The Strengths Blog

Imagine that you have been invited to lead an organisation to the next stage of its development. One priority may be to encourage people to deliver higher professional standards. During your first meetings with the managers they have said things like:

“We have many good people in our work place. But how do we deal with those who do not behave in the required way? We have tried many approaches. But they still do not show the right attitude or deliver the required quality. What can we do?”

Great teams implement the right strategy with the right people in the right way. Let’s assume that you have a clear strategy for achieving the team’s picture of success. The next step will be to get the right people.

Bearing in mind the professional standards required, you may take the ‘blank piece of paper’ approach. This involves exploring the following route.

“Imagine that everybody left tomorrow and offered their services back to the organisation. Who would you hire and what would you hire them to deliver?”

This question will probably highlight three things. a) The people you would definitely rehire; b) The people you might rehire; c) The people you would not rehire. You can then focus on getting the right people in the team.

“That sounds simple, but it isn’t easy,” somebody may say. “Sometimes we are dependent on people who have the right skills but are difficult characters.”

Let’s start by considering one of the key steps taken by people who build successful teams.

You can build a queue of people
who want to work in the team

Great teams communicate a compelling story, strategy and road to success. They also put enormous effort into recruitment. They build a queue of people who want to work in the team.

This is the approach I took, for example, when running a therapeutic community for troubled teenagers. One way to ensure the youngsters behaved responsibly was to have a queue of applicants waiting to fill their places.

If a person broke the rules, they would be choosing to go back to where they came from, such as an institution for offenders. They therefore chose to behave responsibly and keep their place in the community.

Every successful team I have known has built a queue of potential team members. They have also made it hard to get into the team. This approach works.

Let’s assume, however, that you are taking over a team. Whilst you will put lots of work into getting the right people, you will also need to set the scene for the existing team members. This calls for taking the following step.

You can, when taking over a team,
give people a chance to deliver
the required professional standards

Sometimes this can be challenging, particularly if you are taking over a demoralised team. The people may not have been shown the professional standards that are required to deliver the picture of success.

You will therefore have a moral obligation to explain these standards. People can then decide if they want to opt into delivering these for the team.

Choose the most appropriate format for communicating these standards – either in whole group or one-to-one sessions. It will then be important to give people key messages about the following things.

The team’s goals.

The encouraging environment you will create to help people to reach the team’s goals.

The professional standards that people will need to demonstrate to help the team to reach its goals.

Before you do this, however, it can be useful to prepare the ground by taking the following steps.

You can clarify the Professional Credo

Good leaders are like good parents. They are positive, predictable and create an environment in which people can achieve peak performance.

Bearing this in mind, it will be important to involve the key managers in building the professional credo. Why? They should be acting as positive models for their people during the day-to-day work.

You can explain to them that: a) The team is required to deliver certain goals for the organisation; b) The team can add to these goals and have some autonomy regarding how it delivers the goods.

Bearing these things in mind, you can work with the managers:

To clarify the picture of success.

To clarify the professional standards – the spirit and skills – people will need to demonstrate to ensure the team achieves the picture of success.

To clarify why it is important for people to demonstrate these standards if they are to achieve the picture of success.

The managers in a team, for example, have a moral responsibility to explain why it is important for people to behave in these ways. The guidelines are there for a reason; they have not just been plucked out of the air. They can explain that:

People who continually deliver high professional standards
will obviously increase the chances of delivering success

People can sometimes go overboard when describing the required standards. This can result in producing huge instruction manuals that the managers then supervise.

Sometimes this is necessary, such as when flying a plane. But it can also be effective to produce simple guidelines that people can follow in their daily work.

How to make this happen? One approach is to compile a list of Dos and Don’ts that people can bear in mind to achieve the goals.

Here, for example, is a sample list of Dos. These provide guidelines, rather than cover every eventuality, but people can apply these in their daily work.

You will, of course, create your own kind of credo. Before launching it, however, it can be useful to take the next step.

You can prepare the ground before
communicating the Professional Credo

There are several things you can do to prepare the ground. Here are some steps that it may be useful to consider.

Describe examples of where people are
already delivering the professional standards

People respond well to positive reinforcement. So highlight specific examples of where people have already done great work. This can help:

To show people they are already following some of the successful principles.

To show people ‘what good looks like’.

To show people how they can follow these principles in the future.

Show people that they are already doing some things well. They can do even more of these things in the future.

Describe the principles that embody true professionalism

One approach is to share the work of eminent writers in the field. You can, for example, send people articles about David Maister’s work on professionalism. This will underline the principles you want people to follow in the organisation.

