Risk: Making the leap
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Free Download - How To Improve Your Team Building Success By Dianne Crampton |
Imagine yourself standing on a platform 75 feet above the ground. There is no safety net and in front of you a trapeze bar swings toward you. It’s time to leap. Do you?
- Or -
Imagine yourself reviewing your organization’s performance indicators. Your company is not doing well. Something needs to change. You have to relinquish some of your control and listen to what your employees and customers are telling you. Can they speak candidly about what is on their minds?
Both scenarios require risk.
Risk is a potential exposure to loss or injury. It creates fear of the unknown.
On the downside, fear of risk results in stagnation. This is because if people are penalized for calculated risk-taking, they become fearful of new ideas. On the upside, risk is the fuel behind change and implementing new ideas.
As a collaborative team value, the ability to take calculated and well-reasoned risks is a foundation for building an effective organization with the capacity to learn about itself, to expand and grow.
Peter Kline and Bernard Saunders, in their book, Ten Steps to a Learning Organization (1993, Great Ocean Publishers, Inc.) write about the paradigm shift that was occurring in the 1990’s and is still occurring today as the Industrial Age gives way to the Information Age. For many organizational leaders, making the shift feels like leaping to catch a trapeze. So many hesitate because they believe they will be left dangling in the air.
For one reason, with this shift a higher percentage of workers are required to make decisions on their own without management intervention. Instead of being passive extensions of production lines, their involvement and commitment is required. Accountability is expected and training in problem solving and decision making skill development is required. Many leaders resist letting go of control because they have not spent time and resources to train their employees. They are still stuck in the Industrial Age mindset, even though statistics show that a well informed leader, operating on their own information in new territory will make the correct decision less than 50% of the time. In today’s marketplace, these are not bankable odds.
For another reason, the new hope for North American businesses is their ability to draw the fullest amount of creativity and innovation from their employees. In order to do that, organizations have to supply their people with the necessary systems and tools. Kline and Saunders insist that progress towards a learning organization has to be an organizational transformation. This requires frame-breaking change where mistakes happen.
Therefore, organizations that fail to look at errors as just another step toward success lose a valuable market edge. They are not as responsive to external change -- such as the declining housing market or market competition -- as more innovative organizations.
As a result, when employees and customers are asked for their opinions, fear and denial often surface. Fear of accountability, of speaking out, of change and denial of those fears lead to paralysis and bureaucracy. Therefore, organizational fear has to be confronted on all levels from the custodian to the CEO. And, fear is directly correlated with the ability to risk.
Therefore, what behaviors damage the collaborative core value risk?
• Retaliation against people who make thoughtful decisions that result in a mistake
• Failure to clarify goals, procedures and expectations
• Criticism
• Fear of failure
• Perfectionism and over-analysis
What behaviors build risk?
• Performance feedback and coaching
• Establishing accountability and commitment at all levels of the organization
• Debriefing completed projects and developing improvement processes
• Recognizing honest mistakes are learning tools
Moderate risk-taking is a learnable skill as long as fear and threat of retaliation are absent. More importantly, risk-taking is an organizational attitude that is modeled throughout the organization, especially at the top.
Without risk being tolerated at the cultural level, many organizations penalize people for thinking. Likewise they fail to put into place the safety net that allows their organizations to make the leap. A good safety net requires structure, nurturing, minimum critical feedback and maximum constructive coaching, and encouragement for well-reasoned risk.
Risk Making the leap - To learn more about this author, visit Dianne Crampton's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is North America's leading authority on team culture. She is an author and professional speaker and president of the leading team culture consultancy, TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Crampton has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down or to subscribe to TIGES Free monthly e-newsleeter go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: Winning Business Team Cultures And Why They Thrive, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Michiel JonkerAs a Certified Information Systems Auditor, Michiel assists businesses in a professional capacity by evaluating the threats to their businesses. He acquired the necessary knowledge, skills, and techniques to minimize a business owner’s risk of business failure and to maximize his chances of high growth and success. He strongly believes that you CAN maximize your chances of business success, by implementing the business solution he has advocated for more than 12 years in your business plan and planning. Michiel has decided to share his experience with business owners by putting almost everything he knows in a business plan and survival guide (compiled in an e-book format) and written as a high growth SMB coaching course for SMB business owners, directors and managers - titled as the “Survival Kit for Small and Medium Businesses - Profit from your Business Risks!” According to Michiel, his goal was to add new techniques to a business owner’s business planning survival kit and instruct him or her in using these in the future - without any help from a consultant! For more information about the benefits of implementing profit protection planning in your business, please visit: http://www.business-around-the-globe.com - Visit Michiel Jonker's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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