The first test:  Focus Your Attention…on a few key results you desire or issues you want resolved. (See Part 1) What do you want to accomplish?

The second test:  Be Clear…. communicate your focus to your team by aligning your actions with your words.  (See Part 2)  Does your leadership behavior match your focus?

The third test:  Be Consistent. The subtle usurper of clear and consistent leadership is “distraction.”  Distractions are issues, concerns, changes, problems, and even opportunities that hi-jack the focus of your attention.  Consistency is a matter of battling distractions.

A) You lose the battle if you are too susceptible to every new problem, idea, or opportunity that comes by.  You shift priorities, change directions, and leave your team confused and frustrated.

B) You also lose the battle if you’re closed-minded to anything or anyone who questions your direction and priorities.  Situations change, new problems emerge and great opportunities arise.  You miss them if you do not consider them.

C) Finally, you lose the battle if you grow tired.  Maintaining focused attention is hard work.  If you push too hard and too long you simply cannot maintain your focus.  You “let down.”  You skip progress reports for “just this week.”  You pay a price.

The best way to improve your consistency and empower yourself to consider how to handle change, new problems and opportunities is to document your focus.  Get your “attention” down in writing.  Write them in your plans and systems. Here are several:

• The business plan and model for the organization.
• The communication systems and procedures of the organization.
• The organization’s handbook, best practices, routines, and rules.
• Expectations for the maintenance of the building, equipment, and property.
• The systems for recruiting, training and assigning staff.
• The written long-range plan for the growth of the business.
• The written policy for compensation and advancement.
• The written agenda for progress reports.
• The written agenda for team meetings.
• The written agenda and form used for annual reviews.

Inspect your consistency.  Can you handle distractions?  Are you expectations written into your plans and systems?  Are you inspecting progress and compliance?

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

Look at each of these paths.

• Arrogance moves you into blind canyons where changing situations and new challenges hide in ambush.  Arrogance in a leader results in an avoidance or ignorance of the real problems that must be addressed.  The attitude of superiority, presumption, and privilege degrades your business and endangers your success.

• Despair is a downward slide toward an unforgiving desert of discouragement.  On this path, momentary setbacks and failures conspire to create a pattern of self fulfilling prophecy.  Rather than learning to correct errors and learn from regrets, you focus in on blaming others and protecting yourself.

• Confidence is not the balance between arrogance and despair, but a new and better path.  Confidence is belief and assurance in your ability to make a positive difference.  It is buoyancy that lifts you to the surface when setbacks and failures attempt to drag you under.  It is refusing to “sit on your laurels,” but to use past success as a launching pad toward new challenges.

You owe your team, your business, and your clients a deep sense of confidence.  In the morning, when you check your calendar and your email, check your path.  Do what you need to do to show up at your desk with righteous confidence in your soul.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

Her answer may seem obvious, but it is anything but easy when you consider the stress, demands, and challenges you face as you lead your business and organization.  Here are three ways to bring out the best in your team.

To bring out the best, set the “Relationship Standard.” Whatever your products and services, you are in the business of relationships.  The ability of your team to deliver products and services is a direct result of the quality of relationships your team develops with your clients and customers.  As a leader, you are establishing the “relationship standard” for your team.  The way you recruit, train, and create working relationships on your team has large and long term impact on the quality of your business.

To bring out the best, be your best. Your team members are part of a new category of employees that has emerged in the last few decades.  Peter Drucker, the premier professor of management in the last sixty years, calls these professionals, “Knowledge Workers.” He wisely observes,

What motivates – especially knowledge workers – is what motivates volunteers.  They have to get more satisfaction from their work.  Knowledge workers need, above all, challenge.  They need to know the organization’s mission.  They need to believe in it.  They need continuous training.  They need to see results.

Your team needs to see your best, your belief, your values, and your ability to garner results.  To attract the best people and bring out the best in your team, be your best.

To bring out their best, you must continually develop and improve. As a leader, you want to connect the right person with the right position with the right training.  You want to draw the team together so they can get the work done.

A friend of mine provides staff training for a large organization in the Midwest.  Individual leaders send new staff members for specialized training.  The training is intense.  It is also energizing.  And, when the training is completed, the staff member returns to the office and the leader.  I asked my friend if he had ever questioned his graduates about their fears as they embark on their new specialties and seek to use their new skills.  He told me he had and that there was one fear that was always present – “I am afraid that my leader will not change.”

