As a New Year is upon us yet again, here are a few ways over the last decade and half that I have both seen and practiced becoming indispensable in career, professional life and in organizations.
These are immediate, real-time, start today ways that can transform you as a leader and any organization, business or side-hustle attached to you!
Have a “Show Up, On Time, Ready To Go” Mindset: Number one on the list and quite possibly the most important (because all the others need to have this underlying mindset) is the ‘show up’ mantra. This means being on time, being present; attuned, prepared and ready to go in mind, body, and attitude. The meeting starts at 10am; you’re in the room or logged on by 9:55am. Can’t fit everything into your normal day; now you’re waking up earlier to get a sound mind, body and spirit about the day. Your friend, coworker or significant other is trying to connect and share something important with you; you’re purposefully putting down the phone, making eye contact and actively listening.
Review a meeting agenda ahead of time and find places to add insightful value: First, hopefully an agenda is prepared before any meeting you plan to attend - at the very least - the objective or ‘why’ of the meeting. If one isn’t prepared, volunteer to prepare one. Once you get the agenda, review it and write out one or two questions related to the topic. For example, “How would we respond to the problem if we expanded/reduced our approach?” “How might the customer see this situation from his/her perspective?” “How does this information/update affect our timeline or goal?”
Listen for ideas coming out of discussions: Ask, “Is this idea something we should move forward on as an action item?” Many wonderful suggestions and actions go unfulfilled because no one moved them forward or wrote them down. If no one is scribing action items, offer to do so.
Offer to write down discussion ideas on a flipchart, virtual board or open a GoogleDoc for everyone to see/share: There is true power in the visual art of writing things down for a group to see especially in the brainstorming process. Show your ability to lead a discussion by leading the capture of ideas. Ways to expand discussion ideas: group like ideas together, prioritize ideas/groups, define if one has to come before the other or can they work in parallel, decide if there are action items from this discussion/flipchart.
When problems emerge look for the root cause and ask the 5 Whys: Learn how to pause and contemplate root causes to issues and errors and not jump at the surface level symptom. As a younger professional myself, I find that I have to be more patient – my instinct is to go fast and furious, but I have found that digging a little bit deeper shows maturity and strategic thought. Ask, “Would it help to ask why 5 times to see if we can identify the root cause here?” Likewise, if a group moves on past the problem without any clear resolution, you can revisit it by asking, “Is everyone clear on the approach we’re going to use to solve the problem, because I think I missed it?”
In decision making identify the criteria to make the decision: So often groups can become confused about what decision to go with or that there is only one criteria to be used to decide like time, money, ease of implementation, etc. which is usually not the case. Most decisions have/need multiple criteria to be answered before the best decision can be made. Help them use an array of criteria to build a better decision. You will stand out for your ability to use various perspectives and criteria to come to a sound and good decision.
Play Devil’s Advocate or the challenger: Warning: Before you use this make sure you don’t have a room full of challengers - if you do, do the opposite and look at number 8 below. If you are in a room where groupthink is happening, playing the challenger helps to expand the diversity of thought. “As the Devil’s Advocate let me ask: What could go wrong here, or what does the downside of this look like?”
Link and connect ideas together: This helps people show your ability to ‘advance the thinking’ and give credit where credit is due. Use ‘and’ statements, not ‘or’ statements. Think in a 1+1>2 capacity. “I think Brad’s and John’s ideas are both terrific and, if put together, could be the approach we’re looking for.”
When trying to change people’s minds try creating a Case for Change: Have you ever walked into a meeting or your boss’s office with a great idea, shared it with them, only for them to dismiss it or flat-out reject it? Why does that happen? 70% of the time if you’re trying to change an idea, plan or project, it will fail. Why? Because we haven’t created enough dissatisfaction or pain with our people and with where the project/idea/plan currently is. We have to create a ‘Case for Change’ to help communicate why the change must occur. Here are some questions to ask in your Case for Change: What is the background for the change? What has led up to this need to change? What challenges or problems are we facing in the current situation that will cripple us if we don’t begin addressing them today? What is the impact of these challenges? What will happen if we stay the same? Why should we act now? What are we going to have to let go of and why? What will the change require? What will it cost us to change? What will it cost us if we don’t change? How will we know when we have succeeded?
