Here is a great blog post from Brandon Curry
There are great teams and not so great teams. The best companies are networks of great teams. When you look at organizations, there is a huge range in performance team by team by team. There are differences within high performing teams compared with underperforming teams. These differences impact not only business outcomes, but lead measures like the ability to attract and retain talent that create the valued product or service that customers trade money for.
This is just so much up my alley…
Read the rest on Brandons blog it is well worth your time
A dash of honest doubt turns out to be not so bad after all.
The coaching gurus all seem to agree. To reach your goal you need to declare it and abracadabra you are already halfway there.
Well, it turns out that they could be wrong.
According to research performed by a group of American scientists last year and document by Daniel Pink there is a significant difference in performance between 2 groups performing the same task and where one group uses what the scientists called declarative self talk ( I can do it) and the other group uses interrogative self talk (Can I do it?).
The self questioning group performs a lot better than the self affirming group.
In Denmark we had an interesting example of this recently.
As the Danish handball team departed for the European Championships they self confidently declared that they were going for gold. They subsequently lost their first few games and in no way looked as if they were going to get anywhere near the finals. The fans at home of course were furious and the players and trainer were all accused of hubris. Subsequently the declarations from the trainer and players took a subtle shift from ”we can do it” to some serious self questioning around ”can we do it?” and ”what would it take to do it?” – and – abracadabra, they brought home the gold medals to everybody’s surprise – including their own I guess.
The research seems to indicate that people who ask questions somehow come from a more humble place and that in turn creates a space to come up with a deeper solution.
For those of us who have been working with action learning for years that does not come as a big surprise….
The future will belong to the bold. The world of business is now so crowded that only those who have a significant and dramatically different story to tell will grab the attention of consumers.
In a world of ‘green wash’ and PR spin, authenticity will shine through. In the face of unprecedented levels of marketing spend an increasing consumer cynicism, simple recommendations from ‘consumers like us’ will carry the day. In an age when we have come to expect good levels of service and product quality as a given, only in exceptional and memorable experience will earn customer loyalty. At a time when legal loopholes and corporate caveats allow companies to wriggle out of their responsibilities, those who stand by their promises will stand out from the herd. It requires courage, conviction and imagination to be bold but the rewards can be immense.
The first paragraph from:
“BOLD – How to be brave in Business and Win”
by Shaun Smith & Andy Milligan
Need I say more ?
In his new book Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders author Rajeev Pershawaria describes how managers can motivate people by appealing to the three things that really matter to them.
Most employees care about the same three things–the nature of their Role, their work Environment, and their professional Development (RED)
Asa manager, you need to talk regularly with employees about the three buckets, and as you keep the dialogue going, listen for information about their preferences and aspirations. Armed with this information, you can label and link day-to-day work with their expectations.
Fascinating – and very simple.
Read an extract from the book here
