ForwardFocusCoachingTip - November 2004
To get the results you envision, create a culture that encourages constructive realism.
Two Columns Template
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Coaching Tip:
To get the results you envision, create a culture that encourages constructive realism.
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| Grandiose Goals |
| "We see people saying they're going to grow 10% in an industry that's growing 2%. Most business models are not realistic. They have goals that are grandiose. Everyone wants to have ambitious goals, but they have to be grounded in reality. To the extent they're not, you'll go year after year without having them fulfilled."
-- Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan
From Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right
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A Message
from Beth & Margaret
 
When a Gift Becomes a Liability
Leaders are born with the ability to envision great things and inspire others to achieve them. But the optimism of many leaders with entrepreneurial visions can also be an Achilles heel. We often undermine our own success by failing to ground our visions in the concrete world of the here and now. Many a grand vision fails for lack of realistic feedback from those who will translate the objectives into an implementable plan of action and then carry it out.
What kind of culture have you created within your team or organization? Often visionary leaders interpret realistic assessment from their peers or employees as nay-saying. We may find ourselves chafing when asked tough questions. Idea generation is the fun part; we become bored when someone brings up the details. Over time, those who report back to us from “the front” where our grand ideas meet up with the real world feel our subtle or not-so-subtle displeasure. They learn to tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear.
This month’s coaching tip addresses the need to intentionally craft an environment that promotes realistic feedback so that grand visions can become viable organizational initiatives. As we learn to reward those who are persistent in telling us what we need to hear, we’ll see more projects completed and more objectives achieved.
If you would like to move forward to focus on this topic, we invite you to read the article in the right-hand column.
Beth Williams &
Margaret Morgan Maat
ForwardFocus
Coaching & Consulting
181 Long Hill Road, Suite 9-7
Little Falls, NJ 07424
973-785-3474
Fax: 973-256-4860
BWilliams@forwardfocusinc.com
MMaat@forwardfocusinc.com
www.forwardfocusinc.com
"Equipping People to Succeed in a Rapidly-Changing Marketplace"
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The Discipline of Constructive Realism
Is your vision exceeding the capabilities of your organization? Are the standards of excellence and bottom-line results to which you aspire achievable? Take a good hard look at your team or organization. Do you see any of the following symptoms of organizational overload or entrepreneurial “over-goaling”?
- Employees complete tasks as assigned, but not in a way that accomplishes the real objectives you have set.
- Emotional outbursts come from unexpected sources. Even the most reserved, loyal and non-emotional team members exhibit signs of burnout and stress.
- When you announce new projects or changes, team members are hesitant to dialogue about the impact on their current responsibilities. Instead, they go “right to work” (or appear to do so).
If you recognize any of the above symptoms, it’s time for you to enact a cultural change within your organization that promotes constructive realism. The people on your team who can turn visions into reality have “given up” that their feedback is valued. You have your work cut out for you to convince them otherwise. - Spend time in the line of fire. Create open lines of communication with those in your organization who form the interface between the customers and the rest of the organization. Let them know you expect them to supply a steady stream of information to you and others in the organization. Act on the information your “spies” provide and expect every person on your team to do the same. Publicly screen project ideas by asking: How will this impact our clients and our clients’ clients? Provide incentives to employees who suggest ideas that resolve client issues at their root cause.
- Create a marketing campaign within your organization for your new commitment to constructive realism. Put up visible reminders throughout the workplace and within business process documents that every decision, including yours, is to be scrutinized against three criteria: Does it serve a client need? Have we identified and allocated sufficient resources to pull it off? Does it conform to our organizational values? If necessary, stage an incident in which someone “catches” you in the act of failing to consider the impact of a decision on current resources. When confronted, back down by either scaling down the project or seeking additional resources. Show that the rules apply to you.
- Cultivate a cadre of nay-sayers upon whom you can depend to ask you difficult questions. Award recognition and other tangible rewards for those who identify problems with your ideas along with suggestions for working around or through them. Make those who are watching your backside the “winners” in your organization.
- Learn to listen without debating or fixing. Ask for feedback from all levels of the organization and then pay attention to it. Avoid the tendency to respond with a rebuttal or an inspirational restatement of the objective. Stifle the inclination to “fix” employees’ objections. Just listen. Restate what you have heard. Then go ponder it for awhile. Look for the patterns that will reveal potentially fatal flaws in your original conception.
- Periodically articulate for yourself the gap between the vision and reality. After collecting ample feedback from your team and your cadre of nay-sayers, translate the data you have collected into a set of “Reality Checks.” Write them down for future reference. Examples might include: “That idea is a good two years away from acceptance in the marketplace.” Or “That project will take twice as many resources as I can devote to it right now.”
- Demonstrate that you have listened. Take the time to report back to those who have given you a constructive, but realistic perspective on an issue. Tell them what you did about the concern or how their feedback impacted a decision you later made. Thank them for their input. Create a discipline for yourself not to go on to the next idea or project until you have completed this communication loop. Reward yourself when you are consistent about practicing this discipline.
On a recent trip to a client to conduct training, we heard employees singing the praises of their new management team. “They have made it safe to say what we really think. They listen to us. They work to find solutions to the problems we bring to their attention.” Creating a culture that holds you accountable to the constructive feedback of others is possible. And in today’s changing marketplace, it may well be the key to your business success.
If you'd like to review other ForwardFocus Coaching Tips we invite you to access the Tools section of our web site: www.forwardfocusinc.com
Copyright 2004 by ForwardFocus Coaching & Consulting
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