David, who retired in 2010, was acknowledged as one of the best business thinkers in the world. His approach went far beyond the intellectual language normally used in such fields. It involved both the heart and the head.

David gave the following advice to people embarking on a professional career. They should focus on the following three guidelines.

Passion

You need to do something you feel passionately about and be passionately committed to getting somewhere.

People

You need to understand how people – you, your clients and you colleagues – work.

Principles

You need to be somebody who has readily observable principles and be seen to actually follow these in practice. People can then decide if they want to work for you or with you.

Writing in his book True Professionalism, David explained how to translate these principles into action.

“There are relatively few new ideas in business, if any at all. How often can one repeat the basic advice of:

‘Listen to your clients, provide outstanding service, train your people, look for and eliminate inefficiencies, and act like team players?’

“The problem, clearly, is not in figuring out what to do. Rather, the problem is to find the strength and courage to do what we know to be right.

“The lesson is clear: Believe passionately in what you do, and never knowingly compromise your standards and values. Act like a true professional, aiming for true excellence, and the money will follow.

“Act like a prostitute, with an attitude of “I’ll do it for the money, but don’t expect me to care,’’ and you’ll lose the premium that excellence earns. True professionalism wins.”

David said that every professional service firm in the world has the same mission statement. This involves delivering:

Outstanding service to clients.

Satisfying careers for its people.

Financial success for its owners.

Some firms actually do these things, wrote David. Other firms write the words and then forget them. His book provided a vast resource of ideas and tools for running such a firm.

David then co-operated with Charles Green and Robert Galford to produce The Trusted Advisor. This classic book outlined the following guidelines for helping clients to succeed.

True professionals provide knowledge, models and practical tools that work. They then do everything in their power to help the client to achieve their goals.

You can relate the Professional Credo
to some of organisation’s core values

 Many organisations create values statements. Great organisations actually try to ‘live the values’, rather than just ‘laminate the values’.

Looking at your organisation’s values, there is probably one that relates to professionalism. This may be framed as: ‘We want people to take responsibility … deliver high quality work … be professional’ or whatever.

You can use this value as a springboard when sharing the professional credo. But you may need to position it carefully, however, by saying something like:

“One of our organisation’s values is: ‘To ______.’ We are actually going to try to live that value.

“Whilst there may sometimes be cynicism about values, we are really going to try to follow this key principle.

“The tangible ways that we are going to translate it into action are, for example: a) To ____; b) To ____; c) To ____.”

Good leaders often start by focusing on one value and getting some early wins. People believe what they see, rather than what they hear. So it is vital to show how a value has been translated into tangible results.

There could be a downside to relating the credo to one of the organisation’s values, particularly if the values have not been lived. But it is something worth considering. You can then show how you are serious about translating the values into action.

You can communicate
the Professional Credo

Let’s imagine that you have prepared the ground. You have communicated:

The specific times when people in the organisation have performed brilliantly.

The specific principles that people followed to perform brilliantly.

The specific professional standards that organisations must demonstrate to perform brilliantly in the future.

You can choose the most appropriate format for communicating the professional credo. There are several things to bear in mind when sharing the ideas with people. It will be important:

To explain the organisation’s story, strategy and road to success.

To explain the principles that people will need to follow to achieve the picture of success.

To explain that the professional standards that will be required to deliver the picture of success.

You can then explain the professional credo. Wherever possible, it is vital to:

Bring the credo to life with real-life examples that show
how people are already following some of the principles

Great leaders recognise what they can and can’t do for people. They can communicate a compelling story, strategy and road to success. They can also create an encouraging environment and give people the support they need to do the job.

Such leaders employ people who are prepared to do the work required to achieve the picture of success. They therefore give people the chance to reflect. People can choose whether: a) They want to follow the principles; b) They don’t want to follow the principles. Each choice does, of course, have consequences.

You will present the credo on your own way. Here is a framework that it is possible to use, for example, when interviewing potential candidates, together with some possible wording. People can then decide if they want to contribute to the journey.

You will obviously change the wording if you are presenting the credo to existing employees, but the principles still hold true. It is vital to explain ‘The Deal’. You can explain:

The organisation’s role in helping people to work towards achieving the goals.

The employee’s role in working towards achieving the goals.

People can then decide if they want to contribute towards achieving the picture of success.

You can clarify with people whether they
want to follow the Professional Credo

Let’s assume you have communicated the credo. You can then give each team – and each person – the opportunity to show how they want to follow the principles in their areas. If appropriate, for example, you can invite each team:

To present the specific things they will do to deliver the professional standards.

