Never dismisses anyone from employment without first understanding and working through the core source of why that person is struggling. Often the leader simply needs to look in the mirror to discover the problem.
Doesn’t shy away from setting unreasonable goals. If goals are reasonable, people will only make a little extra effort—but if goals are unreasonable, people will make real changes in the way they work. Consciously connected leaders don’t play small.
Continues to look at the whole while making decisions that will only impact one area. For example, when you change things in the call center, don’t be blind to the impact that change will have on other parts of the organization.
Knows that success is not always about financial results. When people make suggestions, a consciously connected leader tracks what happens to that suggestion and turns it into a promise that is followed up on with action. A consciously connected leader then reviews the action when it is completed with those to whom the leader made the promise.
Always assembles the right people to get the job done.
Trusts his or her employees because they are the ones closest to customers. Don’t assume that you are the one with the best ideas and that employees don’t have the same interest in success that you do.
Doesn’t try to do it all. Remember that it is your job to help people grow. If people aren’t stretched, given the opportunity to make mistakes, and allowed to recognize their mistakes and make corrections, they will end up resenting you and will wait until you tell them what to do before they will do it.
Never criticizes employees in front of others (either in person or via the kind of email takedowns that some people have a hard time resisting), whether they are direct reports or not. You’re all on the same side with the same goals, so instead of pointing out employees’ failures, you should ask them what they need from you to be able to accomplish what they promised or are responsible for. Criticism is judgment—and critical judgment is a major disconnector—so a consciously connected leader finds a better way to offer insight and mentoring.
Acts with speed to allow employees to see that things are happening, and acknowledges the source of the idea, giving all the credit away. When you take the input of employees, that’s the leader’s job: to acknowledge and appreciate people’s contributions. A consciously connected leader never withholds approval; that behavior is the chief cause of employees’ committing acts of sabotage.
Gets people to make promises, and holds people accountable. If you let your employees off the hook, they will think of you as weak and will lose respect for you.
Measures the keeping of promises. Measurement creates the tension that makes the conversation for action more urgent. Action on promises is what moves a company forward to achieving greater heights.
Empowers the leader of problem-solving workouts to make decisions—on the spot—and then elicit commitments from people with “by when’s” (a date by which something is promised) to see them completed.
Knows that employees aren’t perfect. You should let them fail and then help them up. You don’t have all the answers, and you know that your employees are eager to contribute.
Knows it is critical to remove old ideas and thinking from the company. A consciously connected leader knows that the problem is never how to get new, innovative ideas and thinking into the company but how to get the old ideas and thinking out.
Takes past performance (his or her own) out of the possible future. The past is of little use, and that includes the past experiences you have had with the people in your organization. People do not have a chance to produce great results if they feel defined by your narrow, rigid opinion of them based on their past results.
What a Consciously Connected Company Looks Like
A consciously connected company (a THIRTEENER) has consciously connected employees. These employees are connected to the company’s vision, comprehend the opportunities that are available to them and for the future of the organization, have a clear understanding of what mission-critical actions are needed to achieve those opportunities, and will execute the organization’s agreed-upon strategy. If you have consciously connected employees, you have the makings of a consciously connected business culture, one in which employees have a passionate commitment to each other and to the company’s vision.
APPENDIX
A Real-Life Story
Connectedness is not as abstract as you might initially think. There are important principles that anyone can use to create a Culture of Connectedness. Leaders and their teams who follow the principles and practices of the ConnectionPoints™ Promise-Based Strategy and Execution Management System end up with connected companies that produce amazing results. Here are some examples of the results of this process.
A few years ago, a very generous client of mine (whose company became a THIRTEENER) surprised me with an article that employees had written together describing what it was like to go through the ConnectionPoints process with me. Here are some excerpts from that article:
“Alignment, motivation, healthier employee morale, and an improved bottom line—these are just a few of the exciting results of executing a strategic plan … [We] accepted this challenge and opened [our] minds to the possibilities … the possibilities of success, growth, greatness, and profound achievement!
