1. BMW Driving - (Bellyaching, Moaning and Whining) - Many people sometimes engage in BMW driving when they're feeling stressed, unrecognized, misunderstood, rejected professionally or when "dishing on common workplace "enemies. What begins as letting off a little steam or even chiming in with one's opinion regarding company direction or managerial decisions can quickly turn into a habit of post-decision editorializing. This behavior, over time, will lead others to question your buy-in, alignment, and willingness to do whatever it takes to make the plan or decision workable. At the very least, BMW drivers squander valuable resources critiquing rather than finding ways to implement with excellence.
2. Giving in to Chronic Shock Syndrome - Greeting each and every change with surprise, panic and blame. Many people still respond to change with great surprise. Even change that should be anticipated or least considered a possibility, such as a budget cut, seems to elicit a reaction of surprise, disbelief or shock. The moment of surprise is followed by anxiety or a low level of panic about how to lead forward given the new information. A common reaction is to blame others for a lack of leadership, poor decision-making or other failures. This behavior can change the value proposition of your leadership position, making you too emotionally expensive to others in challenging times.
3. Thinking Outside the Box - Consistently ignoring the constraints of the moment for the company and providing "out of the box thinking in problem-solving efforts. After having been encouraged to think "outside the box for years, you may have come to overuse this competency or use it at inappropriate times. Doing so will ensure that you come to be seen as the one with the "pie in the sky ideas or as one who's out of touch with reality. The time for thinking outside the box is during strategic planning efforts or business process re-engineering efforts. Most of the solutions we are called upon to provide on a daily basis involve finding a way forward given competing divisional priorities or resource contentions. It is vital to identify the "box, which is made up of the desired goal and the constraints currently in place such as a freeze on headcount or limited funding and to think "inside the box instead. By doing this, you will be offering real solutions that respect the very real constraints of current challenges.
4. Arguing with Reality - The average person spend two hours a day arguing with reality&an argument you will surely lose, but only 100 percent of the time. When you argue with reality, you not only waste valuable resources but also move away from the actual facts of a situation, assigning motive, making assumptions and manufacturing a future. In this new mental "story you often paint yourself as a helpless victim at the mercy of a villain. Adopting such an antidotal view of your world will lead to ineffective decision-making and missed opportunity. Learn instead to be a lover of reality, greeting each new piece of information with a welcoming attitude of, "Good to know. Conserve your precious energy used in the past to argue with reality and use it instead to innovate and to problem-solve. Work to impact reality by quickly sizing up the new situation and moving on by asking yourself, "What is the next right action I could take that would add the most value to the situation?
5. Personalizing Feedback - The inability to truly hear and absorb feedback is a definite career staller. Feedback is the main avenue toward growth. When you are first hearing of a development need, you may go through some predictable stages. In the beginning, you are clueless, not having been aware you had this particular weakness. Then you may begin to move into awareness by being able to see that, indeed, another person believes you have this development need, an issue of their perception. As you move along the path of awareness you being to see that you may, in fact, have a development need and eventually find the motivation to change. Finally, you work to adapt and then to build the behavior change into your everyday life - reaping the benefits of this change. Commit to responding to feedback (from both people and situations) with openness and willingness for it to be true and or possible. Once you are at a point of gratitude for the feedback whether completely true for you or not, you are in the growth zone.
6. Offering Your Opinion - Many people in the workplace still believe that the most value you can add is with your opinion, when, in fact, in challenging times, the most value you can add to a situation is to use your expertise and talent to implement with excellence. In today's world, action and great execution adds far more value than editorializing about the merits of a decision. Your opinion may be important, but only prior to the decision being made and only if you have expertise in the content area or the impact, placing you in the role of a "consultant or "decision maker. If the decision has already been made, the greatest value that you can add is to use your expertise to "make it work. This will put you in the best situation possible to become a "credible witness who can provide feedback on ways to continue to improve the outcomes such as how to be more efficient and more effective in the execution of the decision.
7. Confusing Resistance and Feedback - Value-added professionals give feedback and fight the urge to resist. Resistance is providing your opinion after the decision has been made, seeking to change the decision itself. It's the investment of your resources to overturn or influence the decision based upon the assumption that buy-in is optional. But in today's fast operating tempo in most organizations, the highest return on the investment of your expertise is on "action not "opinion. It's vital to use your expertise to make the decision work.
Feedback is based upon a willingness to support the decision and focuses on ways in which you can ensure that the decision will be implemented with excellence. The best feedback is not focused on whether or not the decision made was a great one or the right one. Great feedback focuses on the risks presented by the decision and uses your expertise to identify risks, assess impact and probability of risks, and advise on the mitigation strategies that would best work.
8. Working Harder to Be Right Than to Be Happy - Would you rather be right or happy? To be right means that you ensure that others see you as competent, correct and approve of you and your work. To be happy means to have achieved the goals at hand and to enjoy the results of your effort. Too many times, you may abandon the organizational goals in order to achieve your own motives. You may put your effort into proving that you are right, should be appreciated, and need to be more highly valued than you believe you are. When you operate out of motive, your behavior deteriorates quickly. Ask yourself, "Can those around me identify my goals by witnessing my behavior? Pray that you may be released from your need for love, approval and appreciation. Without those motives, you can lead others to achieve the goals at hand.
9. Focusing on the Unwilling - The average manager spends 80 hours each year on a single person in a chronic state of resistance. The average return on this hefty investment? At the most, 3 percent of the resistant professionals move out of resistance and work to champion and support the change effort. Think about the employees you supervise or work with that occupy a majority of your focus and thoughts. They are probably the most resistant in your group. What a waste of time and energy!
The best use of time, energy and resources is to work with the willing. Eventually those lagging behind will sign up or move out of the organization either by choice or by behavior.
10. Reporting the News Rather Than Making the News - It's easy to report the news, update the team on the challenges at hand and make doomsday predictions about the future. Assessing the situation in the past tense and critiquing others' responses to the circumstances is easy - but not effective. What great leaders offer that sets them apart from their colleagues is that they work instead to solve problems. Conserve your energy to innovate and provide workable solutions.
Cynthia "Cy Wakeman is a dynamic keynote speaker, workshop facilitator and trainer who provides real solutions to individuals and organizations looking to recreate their mindsets so they can achieve amazing results. For more information, please visit www.cywakeman.com.
