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Ten-year CEO studies conducted by a team of psychologists, economists, statisticians, and data scientists don't come along every day. Anyway, when such studies are reported, take notice--I did, and here's what I discovered.
It turns out that being decisive is more important than you ever imagined for unlocking peak performance.
The team behind the aforementioned ground-breaking study made this important distinction, however, as detailed in the most recent Harvard Business Review:
We discovered high-performing CEO's do not stand out for making great decisions all the time; rather, they stand out for being more decisive. They make decisions earlier, faster, and with greater conviction. They do so consistently, even amid ambiguity, with incomplete information, and in unfamiliar domains.
This makes sense, especially when you consider how indecision paralyzes an organization. It creates doubt, uncertainty, lack of focus, and even resentment.
Don't be that guy/girl. Here's how to be more decisive.
1. Meter your emotions.
Emotions can get in the way of making a decision, causing us to gloss over facts right in front of us or creating a desperate search for information to support the decision we really want to make.
2. Step back and evaluate the true impact of a wrong decision.
Fear of making an incorrect decision can paralyze us. At such times, it's helpful to step back and ask, "What's the worst thing that could happen in the long run if this decision turns out to be wrong?" Odds are, consequences aren't that dire after all.
3. Consider the risks/costs of not doing something.
Being aware on this front will make you think twice before deciding not to decide.
4. Act with self-assurance.
Self-doubt or worrying about what others expect you to decide can cripple a decision in progress.
5. Rediscover the plot.
Sometimes just stepping back and getting some distance from a problem and refreshing yourself on the objective or relative importance of a pending decision can be tremendously helpful.
6. Don't vacillate in a vacuum; step back and seek advice.
Indecision can arise from the constant rehashing of the same set of data, input, or experiences. So get exposure to new perspective from other stakeholders or from someone not as close to the decision.
7. Set time-bound parameters for making the call.
It's only natural for us to take as much time as we can to decide something.
8. Sharp discussions net sharp decisions.
As a deciding manager, you need to be prepared to run a disciplined and pointed meeting that drives toward a decision by asking the right questions, controlling the discussion flow, reining others in when necessary, and expanding discussion where appropriate to get all the information, options, and points of view out on the table.
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Most organizations have employees who are solid performers; fewer organizations are astute—or lucky—enough to have superstars. So how can you ensure that your organization gets the most out of those superstars?
High-potential performers (or Hi-Pos) stand out due to their associative thinking skills—which help solve problems and drive innovation—their strong emotional awareness, and their incredible perseverance. When your team lands a superstar-in-the-making, nurturing these traits is critical if you want that superstar to flourish. And tailoring a career plan gives high-flyers challenge enough to stick around.
Encourage Associative Thinking
One of the calling cards of valuable employees is the ability to innovate. But not everyone is automatically inclined to blue-sky thinking. Encouraging associative thinking—making connections between seemingly disparate ideas—can spur high-potential employees to become more creative and innovation-minded.
Grow Awareness
Cast advocates a healthy dose of career self-reflection for all employees, and those with high potential are no exception. Encourage them to consider: “What can impede your progress? What about you—we all have these things, because we’re humans—could hurt you? Where do you have weaknesses that could derail you? If you don’t want to come clean with me, at least come clean with yourself—talk to your friends, mentors, and colleagues to get a better understanding.”
Cast also suggests that employees look beyond their own intuition for skill gaps and other blind spots by utilizing 360 feedback. Putting a mirror up in front of people can help them recognize weaknesses, triggers, and gaps that may be impeding self-regulation and performance.
Motivate, Motivate, Motivate
Employees with the grit and perseverance to keep answering the bell after getting knocked down will go far. But toughness is difficult to instill in people. It is most often a complicated, very individual drive.
As you might expect, it is also crucial to make high potentials feel like they are improving their skills and working on projects with value. Just don’t assume you know what counts as “self-improvement” or what motivates employees. You have to ask them.
“I always lead with their passion of interests and motives,” Cast says, “and then secondly, have them define areas where they have effortless ability or strong talents. So I like to start with passion and talents. Then, together, we can move on to how to apply it through projects, assignments, and other developmental activities. But I’ve found it’s key to ask them! Take nothing for granted and let them lead the conversation.”
Follow Through
You have invested in your superstars’ success. You’ve increased their learning agility and strengthened their emotional awareness. You have helped them to find their own passion and collaborated on a plan to keep them engaged and progressing. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot—if you leave the plan to chance.
Whatever you do, “don’t overcommit upfront and offer something you can’t deliver on,” says Cast. “Find a couple things you can do to help them, and then a couple more. Of course, superstars may leave a company anyway. But the chances are much better that they will stick around to realize their potential if they see that they are valued. “One, they’re going to be excited about the challenges, and two, they’re going to feel this affiliation towards you and towards the company for investing in them,” Cast says.
He likes to tell a story about one particular high-potential employee under his wing.
