Calling on Your Whole Energy Team in Crisis...
Economic crisis. Markets in free fall. As the talking box in our living rooms keep giving us bad news, how do we deal with it all? How do we help our organizations or clients deal with it all? The energy patterns can’t change the market, but they can change our reactions to it. Remember that you will trend toward your home pattern during crisis - which may or may not be the best strategy given your particular predicament. Deliberately call upon your entire team to push, hold, pull and leap your way through tough times.
Drop into your Driver to:
- Look for opportunities to reduce costs in low-growth business units or excessive processes that create waste.
- Stay laser focused on top priorties despite surrounding banter that the skies are falling.
- Set and adjust targets to attainable levels and dig down deep to control the controlables in order to win.
Enlist your Organizer to:
- Identify the critical steps necessary to move through crisis in a calm and orderly manner.
- Value the daily, often simple, tasks that are necessary to keep the business moving forward.
- Intelligently evaluate business opportunities for growth and cost cutting with a focus on facts and available data.
Engage your Collaborator to:
- Communicate more than you think is even necessary with confidence, reassurance and empathy to everyone in the business.
- Bring teams closer in times of crisis and value everyone's contribution.
- Brighten the mood with recognition of what ought to be recognized and celebration of what ought to be celebrated.
Summon your Visionary to:
- Step back and see through the clouds of panic to the horizon of opportunity down the road.
- Ask what wants to happen in this environment and let go of businesses, processes or goals that don't match the current reality.
- Remain open to capturing the opportunities presented in any environment and make the adjustments for long-term success.
Focus Now...
Our normally even-keel publisher recently sent us an email with an exclamation point - ! - announcing our book, Move to Greatness is now a Bestseller and #4 on the 800 CEO Read list! Now we want all you CEO’s to read even more copies and really give our publisher a thrill J.
Click here and read the latest review of Move to Greatness that appeared in the September edition of T+D: the journal for the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD).
Focus Forward: Upcoming Events
- Dr. Whitelaw will be delivering a Keynote Address for the International Coach Federation in Madrid, Spain on November 27th, 2008.
- Save the Date! Our next FEBI Certification Session is being scheduled for April 3rd & 4th, 2009 in Baltimore. Contact us if this time/location works for you!
- Dr. Whitelaw will be giving the Keynote Address at a 3-day symposium at Advocate Health Care just outside Chicago on April 14th - 16th, 2009.
FEBI Gets Them on Their Feet at Aegis Living...
Agnes Mura, a FEBI Certified Consultant, was caught by Inc. Magazine in the act of running a FEBI-based training at Aegis Living last January. Aegis Living is a Redmond, Washington-based company that focuses on senior living and assisted living facilities. They recently hosted notable speakers such as Deepak Chopra, former Celtic great - Bill Russell, and of course Agnes Mura for a training day with 65 of their top executives.
Agnes used music and movement to give people an experience of the patterns after they had all taken the FEBI. She lit up the crowd, drawing animated reactions and engaged questions, and closed with time for reflection and action planning. Thanks, Agnes, for another great use for the patterns and the FEBI. And now you have to give us your secret to getting Inc. Magazine to cover it!
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What's Missing in Most Climates?
The climate of a workplace - or “what it feels like around here” – is known to affect the bottom line of businesses, but this connection is especially clear on a cruise ship. The better it feels, the more passengers spend, and the more they enjoy the cruise. Moreover, the connection to leadership is especially clear: change out the captain, and instantly the ship feels different and, over time, operates differently. “We have the numbers to prove it,” the Director of Operations of a major cruise line told us. “The best captains have the highest employee morale, the highest revenue per passenger, the best customer satisfaction ratings, and the fewest problems. Now how do we get more of the best?” was his challenge to us.
Through interviews and the FEBI, we learned pretty quickly that what separated the best from the rest was the bright fun of Collaborator energy. One Collaborator-rich Captain, a rather flamboyant fellow, was known for driving his motorcycle up and down the ship’s promenade, and donning a wig to advertise a special in the ship’s hair salon. Another beloved captain joined a problem ship, and immediately took aim at the poor conditions in the crew cafeteria. He organized a clean-up, a painting party, and had the food improved. By first caring for his crew, he created a powerful sense of family that translated within weeks into happier customers and better profits.
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Ways to Build More Collaborator
Into Your Climate
- Show caring for people
- Tell stories
- Foster mutual reliance
- Give people a chance to know each other away from work
- Play, dance or sing together
- Celebrate
- Use group incentives
- Practice paradox, see both sides of issues
- Use improvisational comedy techniques in meetings
- Create spaces for people to gather informally
- Encourage personalizing work areas (team slogans, family photos, etc)
- Practice empathy to influence
- Add humor – in pictures, talks, contests
- Use bright, fun colors, soft furniture – think Disney
- Surprise and delight people
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That’s not to say Collaborator energy is the only pattern you need for a successful climate. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review (Employee Motivation – a Powerful New Model by Nohria, Groysberg and Lee, July-Aug, 2008) identified four fundamental drives that have to be satisfied in a climate of full engagement, which map nicely into the patterns:
- The drive to acquire – winning, advancing, the ambition of the Driver
- The drive to comprehend – meaning, learning, the inquisitiveness of the Visionary
- The drive to defend – security, fairness, the consistency of the Organizer
- The drive to bond – belonging, caring, the connectedness of the Collaborator
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“…all four [needs] had to be met for the best effect on climate.”
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Significantly, the authors found, not a hierarchical relationship among these needs (as in Maslow’s research), but that all four had to be met for the best effect on climate. “The whole is more than the sum of the parts.” the authors concluded, “A poor showing on one drive substantially diminished the impact of high scores on the other 3.” Just as we’re composed of all four patterns, the workplaces we best function in satisfy the needs of all four.
Want to learn more about our climate survey or how to turn around the climate of your “ship?” Contact Anthony: anthony@focusleadership.com
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But back to the cruise ship, which in this regard is similar to so many of the organizations we work with: the reason the Collaborator stood out as such a strong differentiator is that it’s so often the missing link. And when you think about what comes with the Collaborator’s connectedness (as shown in factor analysis) – fun, joy, optimism, and resilience – this energy fundamentally shifts the emotional valence of the climate, affecting all of the other drives. Winning becomes more fun, learning is more joyful, and even defending is done with greater optimism and resilience. Navigating the turbulent waters of today, who wouldn’t want more of that?
– Dr. Ginny Whitelaw
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