment process so they know how to get around. Working with more experienced people allows you to refine defining starting points and directions. You use less time orienting them to the local landscape and help them understand how an indirect route provides them experiences that help them grow to meet the challenges on their upcoming journey.
No matter the skill level of those you lead, it is important to have mutual understanding of a person’s starting point. This reduces conflicts as people move forward toward their goals. It establishes expectations by both the leader and employee. A clear starting point is the foundation of any journey.
Destination
As a younger person, I read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey uses the proverbial ladder metaphor as an icon to describe our life journey. He cautions people to ensure not only that they are climbing a ladder that reflects their vales, but that it also leaning against the correct wall. As you help those you lead climb the organization’s ladder, you are responsible to help them pick the best ladder and wall based on their values, skills, and experiences. Growth experiences are only opportunities when a person is ready for tat experience. Plopping a person in the wilderness with only a knife and coil of rope p9resents them with a growth experience. However they are more likely to succeed in that opportunity if they had some training on using knives and ropes to survive in the wilderness. Putting a city born and breed adult into the White Mountains Great Gulf Wilderness will more likely result in their death than learning important lessons. The names of injured and killed there includes even well qualified people.
The assessment stage of the goal setting cycle allows one to identify where they are and where they want to go on their goal achieving journey. -Photo by John-Mark Smith on Pexels.com
Ensure that those lead are selecting destinations in their goals that not only help them grow, but also help your team and the overall organization grow and meet their strategic expectations. Individual goals that are tied to organizational success create synergy. Aligning individual goals helps ensure people have the resources they need to achieve their goals because those should be the very resources the organization is acquiring to achieve their mission. Leader justify requests for those resources by showing how they are necessary to move the organization to mission accomplishment.
A destination should be rather specific. There should be no doubt when that person arrives. Like providing an apartment number at a street address, one can look around and know they have arrived. There is no question of their success. I think we have all opened our mailboxes occasionally and found a letter address t a neighbor. Sure, the letter got to the right street, It might even be in the correct building, but it has not successfully arrived at the correct destination. When working with employees, it is important that their goal destination be as specific as possible with measurable metrics. Do not send them on a journey to find Sam and then be upset when they tell you about eh afternoon they spent with Samantha instead of Samuel.
Checking In
In the post on setting and establishing goals, I will discuss the importance of writing them down. People who write down their goals have better clarity about their goals and are more likely to achieve them. As a leader, having the goal with task steps written down along with the metrics agreed to by both people enables honest conversations about progress.
Research by Dr. Gail Matthews shows that people with written goals, and develop a system of accountability for taking steps to achieve those goals are 70% more likely to accomplish them. This is where you as a leader comes in. After taking time to help those you lead set and document a goal, meet with them regularly to measure their progress. Work with them to help them understand their mistakes and successes. Between setting a goal, and achieving it, life happens. Things change. Use this time to help your people understand how changes in the environment require them to make adjustments to their path.
Think of the changing landscape like a crash on a highway the totally blocks the road. As a driver, you have choices. You can hang out and hope the road opens quickly. You can get out of your car and walk. You could execute a u turn and find a detour. Your meetings help your followers identify roadblocks and slowdowns so they can pick a course of action that makes sense. Sometimes hanging tight is the right choice, but do not sit still. Identify what other actions you can take during this slow time to prepare for when things are moving again.
These help people move forward two ways. The first is ensuring progress is being made. Are people doing what they know they need to do to move forward. Second is the decision making about slowdowns and road blocks. Both maintain momentum.
Identify and Apply Lessons
Through the check in process, both you and your follower will identify lessons from mistakes or getting lost. The easiest way for a supervisor to identify these lessons and how to apply them is for you to tell people their mistake and what to do to fix it. It is also the poorest way. People learn better if they identify the reason for the mistakes, and develop strategies to avoid making the same mistake in the future, and how to correct for the mistake. That process requires a different set of leadership skills you will need to learn. There till need to stop in and be directive. However, like the discussion of appreciative inquiry above in the assess stage, asking appropriate questions provides deeper understanding for you and your followers. The questions allow them to solve their own problems.
I knew I had become successful in this style of leadership when one of my followers came seeking help with a problem. He said, “I don’t know why I am really here. I am going to tell you my problem. You are going to ask me a bunch of questions that help me figure out the answer on my own, but I still need your help.” He was right. My response was, “Come in, close the door, sit down and tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I knew your were going to say that!