To present, if appropriate, the support they would like to deliver the professional standards.

To present the quick successes they will produce to deliver the professional standards.

This is similar to the approach that Bill Walsh took when taking over the American Football Team, the San Francisco 49ers. Bill believed it was vital for everybody in an organisation to deliver certain Standards of Performance. Providing they did this, he said, ‘The score takes care of itself’.

Did it work? Bill encouraged people to focus on delivering the required standards, rather than on ‘winning’. It took two seasons – 1979 and 1980 – to turn around the ailing team. The 49ers then won the Super Bowl three times – in 1981, 1984 and 1988 – before Bill retired.

Bill took over the team in 1979. Interviewed for the book The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh, he said that his aim was to create an environment of excellence.

The first two years were difficult. He aimed to build a top-notch organisation, rather than one that was toxic. This called for hiring great people and moving on those who chose not to meet the required standards. Bill explained:

“I came to the San Francisco 49ers with an overriding priority and specific goal – to implement what I call the Standard of Performance.

“It was a way of doing things, a leadership philosophy that has as much to do with core values, principles, and ideals as with blocking, tackling, and passing: more to do with the mental than with the physical.

“While I prized preparation, planning, precision, and poise, I also knew that organizational ethics were crucial to ultimate on-going success.

“It began with this fundamental leadership assertion: Regardless of your specific job, it is vital to our team that you do that job at the highest possible level in all its various aspects, both mental and physical (i.e., good talent with bad attitude equals bad talent).

“There are also the basic characteristics of attitude and action – the new organizational ethos – I tried to teach our team, to put into our DNA. Of course, for this to happen the person in charge – whether the head coach, CEO, manager, or assembly line foreman – must exhibit the principles.”

This called for commitment to details, such as people having a positive attitude, being prompt, showing good sportsmanship – no strutting, posturing or cheap shots, controlling of profanity, treating fans with respect and exhibiting a professional demeanour.

People were expected to practice relentlessly until their execution at the highest level was automatic – routine ‘perfection’. Bill said:

“Maintenance workers, ticket takers, parking lot attendants, and anyone receiving a pay check with the emblem of the San Francisco 49ers on it were instructed as to the requirements of their own job’s Standard of Performance and expected to measure up.”

Some people chose not to meet these standards: so they were replaced by those who were prepared to deliver the goods. Here is an introduction to the Standard of Performance.

You will obviously follow this approach in your own way. The key will be to encourage, educate and enable people to follow the standards.

Great teams are made up of people who have ‘similarity of spirit and ‘diversity of strengths’. They also have the right balance of consistency and creativity. Whilst certain standards are mandatory, you need characters, not clones.

You can therefore, where appropriate, encourage people to focus on how they can express the standards in their way. The key, however, is that they must contribute to achieving the organisation’s picture of success.

“This approach sounds tough,” somebody may say. “Isn’t it also rather demanding, especially if it is a person’s first job?”

It is actually much tougher not to explain the standards, because then people are all over the place.

My own experience of working in business, sports and recovery programmes is that it is important:

To explain the organisation’s purpose, principles and professional standards.

To expect people to behave like adults, rather than like 12-year-olds, and expect them to understand.

To encourage people to reflect and decide if they want to contribute towards achieving the goals.

You can communicate success stories about
people following the Professional Credo

“Reward the behaviour you want repeated,’ is a key principle in building successful cultures. You will do this in your own way. But one approach is to keep publishing success stories about how the credo is being translated into action.

This approach is more likely to work, however, if you appoint a ‘mission holder’. Make sure one person is in charge of ensuring the success stories are collected and published.

You can set them the target of, for example, publicising four such stories each month. They will then be carrying out a key task in educating your people to deliver the professional standards.

Different people use different frameworks for sharing success stories.

The approach outlined below invites the writer to start by choosing a title for the story. They can then bring it to life by writing a compelling story, using video or employing other media.

The following format invites people to describe the specific situation, strategies and successes. It also asks them to summarise the learning.

Different people may, however, use different headings to cover these or other relevant themes.

Great teams implement the right strategy with the right people in the right way. You will do this in your own way.

One approach is to encourage, educate and enable people to follow a professional credo. Making this happen will provide a springboard for achieving on-going success.

Finishing is a key skill in life. “Flow, focus, finish and, as a by-product, find fulfilment,” is the motto. Sounds easy in theory, but how does it work in practice?

How can you, for example, complete a book, perform well to the final whistle or finish a project successfully? Let’s explore three tips for finishing.

