Tag Archives: Intervention

THE SINGLE BIGGEST FACTOR IN LONG-TERM ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS

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The Single Biggest Factor in Long-Term Organizational Success

“What ultimately constrains the performance of your organization is not its business model, nor its operating model, but its management model.” (The Future of Management, Gary Hamel)

Factors of organizational success:

Jim Collins says the key factors for success include:

  1. Getting the right people on the bus
  2. Getting the right people in the right seats.
  3. Getting the wrong people off the bus.
  4. Level 5 leadership – Humble leaders with indomitable will. (Good to Great)

Managers:

“Gallup finds that the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success.” (It’s the Manager)

Organizations ask, “How do managers get more out of people?”

“Ironically, the management model encapsulated in this question virtually guarantees that a company will never get the best out of its people. Vassals and conscripts may work hard, but they don’t work willingly.” Gary Hamel

Boss to coach:

The BEST managers are coaches, not bosses. Jim Clifton and Jim Harter say there are three requirements of coaching.

  1. Establish expectations.
  2. Continually coach.
  3. Create accountability.

3 tips for shifting from boss to coach:

#1. Understand the dance between freedom and intervention.

Give high performers freedom. Intervene when performance lags.

Intervention isn’t oppression or punishment. It might mean weekly one-on-ones, instead of monthly.

#2. Overcome the most difficult shift.

Solving problems for talented people devalues their talent. Over-helpfulness sucks the life out of talented people. Stop giving quick answers.

Coaches help people find their own answers. The old style of management, when people were tools, is to give them answers and expect conformity.

#3. Practice accountability that energizes people.

Accountability that energizes is self-imposed. We need to rise above the false notion that we can force people into high performance.

Noticing is healthy accountability. Walk around noticing performance as it relates to expectation.

Work that isn’t noticed goes down in value.

What factors enhance long-term organizational success?

How might managers bring out the best in people?

 

 

PIGS DON’T LAY EGGS BUT LEADERSHIP IS INTERVENTION

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Pigs Don’t Lay Eggs but Leadership is Intervention

Apart from intervention, the past is the future. Past performance reflects future accomplishment. Past attitudes predict future interactions.

Leadership is intervention.

Intervention is:

Disruption…Interruption…Interference.

Intervention is making failure less likely and success more probable.

Intervention is elevating good to great.

Interventions:

Place an obstacle in the path of repeated failure. Establish rigid reporting procedures to monitor progress, for example. Use this as a temporary measure, not a long-term strategy.

Disrupt thinking by reflecting on past performance with the future in mind.

  1. What would you do differently next time?
  2. When did this project begin to flounder? What did you do?
  3. Imagine yourself acting differently, what do you see yourself doing? How might you do that next time?

Make failure uncomfortable – when it’s a pattern – unless you want more of it.

Not intervention:

#1. Passive acceptance isn’t intervention. Acceptance is the beginning of successful intervention, but acceptance alone is endorsement.

Apart from acceptance, intervention is offense, but lack of intervention ratifies failure.

#2. Frustration isn’t intervention. Address the roots of frustration or frustrations escalate. Soothing anger without solving the cause opens the door to future anger.

Appeasement is approval.

#3. Optimism isn’t intervention until it inspires action.

#4. Second chances aren’t interventions. Second chances only work when first chances are learning experiences.

Nagging frustrations indicate lack of learning. Second chances won’t help.

Three considerations:

Pigs don’t lay eggs, but there’s always room for growth. It’s futile to expect people to be something they’re not. If you have a team of pigs, fall in love with bacon.

Throw sand in the gears. Make failure uncomfortable. Establish a point where negative consequences kick in. Remove responsibilities, for example.

Intervention might include doing less, if you’re inclined to quickly offer help. Instead of offering solutions, ask what they would like to try.

How might leaders intervene when failure is a pattern?

What does intervention look like when things are going well?