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Permission to Succeed

Written by: Geoff Flemming

Article Overview: Our people know how to 'maintain' but are often never taught to win. Create maximum performance by creating an environment whereby high performance is the standard

Permission to Succeed

It seems so simple that people should just know what to do! That was the way it used to be. Some years ago there was an expectation that our people could be told what to do and it was just happen.
So what happened! It really is very different these days. Managers struggle with constant repetition and the endless pursuit to get people to do the right thing.
But this is where the simple art of coaching [great leaders are great coaches!] comes in. Generation Y's have a greater need for balance and their priorities are quite different to other generations. The important facets that sustain maximum performance now are the creation of a community, engaging and coaching staff rather than directing, and ensuring that our people are actively involved in the vision and direction of our organisation.
And our people need to know what good performance looks like! Ken Blanchard, author of the still best selling One Minute Manager said many years ago that most people don't know what good performance looks like! What is it that indicates we are making headway in a clear and unambiguous way?
The team needs a scoreboard! They need to be able to celebrate wins based upon success through good performance. An environment that celebrates wins and emphasises good performance through a self managed scoreboard is one in which teams will take ownership and be self accountable!
Having said that what precedes this is an environment created by the leader that sets the scene for growth through high performance. This is when the leader creates trust and gains credibility with his team - whereby the stage is set. Credibility comes through character and competence:
Integrity - Being congruent inside and out. It is having the courage to act in accordance with our values and beliefs. Violations of trust are violations of integrity.
Intent - Our behaviour is a result of our motives and agendas. Trust grows as our motives are clear, straightforward and based upon mutual benefit. Hidden agendas break trust!
Capabilities - The abilities we have that inspire confidence - talent, attitude, skills and knowledge. More importantly it relates to our ability to establish, grow, extend and restore trust.
Results - Simply our track record of performance and getting things done. If we do not achieve what we are expected to do it destroys our credibility.
John Maxwell puts it succinctly when he says that leaders have to be genuine and that followers want to believe in and trust their leaders. When leaders break promises and fail to honour commitments they reveal themselves as inauthentic, and lose credibility.
Trust rests upon a foundation of authenticity. To gain trust a leader must consistently align words and deeds, while showing a very high degree of transparency.
So consistent high performance needs a solid foundation. With strong leadership and an environment whereby performance is clearly measurable, and emphasises recognition and reward for performance, the environment becomes conducive to greatness, success and massive growth - in good times and bad!

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Article Tags: Business Coaching, Crucial Conversations, high performance, high performance teams, leadership training, maximum performance, motivation



Related Forum Posts
Re: My 3 best business books - 1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey 3. Permission Marketing - Seth Godin Think and Grow Rich seems more powerful each time I read it or dip into it. The 7 Habits not only offers some very effective ways to organize your life (which I have yet to master!), but also some great quotations and thought provoking statements including this by Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl: [i:2naxzsom]Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.[/i:2naxzsom] Seth Godin's Permission Marketing is a good read for anybody seeking to understand how to approach doing business on the Internet in the right way with regard to winning people's trust.
Re: Hello From Marietta GA! - Hi Tim, Welcome to the forum! I see you are into martial arts and a Seth Godin fan. My favourite Seth book is "Permission Marketing". Which martial arts do you practise? David
Re: pitching - Friendliness is closely related to the concept of "permission marketing" as articulated by Seth Godin. The subtitle of his book says it all: "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers." The old method was "interruption marketing" where you suddenly get an ad in your face whether you want it or not...
Re: Books for Business Owners - Hi DougSchadle, Thanks for sharing your favorite business book with us! A good book I'm reading now is "Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed" by Brian Tracy as it was a birthday gift from a friend. Tracy's book is helpful in identifying what's important in your life and then setting an action plan to achieve it.
Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.


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