You can clarify your
successful pattern for finishing

How to find this pattern? One approach is for people to look back on their life and describe something they have finished successfully. What did they do right then? It is important for them to be super specific. One person said, for example:

“Five years ago I finally completed work on refurbishing the ‘Granny annexe’ at our house, something I had delayed for years. I followed certain steps to make this happen.

“First, I decided whether or not I wanted to do it. Certainly I could have hired a local builder – which would have freed up time – but I chose to finish it myself.

“Second, I set aside time to do the job, booking long weekends over a period of 12 months. I ring-fenced this time, rather than allowing it to become cluttered by other events.

“Third, I established a working ritual, starting on Friday morning, working all day and most of Saturday, then allocating the rest of the weekend to the family.

“Fourth, I made it as pleasurable as possible, playing my favourite music, listening to the radio and having frequent coffee breaks.

“Fifth, I followed the discipline and kept working until it was finished.

“Now my teenage kids have moved into that part of the house. Granny may need to wait for a while, but she is happy where she lives at the moment.”

Try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to do the following things.

Describe three specific times when you finished something successfully. Describe the specific things you did to right to finish each of these things.

Describe any common patterns or principles you followed to finishing some of these things successfully.

Describe how you can – if appropriate – follow some of these principles again in the future.

This exercise can provide a guide to your successful pattern. But there are obviously other factors you may need to consider.

For instance, there may be other strategies and skills you can add to become an even better finisher. You may also have different patterns in your personal and professional life, such as when moving-on from a relationship or when completing a work project.

Nevertheless, this exercise can provide food for thought. Try completing the following sentences.

You can choose
something you want to finish

Looking into the future, can you think of something you want to finish? You may want to write an article, launch a web site, renovate a house or whatever.

The key is to be selective to be effective. It’s impossible to complete everything in life. So sometimes, providing you accept the consequences, it can be okay to say: “I don’t want to finish it.”

Bearing this in mind, try completing the following exercise.

Describe the specific thing you want to finish. This is your picture of success.

Describe the pluses and minuses involved in finishing it. Whilst it will be important to accept the total package involved, it can be good to build on the pluses and minimise the minuses.

Describe the extent to which you are serious about finishing it. Do this on a scale 0 – 10. Make sure it is a minimum of 8+/10.

Describe the key strategies you can follow to give yourself the greatest chance of success. If appropriate, you may want to follow elements of your successful pattern for finishing.

Describe your concrete action plan for finishing it successfully.

You can follow your successful
pattern – then flow, focus and finish.

One approach is to set aside time to finish, otherwise it is destined to fail. It can also be useful to divide the task into reasonable chunks. You can then set a realistic goal for each time period. Reaching this will give a sense of achievement. The next step is to do what you know works for finishing.

It is quite possible for an individual to build on their successful patterns, but it can sometimes be harder for a team.

“One of the hardest challenges I faced was getting my players to finish properly,” said one football manager. “Many were extremely talented but had a habit of falling at the final hurdle.

“Frequently they got ahead in games, only to collapse in the last 15 minutes. Going into a state of paralysis, they began looking at the clock, retreating into their half and kicking the ball anywhere, rather than playing football. They needed to develop good habits.

“I got them to ‘look beyond’ the finishing line. They needed to assume the game would last 100 minutes and keep playing football. They went back to basics: win the ball, pass the ball and then move, move, move. The key was psychological.

“People needed to play the positive game, plus some of the ‘percentage’ game, rather than lapse into the paralysis game. They got into the habit of winning matches by playing football for 100 minutes, rather than for 75 and then watching the clock. The players became good finishers and went on to win trophies.”

You will have your own way of finishing, but here are some suggestions. It can be useful:

To do the right things in the right way every day.

To make good use of your prime times – the times when you have most energy.

To encourage yourself on the journey. For example, to eat properly and also surround yourself with positive things – people, music or whatever.

To, when hitting difficulties, lift your eyes to focus on the picture of success.

To keep working hard – then flow, focus and finish.

After completing the task, it is time to relax and reflect. Clarify what you did well and how you can do more of these things in the future. Clarify what you can do even better next time and how.

Finishing is just another name for beginning. Soon it will be time to find another challenge to tackle, another dream to pursue.

You can then again follow your successful pattern for finishing.

This is a classic exercise that is used in many forms of coaching, including Strengths Coaching. The person is invited:

a) To clarify what they can control in their life and work.

The person may write, for example, that they can control their attitude, professionalism and ability to do their best.

b) To clarify what they can’t control.

They may write that they can’t control other people, the market or what others think about them.

c) To clarify how they can build on what they can control and manage what they can’t.

