High Performance Leadership

Are your goals ever misunderstood by your team? That can happen when the metric you use decouples from its intention. I remember managing a customer service department and wrestling with the mission of providing world class service and yet counting how many calls each representative answered. They were rewarded for answering many, many calls -- yet anyone who's ever been a customer knows what it feels like to be rushed thru a call. That's not great service. As a high performance leader, you've got to prioritize. You've got to set unambiguous goals that make it clear what you are measuring AND why. There can be no doubt what matters. People can game your goals if they aren't clearly aligned with the mission. Don't let that happen. Set goals so clear that they can't be misunderstood. It's your best chance at getting the performance you want. -- Doug Smith

Are you ever intentionally unclear? Maybe that's not a fair question. Maybe few of us would ever admit that we blurred lines or fuzzied up our boundaries. My guess is though that we all do. To become more centered, we need to get more clear. To reach our people and build better teams, we need to get more clear. To stop confusing people or deceiving them, we must seek more clarity. We seek more clarity by saying what we mean, and what we feel. We uncover our covered motivations. We listen with curiosity to discover how others are reacting (did they understand us? are we comfortable in their misunderstanding us?) Sometimes clarity comes from exploring the unclear places. It comes by asking honest and probing (and sometimes discomforting questions): - Did you understand what I said? - Did you mean to say that _____? - Are you saying that ______ ? - Does it sound to you that we agree or disagree on this? - Tell me what that means to you? - How do you feel about that? ...