As a team member grows into a new assignment, you must grow in your relationship with your team member.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

You don’t help professionals improve by focusing on their failure. You help professionals improve by repeating successes. If you focus on the “flat spots” you will never get to the mountain top.

Let me give you a picture of positive expectations:

When I was in 5th grade, (11 years old) I participated in the state wide science fair; and, I won second place. Here was my experiment: I had two trays of ordinary garden dirt. I planted both with ordinary grass seeds. And, I kept them both in the same amount of sun with the same amount of water.

There was only one difference in the two trays of dirt and grass seed. Everyday, three times, I took one tray of grass seeds aside and I “yelled at” it. I said awful things to it. I said, “You are just not measuring up. You are just no good. You are failures as grass seed.” I said this to a tray of dirt, three times everyday for three weeks.

With the other tray of grass seed, everyday, three times, I took the tray of seeds aside and I would “sweet talk” it. I said, “You are looking good. You are growing and glowing. I know you are the best grass seeds on the planet.” I did this everyday, three times, for three weeks.

I am sure you know what happened. After all, I won second place in the state science fair. The “yell at” tray of grass seed shriveled and looked awful. But, that “sweet talk” tray of grass seed was the finest ever seen. Positive expectations create high production.

Here is a picture of a great leader: It’s a gardener with a green thumb. A gardener knows how to help plants be their best. A great leader knows how to help people be their best. As the leader of the team, use your “green thumb” to set the stage. You prime the pump. You set the DNA for your organization. Expect the best and be your best.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

• You attract the best people for your team.
• You help team members embrace the core values of your business.
• You set lose the relational genetic code that supports productive professionals.

A good leader is not necessarily a sage with exceptional wisdom or a guru with insight from the ages. Get rid of that picture. A good leader looks like you. Let me explain: When I taught my first class at the University many years ago, the dean assigned the course I was to teach. I said to the dean, (only half in jest), “You can assign me to any class and any subject, but I promise I will only teach what I know.” Good leaders teach what they know.

• Share your best advice and support to your team.
• Monitor over their progress and help them solve problems.
• Teach what you know about your business.
• Inspire them with your passion for your business.

Teach and inspire your team with what you know:  You know the mission of the business. You know the values. You know the ins and outs, the significance and meaning, the excitement and the challenges of the business. Be your best as you lead, coach, and mentor your team. Remember, they will learn from what you say, if they believe you are your authentic best.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

1-Increase their confidence by being a hopeful leader – Your attitude of hope creates high expectations.  As the leader, you “interpret” or “make sense” of successes and failures.  If you respond to setbacks and failure with despair or blame, the team is discouraged and downhearted.  However, when you interpret difficulties and challenges with optimism and honesty, you shape the attitude of your team.  Be realistic and optimistic.  Deal with the truth about today by painting a picture of hope for tomorrow.  Celebrate wins.  Learn from regrets. Build on strength.

2-Increase their confidence by treating team members as professionals – Build mutual trust and respect.  The team knows you support them by the way you treat them.  Try this: validate the difficulties, appreciate the effort, listen to concerns, and share information.  If you treat them like winners, they are far more likely to win.

3-Increase their confidence by building trustworthy processes – Every organization has systems, rules, compliance, and procedures.  This is the “process” by which the work gets done. If the “process” is inconsistent or over-controlling, the result is disempowering to the team. You can build and oversee a “process” that is fair and supportive.  A trustworthy process includes clear expectations, realistic actions plans, accurate information, helpful feedback, and supportive problem solving.  Finally, the foundation of a trustworthy process is a leader the team will trust!

4-Increase their confidence by providing the resources team members need – Facing a great challenge without the resources needed to achieve the goal is discouraging. Imagine being expected to dig a hole, but never being told that you had to dig up your own shovel. The basic needs of team members include a) organizational structure and procedures, b) practical tools and equipment, and c) personal encouragement and consideration.  To make this list specific, talk with your team about what they need to succeed.  You may not be able to provide everything on their “wish list.”  However, an honest conversation goes a long way.  Start with this question:

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

from “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” by Chris Argyris.

Harvard Business Review (May-June 1991)*

Organizational life is becoming more and more complicated as technology has increased our speed of operation.  The mountains of data can overwhelm the decision maker and problem solver.  A recent emphasis in leadership, popularized by Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline, is “the learning organization.”  His basic point is that if we aren’t learning, we are on the fast tract to extinction.  Thus, leaders are placed in the position of guiding the learning of the team; coaching.

