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Transforming Performance by Improving Thinking.

Written by: Geoff Flemming

Article Overview: Great leaders get the people to become leaders themselves by getting them to be great thinkers and problem solvers.

Transforming Performance by Improving Thinking.

During this first quarter 0f 2008 I have been meeting with and talking with numerous heads of human resources and organisational training and development people in companies of various industries. The common interest in all these people was not only how do we improve the performance of our key people but how do we get them to change and improve their leadership and communication skills.
It was during a recent talk at an institute meeting on Leadership to a room full of senior executives from the engineering, construction and resource industries that I had one of those “aha” moments.
This group was keen to learn more about how to improve their management and leadership skills as they were now in senior leadership positions having come through technical roles.
You see I also come from this technical background so I could appreciate why they were really struggling with some of the concepts that just were not around 10 years ago.
People with MBA’s, engineering, technical and finance type degrees and backgrounds, are often (not always) logical and analytical thinkers that enjoy delving down into problems. And here in lies the dilemma. When analysing and trying to changes processes or systems, an analytical and problem-focused approach is very useful. But when trying to change people, something else is needed.
Their standard practices for improving performances involve techniques that are largely ineffective: giving advice (telling), solving their problems, or trying to work out what they are thinking. It is best to give up trying to second guess what people need and focus on helping others think for themselves. The best way to do that is by defining solutions rather than problems. And helping others gain new thinking habits.
Pivotal to all this is enabling others to have their own insights. Once people have had new insights for themselves, the leaders role is provide the encouragement, ongoing support and belief in the person, over time, so they develop this new habit. Then we will truly bring out the best in others.
Now this may sound obvious that to improve people’s performance we need to focus their thinking on solutions, rather than problems. It is surprising how little people do this in practice. When dealing with such groups, and hundreds of other such instances, somehow people always go straight to the problems.
Focusing on problems leads us to the past. This is also where many of beliefs we hold to be true are false, so we are merely reinforcing those beliefs when we put our attention there. It forces us to try and change what cannot be changed. This can also lead to blame, excuses and justification. It is slow, and drains valuable mental energy.
Focusing on solutions, however, immediately creates energy in our minds. It opens up ideas and possibilities. If we want people to come up with great ideas, to think well, to reach their potential as employees, we want them focused on solutions most of the time.
The fastest way to transform performance, particularly with intelligent, high functioning people, is to get them to ask about solutions. It sounds so simple but it is extremely rare in the workplace. So a person in a leadership position should be disciplined in getting their people to focus their thinking on solutions. This can be the difference between asking “Why did this happen”, and “What shall we do about this?” It is a choice. It is a discipline, a mental habit we either have or can develop.
Getting people to think for themselves and be solution focused can be a stretch for a lot of people. Leaders understand that their job involves taking people beyond their current comfort zones, so they learn to be comfortable with making people uncomfortable. Change is a stretch and bringing about change is not easy as it requires stretching.
Change can bring on strong emotions. There are two main things to be aware of here. First is to be aware that people often give up when they try something new, so it helps to let them know their frustration is normal. Second, given all the fear and uncertainty in creating any new change, providing lots of encouragement and accentuating the positive is a big help.

In many organisations there is a leadership crisis, a lack of the right talent to fill key positions at mid and senior levels. As leaders go through the process of moving from managing oneself to managing others, they need to change the way they think, yet organisations have scant internal resources allocated to helping key people go through this change. They need to instil in their leaders and managers the ability to transform performance by improving thinking.
Thinking is what many key employees are paid to do. Many employees are highly capable individuals who will thrive on this approach. They want to work smarter; they want to be smarter and are crying out for help. I witnessed this again first hand in that room full of senior executives grappling with the change from becoming managers to becoming leaders.

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Article Tags: Business Coaching, Crucial Conversations, great leaders, high performance teams motivation, leadership training, problem solvers



Related Forum Posts
ARTICLE: Performance coaching in the workplace - To create lasting performance change it is necessary to first understand the positive and negative influence that a person’s personal behaviors has on their execution and what impact these have on their ability to achieve success. Only when we fully understand a person’s behavioral patterns and create positive self-managing coaching strategies can we assist a person to create lasting performance change. The vast majority of employers believe coaching can deliver significant benefits to both individuals and organizations. The majority of employers plan to increase the use of coaching over the next few years, according to a new survey by the Institute of Personnel and Development. Nearly nine out of ten interviewed companies expect their managers and supervisors to deliver performance coaching as part of their day-to-day work. In another large industry-wide study it was found that most managers reported that they were confident in their ability to coach. However, the study also showed that the managers’ actual skills levels as coaches were typically poor. As a consequence they were not nearly as effective in their coaching as they believe themselves to be. Often times, they believed that coaching consisted of just providing 1-to-1 instructional feedback to their staff members on what to do in a given situation to perform better. Many recent studies have shown that technical skills only represent at best 20% of the contribution into our performance. The remaining 80% comes from our ability to choose or make a decision, assertiveness, commitment to grow, ability to concentrate, honesty, optimism, persistence, ability to perform well under stress and so on. These traits are commonly called our soft skills or attitude. Few managers understand just how deeply rooted their own behavior patterns are, let alone how to positively change them in other people. Performance coaching is frequently confused with other types of coaching, such as Executive coaching and Life coaching. Performance coaching is a form of Directive coaching. Executive coaching and Life coaching are both forms of Non-directive coaching. Directive coaching is usually more suitable for a manager who sometimes acts as a coach. Performance coaching in the workplace has developed immensely from what it was only 4 years ago. To choose the right coach will make a huge difference. You also better make sure to know what you want. If your coach knows what (s)he is doing – you will get on your way to get it! [i:38tu5pgr]- Peter J Karlsson[/i:38tu5pgr]
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
Hiring introverts vs. extroverts - Hi Kevin - interesting topic! Thinking back over my career as an entrepreneur and the people I've brought on, most of them have been introverts. The exception usually comes with the sales function (but not always). It's generally hard to be a good salesperson if you are an introvert.
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vision Values Mission Strategic Thinking Decision Making Communication Team Bonding People Development Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming Presentation Thanks Robert
Re: Getting ready to sell by childhood baseball card collection. - Sounds like we're in a similar situation Mal. For me it just got to a point where I realized if I took my top 20 or 30 cards that meant the most to me I could actually display them and cherish them instead of keeping them in boxes with all the others. Plus I knew others could benefit and get new happiness from the other cards. Thinking about those 2 points made it a lot easier to part with them.


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