This person knew what the right answer was. He needed guidance to identify the best way to approach the right answer without being directive. He is not the only person to provide feedback on the effectiveness of helping others learn how to solve their own problems.
Achieve Goal
As part of the goal setting cycle, you and your followers identify measures of success. When you conduct your regular check ins with people, compare the current state of their progress against these measures. One day, you will both realize that the goal has been accomplished. Often success is known between check ins and is not a surprise. The measures ensure you did really achieve what you set out to do, rather than just appearing to have succeeded.
Using the goal setting cycle with those you lead improves the chance they will achieve their goal. Teaching others how to work through the process helps them learn to solve their own problems, figure out how to support you and the organization, and reduces the time leaders need to directly supervises others. -Photo by Manfred Irmer on Pexels.com
Measuring success requires similar questions as the assessment stage. As you near completion of a goal, people start to thing about what comes next. Part of the measuring stage is assessing your new starting point and destination. To paraphrase Dorthy, you may find you are no longer in Kansas. What comes next?
Assess and Begin Again
And the answer is to assess, set a new goal, and begin again. Some important questions include:
How did the accomplishment of this goal help the person grow?
What new achievements do they now think re possible?
What changes helped they achieve the goal?
How did their success help others succeed (important in developing your team)?
How can they help someone else accomplish a goal.?
How can they apply lessons learned from this goal to their next goal?
What changes would improve the process for the employee?
What opportunities were missed?
There are dozens of questions in the assessment process between goals. While there are many that are specific to the goal and process, there are also a bunch that apply to any goal and process. The best questions are those that require a narrative from the employee rather than a yes or no response. Also, avoid questions that pose as advise or suggestions.
With this new information, work to set a new goal. There is not rule that a goal has to take a year to complete or that anyone is limited to one goal per year. However, it is best to limit individual goals to three or less at any time. The point of goals is to focus energy. Too many goals at once diffuses the energy. With each cycle, allow the employee to take more of a lead in the assessment and development of the goal. That is the point of working with them on this process, to free the leaders time to do things only the leader can do.
Conclusion
Understanding the goal setting cycle helps leaders guide their followers pursuit of success. Having a system allows the leader to focus on the employee and aiding them rather than figuring out what comes next. In this model, leaders help employees conduct an assessment to identify where they are and where they want to go. It establishes the starting point and destination. Leaders meet with followers regularly, preferably weekly, to review progress and make necessary adjustments. In these meetings, the pair also identify lessons that are being learned and how to apply them moving forward. With a good plan, proper check ins, reasonable task steps, and focused energy, bot the follower and leader develop confidence that the desired goal will be achieved. If progress is not being made. The leader address issues and works with the employee to find solutions, rather than solving the problem for the employee. After each iteration of the cycle, the follower becomes more competent, and less reliant on the leader to achieve success.
References
Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., & Zigarmi, D. (2013). Leadership and the one minute manager: Increasing effectiveness through situational leadership II (Updated ed.). HarperCollins.
Bushe, G.R. (2012) Appreciative inquiry: Theory and critique. In Boje, D.,
Covey, S (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people. Fireside. New York, NY.
Lask, M. (2020) Frameworks for leadership development. Leader Exchange and Coaching Seminar, Cohort 12, Northeast Regional CAC, Philadelphia, PA
Over the years, I have participated in a number of leadership assessments. Almost all emphasize the importance of leading from strength. Leaders are taught to find other people or to implement systems to compensate for weaknesses. It is appropriate that strengths are the first thing to be assessed as an organization begins planning for the future. Strengths are internal factors that help achieve success. Strategic planners begin by identifying sources of data. Determine what areas of your organization you seek to examine to find your strengths. Identify measures of strengths. Understand why leading from strength is important. When leaders complete this exercise, they will be in a better place to figure were the organization should head in the future.