Double-loop coaching asks, “learning what?”  Here is an example: Peter, a team member an independently owned business, had failed his learning assignment miserably.  He “just didn’t have time” to carry out his plan.  Peter feels inward pressure as he faces the leader/coach when it is time to give his report.  He wants to gloss it over as if it was not important, but he feels embarrassed.

This is how his coach proceeded.  He could have delivered a lecture on commitment.  He didn’t.  He could have drawn a diagram on dedication.  He didn’t.  He didn’t address Peter’s behavior at all; he knew he didn’t need to.  Rather, the coach penetrated to the heart of the problem and of the person who had the problem, “What do you think caused it to turn out that way?”

The coach practiced what Chris Argyris calls “double-loop learning”.  The coach forced Peter to examine the root cause of his problem.  While Peter’s behavioral problem was important, the coach knew that a change wouldn’t last unless the root of the behavior was addressed.  Peter needed to discover and face the reason he avoided, ignored and otherwise side-stepped the assignment he had agreed to complete.

Chris Argyris coined terms to differentiate learning that solves immediate problems (“Single Loop Learning”) from learning that addresses the root causes of problems (“Double Loop Learning”).  As a coach who is committed to the best for your team, learn well the lesson of double-loop learning.  First time around the loop—behavior. Second time around the loop—values and attitudes that drive behavior.  Great coaches don’t stop after one lap around the loop.

Argyris observes, “Most people define learning too narrowly as mere ‘problem solving,’ so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization’s problems, and then change how they act. In particular, they must learn how the very way they go about defining and solving problems can be a source of problems in its own right” (pp. 99-100).*

The single loop tends to be the easy one. We can teach a person to modify his or her angry outbursts. But the second loop forces the person to deal with the anger that generates the outburst. The second loop is essential to solving the problem but the problems that are more difficult to address. So coaches often stop with the single loop.  Effective coaching goes twice around the loop.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

What do I want to create for my life? Think about the standard of living, the financial security, the personal experiences, the lasting accomplishments, and the life style you want to create for your life. As you consider these things, ask yourself, “Am I choosing out of my own inner strength or making decisions just to please others?”

What do I want to create with my life? Think about the people you love, the people you serve, the greater good, and your lasting legacy. Ask yourself, “Am I fulfilling my life’s purpose or avoiding a challenge I don’t want to face up to?”

What do I want to create in my life? Finally, consider the core beliefs, personal attitude, character traits, and significant relationships you want to create in your life. It’s good to ask yourself, “Am I being true to my best or building a mask to live behind?

A winning strategy for life and business does not need to be an awkward balancing act filled with tension and compromise. You can achieve a far more steady balance if you begin with your strategy for life. What do you want to create for, with, and in your life? With a clear picture in your mind and heart, set about to build the business that helps produce and support the life you want to create.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.

Persuade Others: The heart of sales is persuasion.  The most competent sales people demonstrate the highest levels of persuasion skills.  Ask your candidate to solve a sales challenge such as “sell me this pen” or solve a sales problem such as “explain why the more expensive product is better.”  Listen for the level of persuasion they demonstrate.

Level 1 – Do they point out product value to the client?  Listen for something like “I would point out that the pen is easy to handle, light weight and durable.”

Level 2 – Do they address the client’s needs and values?  Listen for something like “I noticed that the customer had big hands, so I showed him that the pen is comfortable in a big hand.”

Level 3 – Do they adapt their presentation to the client?  Listen for something like “I sensed that the customer likes to talk, so I switched to asking questions rather than presenting the pitch.”

Level 4 – Do they anticipate the response of the client?  Listen for something like “I knew he would try to poke holes in my facts, so I really did my homework before we met.”

Level 5 – Do they work through others to persuade?  Listen for something like “I introduced the customer to another client that was really sold on the product.”

Don’t Let the Pressure Push You

Hiring the right people is hard work.  Peter Drucker (the great management expert of the last sixty years) notes that investing time in clear thinking is essential for personnel decisions.  Some decisions can be made quickly, but not when it comes to placing people on your team.

Yet, many small business owners rush to hire.  Why?  Hiring interferes with the daily routine and production.  One empty hole in a small business means everyone is working harder and overall results often suffer.  The pressure to hire now is enormous.  So is the cost of a “bad hire.” Take time to do your best.

Your ability to hire the best people for your business is the most significant way to bring long term, positive change and growth to your business.  Take the time to do it right.

Copyright 2011 © Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.