10 Relational-Steps to Improve Performance and Elevate Satisfaction
It’s energizing to work with people who are devoted to improvement and painful working with self-justifying losers.
Anyone who isn’t dedicated to improving their performance ends up:
- Complacent.
- Complaining.
- Mediocre.
- Blaming.
- Detached.
10 steps to mutual self-improvement:
- Establish a two-way relationship that’s dedicated to mutual improvement. “How might we help each other improve?”
- Craft a list of twenty behaviors/results you both might improve. Include things like having tough conversations, running great meetings, asking powerful questions, for example.
- Include items on the list that strengthen relationship as well as deliver results. “Engage in behaviors that help people feel supported.”
- Choose five areas for personal improvement from the list.
- Add two items to each other’s list. Everyone has blindspots.
- Pick one item to improve this week. Suppose you commit to asking powerful questions and your partner chooses bringing up awkward issues.
- Identify one or two behaviors that express your intent. You might say, “When you see me (insert behavior) you know I’m working on improving (insert result).” It might go like this. “When you see me asking follow-up questions, you know I’m working on asking powerful questions.”
- Report success and learning to each other in the middle of the week.
- Reject excuses like, “I didn’t have time or opportunity.” If days go by and you don’t have opportunity to improve the behavior you selected, choose something else. Results and behaviors aren’t relevant if you don’t have recurring opportunities to work on them. Choosing irrelevant behaviors is a smokescreen.
- Adopt a ‘what’s next’ approach. Brag about progress in your weekly meeting and set new goals. (Yes, I wrote brag.)
Skillful leaders work on self-improvement more than other-improvement.
Tip: Don’t ask for help as an underhanded way to give instruction.
How might leaders work on self-improvement and other-improvement at the same time?
This is a great list for mutual leadership development. I like that you’ve emphasized the need for leaders to care for themselves and gain relationships to help them develop character. Very wise.
Thanks Marc and Ann. You caught something that was on my mind this morning… “mutual” development. Cheers
Very good. A cord with 3 strands is not easily broken. A partner makes you stronger.
Solid, as usual, Dan. There is the mutual support aspect of this that is powerful. Peer pressure for continuous continuous improvement. Teams also work in these same directions, when they are positive and focused on specific goals and outcomes.
Always good to think about such things.
Thanks Dr. Scott. Great seeing you here today.
You can’t underestimate the importance of forward-facing goals to be a source of energy.
I love those steps. That is Accountability in my mind. According to a great colleague of mine Accountability = Growth and includes support where needed.
LEFT TURN: The world gets accountability and evaluation confused.
These are great Accountability tactics.
Thanks Will. You bring an important word to the conversation. What’s important is that we hold ourselves accountable and make OURSELVES accountable to others.
I have seen this way too often when an employee stops improving their performance and loses interest in their daily job, they become detached and complacent. Having personal goals on how you want to be perceived at work and what you want to achieve, will help someone continuously build themselves.
Thanks Mitra. You make me think about the value of serving ourselves well. How do you want to be perceived at work? I hope that our achievements include serving others well. However, self-interest in doing a good thing like serving others seems quite normal and beneficial.
Servant Leadership is one way to look at this.
Absolutely!
This is great stuff. Where I would struggle is the partnering. In a small organisation, leadership partners can be hard to find.
The other problem I’ve hit up against is that in terms of “improvements” for your subordinates, quite often the only one the organisation supports is “do what you do cheaper”. It’s difficult to engage people about improvement when only the bottom line today counts.
Thanks Mitch. You bring up important issues. This post was written with leaders/employees in mind. You remind us that partnering for growth might need to happen outside the organization.
It’s tough when all an organization thinks about is doing more with less. People get discouraged. I think organizations end up with less from their people when all they think about is getting more with less from them. Unfortunate.
Very unfortunate. But sadly not uncommon. Oh well…
“Skillful leaders work on self-improvement more than other-improvement.”
Love it
Thanks Zac. It’s funny how improving others seems so much more interesting than developing ourselves.
Loved the article. Self-improvement is what i have to concentrate on. Thanks..for getting me on track.
“Improvement”, something we all need, getting everyone to “admit they need to improve” is a gambit for sure. Many individuals that I encounter are content with being mediocre, reaching them at times is difficult. Finding ways to connect to enhance others and oneself surely can be a challenge. Always “do your best until you can develop better”!
The steps are fabulous. The outcome could be wicked good, or just wicked depending on the team involved. It would be bold introducing this to a team that needs to be redirected to mission.