Blog Category: Jan’s Corner

Beginning of the year is a time of hope and excitement. Not just in our personal lives. Businesses and teams get inspired and energised by the year’s goals and visions too.

Yet as we may painfully discover, great visions may fall short not because we didn’t dream enough or strive enough but because accomplishing a lofty vision requires a change of our conduct, an upgrade in how we think, interact and operate on a daily basis. For a grand vision to be feasible we need to raise our standards – individually and collectively.

For an aspiring olympic athlete, high standards means a regular focused practice and meticulous approach to nutrition, regular mental training and enough time for recovery. It means having the vision in mind and translating it into productive daily habits that best support its accomplishment. It means saying no to things that may be attractive and comfortable in the moment but detrimental in the longer run.

Dan Gable, legendary U.S. wrestler and 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist, named “Sports Figure of the Century”, emphasises the importance of high standards for high achievement. He states that “I’m a big believer in starting with high standards and raising them. We make progress only when we push ourselves to the highest level. If we don’t progress, we backslide into bad habits, laziness and poor attitude.”

Pushing ourselves to highest level does not necessary mean we need to work harder. It means working smarter and more deliberately with the end in mind but feet on the ground and running – like Dan Gables indicated, not tolerating distractions, bad habits, laziness and poor attitude that limit our progress and spoil the journey towards our aspirations. Often times raising standard actually means doing less by focusing on what makes the biggest difference.

Raising our team standards need not take long, nor be complicated. For instance, agree to come to meetings on time and prepared. To bring constructive mindset and language to problems and disagreements. To listen inquisitively before advocating our own view. To threat colleagues with respect. To stop complaining and giving reasons, and take responsibility for the produced results – yours and the team’s. To plan in advance and then test and measure your progress and learn incrementally from both successes and missteps.

If you care about high performance and accomplishment of your shared vision for this year, I’d encourage you to sit down as a team and openly begin discussing where you can raise your standards to reflect your higher aspirations. Start simple. You may discover some obvious rules, routines or behaviours that might be small to make but can go a long way.

Be specific. Explore both what you can start doing to raise your standard and what you need to stop doing or stop tolerating because it constrains you or does not serve you anymore at this level of your game.

Raising the standard of how your team and your business operate is like upgrading from a three-star inn to a five-star hotel. It takes some commitment. However, soon you notice that at almost the same effort you create very different results and experience.

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The end of the year is in business traditionally associated with both looking back and planning the next year. Normally, we approach the business plan for the next year as an extension of the previous year. If we feel pressed or optimistic, we budget in an incremental percentage increase. We feel really bold and daring when the percentage is in lower double digits.

What if we could approach next year differently this time? In a radical fashion. One that could mobilise us and awaken the latent potential in the business.

A radical approach starts with a radically different question. Rather than asking about what can we accomplish or improve next year, ask what if it was possible to double our business or team performance? Yes, to double productivity, sales, profit or whatever is the key performance indicator for you. Or whatever has been the biggest challenge in the past.

The magic that opens up from entertaining such a question should not be underestimated. An interesting phenomenon occurs when we acknowledge that something radical is possible. We begin to search, to look intensely for ways to find out, even if we don’t know how exactly in the moment. It opens a space for us to boost our collective creativity and collaboration in areas that remained unexplored before. Also old assumptions and ways of thinking and operating will surface and be up for a challenge and upgrade.

Jack Welsh, former CEO of General Electric, used to lead his executives to set two types of goals for themselves and their business units – a base goal and a stretched goal. The base goals were the minimum that had to be accomplished for the business to perform at a level, to stay competitive and profitable. Stretched goals were designed to target the bold ambitions and bring the best out people to on the way to accomplish them. One thing was obvious, if one wholeheartedly pursued the stretched goals, the accomplishment of the base goal was virtually guaranteed. So there was no pressure just the opportunity to stretch, to expand one’s capacity and discover the hidden potential. No wonder GE was growing in spectacular fashion for several decades.

You can capture the same untapped resources and creative energy whether you are part of a small or an international corporation.

Just consider the following questions as an example:

:: What if we could attract double the customers in half the time next year? Would we be willing to explore that? And plan for it?

:: What if we could spend just a third of the time in meetings while accomplishing more every single time we meet? Would you be willing to challenge how we think about and run meetings? And change the way we go about them?

:: What if we could double our profitability while working less and having more fun and fulfilment at what we do everyday? How would need to interact and approach each problem and opportunity? And what kind of work environment we need to create and sustain?

Often, what limits us most are not the realities of the outside world but the questions we don’t ask and the assumptions we don’t question – individually and collectively.

I wish you a radically better 2013, not because you should or have to, but because if you play you might as well play big. You might be surprised that it actually takes less time and effort and is far more rewarding whether you actually achieve your aspirations or not.

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In my conversations with both executives and business owners we often dialogue about the best way to motivate their employees – to get the best out of them and to sustain their performance.

I am aware of the complexity of the issue as well as the long list of theories and methods that claim to have the found the right key to motivation. An off-the-shelf solutions to this “motivation challenge” is as rare as is a one-size-fits-all pair of jeans.

Research – and common sense – shows that money while important (for survival and the feeling of a fair value exchange) is not the only and neither the major motivating factor.

In any case, when considering motivation it helps to remember that above managers, workers and dare I say consumers, we are all humans – even with our business hats on.

As humans what will motivate us and allows us to sustain performing in the right environment – both tangible and intangible. We need autonomy, acceptance, acknowledgment, belonging, variety, and security as much as suitable space and timing to work at our best. Creating and maintaining an environment that allows for these needs to be met at the workplace makes both human and business sense. This is no big news.

Many companies, including Google, General Mills, Zappos and Disney have gone the extra mile to come up with creative solutions to make coming to work and working fulfilling and fun and thus easier to innovate, more natural to collaborate and more sustainable to perform at a high standard.

Obviously different people put different weight on each of these aspects. So it makes sense to know who is in your company and in your team and what makes them tick.

In my practice apart from profiling what I found useful is to explore these 2 simple questions:

1. When, where and with whom do you enjoy working most?
2. How do you know you have done a really good job?

You can explore these questions with everyone in your team as well as ask the questions yourself. I found that with a bit of curiosity and respect you can get under the surface of what makes people around you tick and click – what excites and rewards them – in a short time and without a big budget. Then all you need is a little willingness to make (often minor) adjustment in where, when and how we work and interact.

And just one more thing. Motivating conditions are great but inspiring context is magical. Unlike motivation, inspiration comes from inside out and is typically liked with our human need to grow and to contribute to others.

When we create and maintain an environment where people can grow and develop and where they find opportunities to meaningfully contribute to something larger that they care about concerns about motivation will often disappear or become secondary. People will be much more occupied by questions such as “What are we really up for?” and “How can we play our best game?”.

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