“I said, ‘You’re not going to leave here, because the opportunities we’re going to give you are going to be so phenomenal that you’re just not going to think of leaving.’ He laughed and said, ‘We’ll see.’ Seven years later, when I left the company, he was still working there.”
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No matter how flat your organization is there will always be a vertical component. Front-line employees don’t have the same functional responsibilities as managers, who in turn don’t have the same functional responsibilities as executives. This is true in every organization, and it gives healthy boundaries as well as manages expectations.
These three groups – Executives, Managers, Individuals – have very different functional responsibilities and engagement fits very nicely into them. Just like you wouldn’t expect an individual to develop a 5-year strategy plan for the organization instead of an executive, there are aspects to engagement that should be assigned to the proper functional group.
If each of these groups assumes 3 areas of responsibility each to facilitate engagement, an organization will thrive.
Executives:
This group sets the tone of the organization.
- Trust – Executives must trust others as well as prove themselves trustworthy. This is true for everyone, but no other group wields as much influence as the executive team.
- Communication – The moment your organization views you in an ivory tower, your engagement will suffer.
- Culture – You can’t create culture, you can merely facilitate it through the context your leadership creates. You can’t just talk about your culture, your actions must provide stories that reinforce the culture you want and need to be a successful organization.
Managers:
Managers are in a unique position to be both accountable to the Executives as well as the Individuals. 21st century management demands social skills.
- Coaching – Learning how to help people discover ways to meet organizational goals through the pursuit of meeting their own goals is a crucial skill for this group.
- Relationships – Relationships are what make things function. Navigating at arm’s length just doesn’t produce the necessary results.
- Dialogue – It’s pretty tough to have a healthy relationship without good communication. Dialogue is a key element to communication. Notice it is dialogue and not monologue. Rank, title or position is not an indicator of the quality of your solutions/ideas.
Individuals:
Strategies are worthless unless there are people making them work. Targets and goals are abstract wishes without individuals taking the effort to reach them.
- Ownership – True ownership in that the individual gets what needs to be done, recognizes how their role has meaning and purpose and chooses to be responsible for that. That is engagement in its purest form.
- Clarity – It’s pretty tough to engage in anything if you’re not entirely certain of what it is.
- Action - Discussion is great, but at some point you have to do something. Just like it is easier to steer a moving car, it is easier to engage in something if you’re at least putting some effort into it and taking action.
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The ability to focus is an important driver of excellence. Focused techniques such as to-do lists, timetables, and calendar reminders all help people to stay on task. Yet as helpful as focus can be, there’s also a downside to focus as it is commonly viewed.
The problem is that excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your energy and make you lose self-control. This energy drain can also make you more impulsive and less helpful. As a result, decisions are poorly thought-out, and you become less collaborative.
So what do we do then? Focus or unfocus?
In keeping with recent research, both focus and unfocus are vital. The brain operates optimally when it toggles between focus and unfocus, allowing you to develop resilience, enhance creativity, and make better decisions too.
When you unfocus, you engage a brain circuit called the “default mode network.” Abbreviated as the DMN, we used to think of this circuit as the Do Mostly Nothing circuit because it only came on when you stopped focusing effortfully. Yet, when “at rest”, this circuit uses 20% of the body’s energy (compared to the comparatively small 5% that any effort will require).
The DMN needs this energy because it is doing anything but resting. Under the brain’s conscious radar, it activates old memories, goes back and forth between the past, present, and future, and recombines different ideas. Using this new and previously inaccessible data, you develop enhanced self-awareness and a sense of personal relevance. And you can imagine creative solutions or predict the future, thereby leading to better decision-making too. The DMN also helps you tune into other people’s thinking, thereby improving team understanding and cohesion.
There are many simple and effective ways to activate this circuit in the course of a day.
- Using positive constructive daydreaming (PCD): PCD is a type of mind-wandering different from slipping into a daydream or guiltily rehashing worries. To start PCD, you choose a low-key activity such as knitting, gardening or casual reading, then wander into the recesses of your mind. But unlike slipping into a daydream or guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, you might first imagine something playful and wishful—like running through the woods, or lying on a yacht. Then you swivel your attention from the external world to the internal space of your mind with this image in mind while still doing the low-key activity.
- Taking a nap: In addition to building in time for PCD, leaders can also consider authorized napping. Not all naps are the same. When your brain is in a slump, your clarity and creativity are compromised. After a 10-minute nap, studies show that you become much clearer and more alert. But if it’s a creative task you have in front of you, you will likely need a full 90 minutes for more complete brain refreshing.
- Pretending to be someone else: When you’re stuck in a creative process, unfocus may also come to the rescue when you embody and live out an entirely different personality. When in a creative deadlock, try this exercise of embodying a different identity. It will likely get you out of your own head, and allow you to think from another person’s perspective.
For years, focus has been the venerated ability amongst all abilities. Since we spend 46.9% of our days with our minds wandering away from a task at hand, we crave the ability to keep it fixed and on task. Unfocus will allow us to update information in the brain, giving us access to deeper parts of ourselves and enhancing our agility, creativity and decision-making too.
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