“The process began with a declaration of what our Group wanted their next 12 months to look like and the accomplishments we wanted to make as a team. Each team member, including the managing director, chose a ‘role’ that he or she would focus on and for which each person was individually accountable during the upcoming months.
“This gave each member a sense of belonging, a sense of appreciation, and a defined place to contribute, as well as a voice in the decision-making process—all in an effort to create a highly effective team where amazing results can flourish.
“This alignment, which was created by making sure all team members were engaged in the process and on the same page, has catapulted [our] Group into a 60 percent increase in revenues in just the first five months [their emphasis] of the program! Imagine what seven more months can do!”
To add to this story, the team had been struggling to gain traction for some time. Not only were they looking to increase the bottom line—they wanted to make sure they had the “right people on the bus,” and they very importantly wanted to reduce a very alarming 30 percent write-off of client fees year to date.
In this five-month period and over the next seven months, they not only increased their revenue performance as they noted, but they reduced their 30 percent fee write-offs to less than 5 percent—which is much lower than the standard in their industry.
Here is what they individually had to say about the process as owners of the outcome. I tell you this not to toot my own horn but to demonstrate what real people did with the work they were challenged to do. After all, I didn’t do the work—they did. I simply led them in the thinking and actions that helped them create a cogent Breakthrough Solutions Framework. Notice how they communicate the salient impact the system had on each of them and how, in the end, the process turned them into a highly conscious and connected team:
“Team alignment is one of the most powerful mechanisms a company can use to reach its strategic goals. Our program has given us the tools to reach alignment with one another, which includes support from all team members, as well as focusing our energy and resources on the desired outcome. As such, we see the connection between what we do and the success of our group, which the financial numbers have proven.” —Senior Consultant
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“I have learned what it means to draw on the individual strengths of group members, identify improvement opportunities, establish individual and group goals, and how to come into alignment to excel and achieve those goals. It has been a fun and fascinating experience to witness such a diverse group as ours working together as a team, appreciating what each of us brings to the team as we strive to become an example
to the firm and marketplace of what is possible.” —Manager
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“What I’ve enjoyed most about [Dan Prosser’s system] is the process itself. Team members at all levels are participating in decision making. When we started, many were apprehensive, and although it was brought to the forefront early that everyone wanted better communication, everyone was slow in opening up to express their thoughts. It took time to open up, but through the nonthreatening environment in which our meetings are held, better communication started happening.
From the very first day, everyone had a voice in determining our “guidelines” and establishing our “goals.” Each person selected the goal that he or she wanted to “champion” and then also had a voice in determining the “action steps” to achieve a particular goal.
I’ve enjoyed seeing our team members step up and voice their opinion, determine the action steps to reach goals, follow through, and be held accountable to either achieve the action step or answer the question, “What was missing?” I feel the process is helping each member of the team grow, become more confident, and develop professionally. As each team member grows and strengthens, so does our entire team.” —Senior Manager
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“Dan Prosser transformed our limiting thinking from being a group of “bean counters” to being value-added professionals that are the catalyst for change in our clients’ businesses. Once the group declared that this was the way we wanted to view ourselves and be viewed by the marketplace and our partners, amazing things started to happen. A new energy and focus entered the group, and the tide started to change. From that point forward, anything that did not look like truly professional, high-quality work or thinking stood out as not being in alignment with our core values. The biggest beneficiaries of this change have been our clients. We are making more and better recommendations to our clients, and in turn, we are helping them achieve more in their business.” —Managing Director
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“To produce outstanding results much like the [group], consider that business is simply a network of conversations; it is a choice between positive or negative dialogues. The power comes from choosing to invent new ones that inspire a group of people to be extraordinary and do extraordinary things.
According to Dan Prosser, ‘For a company to truly “work,” people have to change the conversations that are stopping or slowing them down into conversations that make a difference for everyone involved: owner, employee, customer, supplier and community.’” —Senior Consultant
This organization has invented a new way of thinking, a new way of being. It is proof that true greatness comes when minds think alike and energies are focused toward the same objective.