Give time for Deep Work: A friend and colleague last year recommended I read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. I did and it really struck accord with me. I have to admit, I often find time for Deep Work naturally, but it was fun and exciting to see someone define it! Deep Work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. We need leaders that create more time and space for Deep Work.
Become the Pirate: Steve Jobs made famous the line: “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” Jobs looked for the pirate in all his team members, as Peter Sander, author of What Would Steve Jobs Do, points out. “But it wasn’t enough just to be brilliant, and it wasn’t enough just to think different. Steve’s pirates had to have the passion, the drive, and the shared vision to want to delight the customer with a perfect, game-changing product.” How have you become a pirate for that new project - looking outside the box, in the box, or through the box to offer something truly creative, passionate, and game-changing?
Embrace Your Workhorse Muscle: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration,” Edison said. Find a person, who knows how to roll up their sleeves, put their nose to the grindstone, dig in and efficiently produce high caliber work time and time again and you will bear witness to the next innovative leader. In That Used To Be Us, Thomas Friedman notes, “The time for mediocrity is over.” If that’s the case we have to become very good at shutting out noise, including our internal negativity, having laser-like focus on the task at hand and pushing through to get the job done. All the best quotes, great philosophies, soapbox pronouncements mean little if you can’t just get the work done. If you’re looking to refine this skill refer back to #10 & #1.
Invite the expert to share their opinion: Show your ability to share your value by letting others share theirs. “Anne, you have lots of experience with this project. Could you share your thoughts on how we should proceed?” If a meeting needs a specialist or Subject Matter Expert, find one. Collaboration is about having the courage, humility and vulnerability to increase the seats at the table and hear from many different people.
Develop Rhetorical Sensitivity: “We are all rhetoricians,” my former college professor of classical rhetoric used to say. What he was saying is that whether we like it or not all of us have mouths and perform actions daily that either cast a good light or a bad light on ourselves. Going a step further, rhetorical sensitivity is the idea that we must always be aware of who, where, and what we are talking about and have the proper emotional and social intelligence to modify our content and approach to appeal to our audience.
Strive for Level 5 Leadership: Famously described in Good To Great, a Level 5 Leader demonstrates humility and professional will with fierce resolve to do what is best for the company, not the leader. The Level 5 Leaders build enduring greatness in their organizations; they set up their successors for success, and talk passionately about their companies and others, but not themselves. They are ordinary people producing extraordinary results.
Advance your thinking: Always be asking yourself, “How am I advancing my thinking.” How am I advancing my thoughts, my skills, my talents, connecting ideas, producing something new? This is also a great philosophy to have when working with a group or team. “How do we advance the thinking here?” “What are we doing to move the ball forward?” In many meetings and board discussions, I find that we just spin on the topic and hear from everyone in the room and adjourn. At the next meeting, we rehash what we talked about at the meeting before. Did we actually advance the thinking? Use #13, #9, #8, #7, #6, #5, #4, #3 to advance thinking in the group.
Give Praise: We don’t encourage enough. We should high-five, celebrate and praise people for good work. You don’t have to go overboard; you don’t have to fake it. Just really find delight and freedom in praising another human being. Over the course of the next week, try to send a text a day to someone, either professional or personal, that says “I see you and I celebrate your success.” Obviously, use your own wording and get specific!
So, as we embark on this uncertain and unpredictable year ahead as the last few have been, hopefully this list doesn’t require Covid to be gone or for you to work at a 9-5 in the office. The list above can be administered regardless of global challenges or local politics. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite “New Year, new me” African sayings: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.