Often times, people struggle with how to best improve the overall health of their team, company, career, or personal relationships. Leaders may wonder, “Which of our broken process do I fix first?” or “Which of the 10,000 training programs do I invest in?” An individual may be stumped about how to proceed with their career development: “I know I want something more from my job but I don’t know what. Where do I start?”
There are a number of remedies and tools out there: workshops, assessments, consultants, coaches, and for some, counselors or more alternative advisors. Deciding among remedies can cause you to want to sweep the problem under the rug – yet again.
We think it is helpful to take a step back, look at the situation more holistically, and see what needs to be attended to first.
We propose diagnosing your team, your personal effectiveness, your career, your marriage – whatever you are willing to take on – and selecting appropriate treatment just as you would with one of your most important assets: your health.
You start with triage – ensuring that the critical life giving elements are handled. Then move to manage pain and symptoms, with the aim of creating long term optimal health in the process. Let’s take a look.
1) Triage
It’s very difficult to achieve incredible (or even mediocre results) when you are bleeding or barely breathing. You must first attend to whatever it is that is squeezing the life out of your team, job, or relationship. It’s not the problem, per se, but the degree of severity that lands it in this category. Look for the gushing arteries. Is your attrition rate on your team through the roof? Are clients fleeing to the competition? Did you just launch your version of New Coke? Do your kids lock themselves in your room when you get home from work?
So, how do you figure out if you have a paper cut or a life-threatening injury? In some cases you may need to pay an outside firm or coach to run an analysis, or you could try asking some simple questions of yourself and your team such as:
What is it about working here that:
- Has you running screaming from your team meetings?
- Has you updating your resume or searching for a career coach?
- Has your spouse rolling his/her eyes and wearing ear plugs when you talk about your team/job?
- Has you moving your therapist to speed dial?
If you think we’re being too silly with some of these questions, think again. Research shows that you will often have more success breaching an ugly topic if you make light of it. But don’t expect real answers unless your team has high levels of trust. If that isn’t the case try:
- Curiosity: Ask “What do you see as the most significant, underlying reason for the challenges we face?”
- Silence: give them time to think. Then thank the first person who speaks and say “What else?”
- Offer your own painfully honest answer: (as long as it’s not cruel to any person on the team). You might start by naming the thing that everyone knows but no one feels safe naming.
- Start creating a safe environment: Apologize for your past poor behavior and commit to changing. Then, stop punishing people who express negativity. Instead, thank them for their courage, publicly if possible, and ask them what else they would like to share.
If you find out you have such an injury, take steps to fix it. Now. Recall the product. Confront the toxic boss. Apologize. Hire a new therapist. And if fixing it is not in your control, involve people in finding an interim solution until the problem is fixed. The goal here is to survive…in tact.
2) Managing Pain and Symptoms
Most teams and companies find they have problems in this level at some point. The goal should be to find the remedy that will relieve the most painful symptoms. Again, involving others in robust, real conversations in an atmosphere of trust will garner the best information.
- What makes it difficult to get things done?
- What frustrates you the most about working here?
- What one thing could we change to improve our effectiveness?
- What does our competition know that we don’t?
- If you were in charge and had complete control, what would you change?
- What is one thing I would change that would make my job less stressful?
- What is the situation that triggers unproductive conversation most frequently and how do we shift that?
3) Creating Optimal Health
While managing your symptoms, you can work toward optimal health. In business, this means going from good to brilliant. The answers are within the system, it just takes drawing them out with good questions, listening skills, and an environment of trust.
- • How could we be having more fun?
- • What’s going well? How could we make better?
- • If you were in charge, what improvement or change would you make?
- • How could we delight our clients?
- • How could we delight our employees?
- • What change could we make that would cause you to take your resume off the job boards for good?
- • What change could we make that would have you recommending this place to your best friend?
- • What keeps us from being as effective as we could be?
- • What looms in the future that threatens to knock us off balance?
- • Where do I feel most satisfied in my job and how can I do more of that?
- • What is going well in my career and what would excite me to take on next?
Just as in life, you can work on all these levels. You can take aspirin for the pain AND eat a healthy diet. Just remember to tie the tourniquet first.
Here are some of our favorite remedies:
Conduct conversations authentically, skillfully, and with care. Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott (workshop and book) can help you figure out how.
Recognize your need to grow as a leader (yes, even you!): What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Marshall Goldsmith
Use tools for clarifying your path to health: The Grove (graphic facilitation that gives you a new way to clarify your vision, understand current conditions, and move forward productively)
Learn to optimize your strengths and flex your style-both as an individual and a team: MBTI, FIRO-B, Highlands, Strengthsfinder 2.0, Spherical Dynamics
Become a manager who evokes excellent performance and commitment in others: Coaching for Brilliance Workshop
Work with a partner to assess your situation, develop a targeted development plan, and achieve your goals: One-on-One Leadership Coaching
Here’s to your health.
Conversations for Brilliance