The difference that was made wasn’t just the sum of the pieces that they assembled to accomplish their outstanding outcome. It came as a result of the profound conscious connectedness they created among themselves, with their vision of the organization, through their values, and finally with the future they had envisioned for themselves.
This is what a consciously connected THIRTEENER organization looks like, and this is what happens when an organization rigorously follows the ConnectionPoints system to execute a strategy that would never have happened on its own.
NOTES
1. Ben Casselman, “Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs,” Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324031404578481162903760052/.
2. Ben Casselman, “The Slow Death of American Entrepreneurship,” FiveThirtyEightEconomics, May 15, 2014, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-american-entrepreneurship/.
3. Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past dozen years or so studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. She is the author of the book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. She has appeared at TED and TEDxHouston events; on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday program; and on PBS, NPR, and CNN. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post and Psychology Today, among other media outlets. Her work includes some of the best insights I’ve ever seen into why so many businesses fail at executing their strategy. Suddenly, the issue of toxic workplaces, shame, and the havoc it wreaks in organizations is going mainstream. I couldn’t be more pleased.
4. Kim Marquis, “Summit County Snowboarders Ride Away with $3,600 Prize,” SummitDaily, November 14, 2004.
5. Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (New York: Dell, 1993).
6. Edward M. Hallowell and Michael G. Thompson, Finding the Heart of the Child (Braintree, MA: Association of Independent Schools in New England, 1993), 193–209.
7. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene: The Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006), 192. Originally published in 1976.
8. Christine Porath and Christine Pearson, “The Price of Incivility,” Harvard Business Review (January–February 2013), http://hbr.org/2013/01/the-price-of-incivility/.
9. Ibid.
10. Dan Dennett, “Dangerous Memes,” Filmed Feb. 2002, TED talks video, 15:26, http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.
11. Ibid.
12. Joel Arthur Barker, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future (New York: Harper Business, 1992), 140.
13. Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1993), 35.
14. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature (New York: Dover, 1973).
15. Richard T. Pascale, Mark Milleman, and Linda Gioja, Surfing the Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business (New York: Crown, 2000).
16. Dee Hock, Birth of the Chaordic Age (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2000).
17. G. Nicolis and I. Prigogine, Exploring Complexity: An Introduction (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1989).
18. Donald Sull, Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).
19. Joel Arthur Barker, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future (New York: Harper-Collins, 1992).
20. D. L. Cooperrider and D. Whitney, “Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change,” in The Change Handbook, ed. Peggy Holman and Tom Devane (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1999), 245–263.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
— Winston Churchill
THIRTEENERS
EXTRAS
Thank you for buying THIRTEENERS
As a “thank you” we’ve got some added extras for you in addition to the downloads mentioned within the book. Just visit us at www.ThirteenersBook.com
* * *
If there is any way we can help you achieve your vision to become a THIRTEENER please call us. You can reach the author personally by email at: [email protected]
* * *
Wishing you success in taking your organization to a new level as you become a THIRTEENER!
HAVE
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Table of Contents
Title<
br />
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD: Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. and Helen Lakelly Hunt, Ph.D.
PREFACE: Building Connectedness
INTRODUCTION: How to Read and Use This Book
SECTION 1 – CONNECTEDNESS AND CONVERSATIONS
1. How to Invent the Impossible
2. The Conversation in Which You ‘Say How’
3. The Connection Points
SECTION 2 – VIRUSES AND DISCONNECTORS
4. The Three-Words That Undermined a Company’s Success
5. What an Execution Virus Is, What It Looks Like, and How It Infects and Disconnects Your Business
6. To Fix Your Disconnected Company, Look in the Mirror
7. Why Your Employees Aren’t Executing Your Strategy
8. Isolate the Execution Virus and Apply the Vaccine Of Truth
9. Are You Leading or Just Pretending?
10. The Entitlement Virus
SECTION 3 – HERE BE DRAGONS
11. Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
12. Chaos: The Great Transformer
Thirteeners Page 20