They may describe the specific things they will do to capitalise on their strengths and opportunities. Looking at the potential difficulties, they will develop strategies for doing their best in those situations. Looking ahead, they will also get some early successes and encourage themselves on the way to reaching their goals.

People like to feel in control. This exercise often enables them to feel stronger and more able to shape their future.

Links

* 3 tips for controlling the controllables.

Link.

* 3 tips for helping people to feel in control.

Link.

Resilient people develop the inner strength, strategies and skills to overcome setbacks. Managing such challenges can sometime provide the platform for achieving future success.

Al Siebert did pioneering work on resilience. His superb books – such as The Survivor Personality and The Resiliency Advantage – enabled many people to develop their inner strength.

He provided more than inspiring stories. He offered positive models and practical tools that enabled people to develop their resiliency skills.

They could then apply these to overcome challenges when using their strengths. He helped many people to make breakthroughs in their personal and professional lives.

Returning to college after completing his military service, Al resolved to study psychology, but he grew frustrated by its emphasis on mental illness.

He decided to study life’s survivors – those who grew when overcoming tough challenges. Scoping out the areas of study, he chose to focus on people that met four criteria:

They had survived a major crisis.

They had surmounted the crisis through personal effort.

They had emerged from the experience with previously unknown strengths and abilities.

They had, in retrospect, found value in the experience.

Building on his research, Al outlined some of the strategies survivors adopt to overcome crises successfully. These include the following.

The Survivor Personality is one of the first and best books on the topic. Al went on to start Thrivenet. This a web site packed with stories and tools that people can use to overcome adversity. Here is the link:

Thrivenet.

Al then expanded on the topic to produce another compelling book.

The Resiliency Advantage

Expanding on the theme of survival, Al focused on how people can thrive in a fast-changing world. This calls for individuals, teams and organisations to develop their resiliency skills.

Why? In the old days many people relied on ‘institutions’ to tell them what to learn and how to behave. Nowadays people must manage increasing information, complexity and unpredictability.

Such events may include, for example, personal setbacks, sickness, redundancy, market changes, reduced budgets, technological changes, economic downturns or whatever.

People will need to deal with such challenges. This calls for them taking responsibility, seeing to the heart of the matter and making good decisions. Even if they choose the right strategy, events may conspire to throw them off-track.

They will need to recover quickly, practice ‘course correction’ and do everything possible to reach their goals. People who develop such resiliency skills are more likely to increase their chances of success.

Al illustrated these ideas with real-life inspiring stories. Some are in the book; some on The Resiliency Center web site. You can access these stories at:

Resiliency Center.

The Adversity Advantage

Paul G. Stoltz and Erik Weihenmayer wrote The Adversity Advantage. This shows how overcoming setbacks can fuel a person’s ability to produce greatness.

Paul originally gained public attention with his work on AQ, Adversity Quotient. This enabled people to measure and improve their ability to overcome adversity.

Erik became the first blind person to climb Everest. A journey he chronicled in his book Touch The Top of The World.

After seeing Erik featured on the front of Time Magazine, Paul sought him out. Building on the views they shared in common, they decided to write The Adversity Advantage.

Their site outlines seven strategies for overcoming adversity and achieving peak performance. Here is a brief summary taken from the site, which describes these in more detail.

http://www.adversityadvantage.com/

1) Take It On.

Learn how to overcome frustration, helplessness, and anger — and benefit from adversity.

2) Summon Your Strengths.

Challenge the conventional wisdom that natural strengths drive success. Exceed expectations of what you and others can, or should, attempt to do.

3) Engage Your CORE.

Learn how to handle adversity better and faster. Engage your CORE and learn how to turn adversities into advantages. (CORE stands for: Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance.)

4) Pioneer Possibilities.

Devise signature systems for turning the impossible into the possible. Learn to create strategies that others fail to see.

5) Pack Light, Pack Right.

Learn how packing poorly cripples you… but how choosing the right things, people, obligations, and pursuits strengthen you. ,Spring clean, so you can rise up, rather than crumble, under the weight of adversity.

6) Suffer Well.

Character is forged in the flames of adversity. Done right, suffering can fuel greatness.

7) Deliver Greatness, Everyday.

This summit, the culmination, weaves together the most important ideas of the book, providing a coherent, portable package of practices that you can apply anywhere, anytime.

Links

* Resiliency Center.

Here is a link to the Resiliency Center. This provides more information about the work of Al and others who have focused on overcoming setbacks.

http://www.resiliencycenter.com/

* Paul Stoltz’s web site.

http://www.peaklearning.com/

* Erik Weihenmayer web site.

http://www.touchthetop.com/