Chisels are great tools for trimming and paring wood. Their strength is at the tip where the two planes meet creating a sharp edge. Chilsels make poor clamps. -Photo by author
GEN (R) Wesley Clark said, “I’ve never met an effective leader who wasn’t aware of his talents and working to sharpen them.” (Rath, T. & Conchie, B.). Think about the leading edge of a chisel. A woodworker doesn’t try to cut wood with the sides of the chisel. With enough force, one could certainly cut wood with the side of a chisel, but its strength comes at the leading edge, where the user carefully refines the two planes that intersect at the tip into a fine edge. A well sharpened chisel will cut most wood with simple hand pressure. While it is possible to build furniture with only a chisel, saws, planes, and clamps help the chisel be part of a team of tools that can build many things easily. It cannot hold well. Long cuts are better performed by a saw. Flattening is ideal for the plane. When it comes to trimming away wood from tenons, refining saw cuts, and creating mortises for joints the strength of the chisel’s sharp tip, make it the perfect tool. The chisel is an ancient tool, yet still occupies space in almost every modern wood shop because of its strengths. Like knowing the strengths of your tools, knowing the strengths of you and your organization helps you and other leaders identify your future based on your strengths.
Organizations often begin assessing strengths by asking only the invited planners what they view their strengths to be. Doing that is like asking an employee to write his or her own annual evaluation! Plan time to invite observations of others such as
Employees
Customers
Stockholders
Community members where you have facilities
Vendors, and
Peers.
Each of these groups sees your organization differently. They may see things as strengths you do not recognize yet are very important to your current level of success. Collect these observations as you analyze where your strengths are.
Organizations work in many different areas. I ran a small nonprofit for several years. One of the things I missed from my time in the military was easy access to legal advice. I had two lawyers whose job was to keep the command team out of trouble by vetting their ideas and orders. There were a number of times, in my nonprofit, I worried that there were legal issues I was not aware of in our operations.
Other areas to think about include
Operations
Human Resources
Internal and external communications
Industry trends and how your strengths remain relevant
Quality controls
Leadership now and moving forward
Employee education, and
Safety
This list could be longer. Adapt it to your organization and your needs. The list should be similar whether your organization is a team of engineers in the automotive industry, or a small nonprofit medical clinic in a remote community. The details however will be different.
As you work through this process, you may notice areas you expected to find as strengths are really weaknesses. Note that, but do not focus on those weaknesses now. Return to them when you get to the part on evaluating your weaknesses.
For example, you recognize in operations, you are the best widget maker in the world. As you analyze your leadership and employee education, you realize your leaders are all older. You have done little to develop the next generation of leaders. Without strong leaders in the future, your organization risks losing the top spot as widget manufacturer. You can say, “Hey, we are working on strengths in this exercise.”, and ignore what you just learned. Instead, not that weakness and evaluate it in the next step.
Anyone can pick up a ruler and tell you the length of an object. The question is what does the length matter? Measuring strengths can be difficult. For example, in the length example, are you measuring in millimeters or inches? Having a common language about the things you measure helps everyone understand the significance of the thing being measured.
-Using the same units of measure helps leaders develop a common understanding of strengths shown in data. The consequences of using a common means of measurement result in failure. -NASA Photo
There are a number of ways to measure strengths. Data will play an important role in this respect. Everyone needs to agree on what to measure and what appropriate units of measure are. In 1999, NASA crashed a $125 million weather orbiter into Mars because some engineers uses imperial units rather than metric. It is important that everyone uses the same units of measure as you analyze your strengths.
Organizations use several common means of measuring strengths. Use the scope of your activity to measure ROI, stakeholder satisfaction, staff retention, and other measures. Determine how well is your organization achieving goals. Identify how well your organization uses it guiding principles to accomplish its mission and vision.
The US. Army evaluates leaders in a number of areas. One is how many Soldiers pass an annual fitness test. War is hard work. The Army knows Soldiers must be fit regardless of their job to fit and win our nation’s wars. Use this example as a way to identify what you should measure and what metrics actually identify strengths.
Your organization’s strengths are like the sharp edge of a woodworker’s chisel. Strengths help you cut through resistance and achieve your organization’s mission. As you develop your vision of the future, identifying and analyzing strengths help your organization determine how to apply them to the challenges you face. Strengths are internal factors you control. Data helps identify strengths. Use a common means of measuring so you have universal understanding. Examining strengths is the first step with the SWOTAR model and need to be used with the next step, examining weaknesses. Look for that post next month.
Kinicki, A. & Williams, B. (2008). Management; A practical introduction. (3d Ed.). McGraw Hill Irwin. New York, NY.
Morreale, S (October 21, 2009). Executive Strategic Thinking. [Training Presentation] Command Training Series: Executive Development Course. New England Association of Chiefs of Police. Held at Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI
Rath, T, & Conchie B. (2008) Strengths based leadership; Great leaders, teams and why people follow. Gallop Press. New York, NY.
