Asking for production without getting permission, will not work anymore.
Together we achieve more
When I started my career in management, the local book stores were not filled to the brim with “how to manage people” like they are today. I remember being head hunted by my first boss and now long term friend and mentor. He clearly saw I had something and wanted me on his team. Little did he know that I had never managed other people before and was only really working out how to manage myself. None the less he took a chance on me and it certainly paid off for both of us.
He said to me “Nic, read these 2 books” and he handed me “The One Minute Manager ” by Kenneth Blanchard and “Develop the Leader within You” by John C Maxwell. The rest was up to me to figure out as I went.
Don’t get me wrong, I was taken under my boss’s wing and taught everything he knew, however at the end of the day, it was all up to me to take it in and implement.
Off I went and started recruiting my brand new sales team, I had never done that before either, however, what I did know was that I had an innate ability to understand people and relate quickly to them and I always trusted my strong gut intuition, even though I did not really know that’s what it was at the time. Fast forward a few months and I was leading a team of young hungry sales people from all walks of life. 10 different personalities, 10 different needs, 10 different behavioural styles and 10 different ego’s. What can I say, it was a ride.
Being the competitive type that I am, I was on a mission to have the number one performing team in the company. However, it was not long until I realised the one big mistake in my thinking…..That “I” was on a mission and so I learnt the hard way that driving a team to your own goal was never going to get you there and the teams results started to plummet as I pushed them harder and harder every day to hit the number. I remember going home one night and just falling apart not really understanding what was going on until I was distracted by the phone ringing. It was my boss. He said “Nic, can I give you one small pointer to start with”. Of course I said HELL YES. He followed on to say “Since you started working with me, can you remember a time when I told you what MY goal was?”
The light globe lit up like the moon in my mind and he did not need to say another word. Its not about me, its about THEM. What do they want from all this? What would excite them to make those extra sales in a day? What do I need to do to help them get there? What behaviours do I need to change in myself to motivate and excite them, even when things are tough?
I spent most of that night reading and studying successful leaders and their actions and came up with 2 really hard truths about leading people to success.
- ITS NEVER ABOUT YOU — The famous quote by Zig Ziglar “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” says it all. The greatest lesson I learned early in my career and the one that made me the most successful female leader in my industry. Everyday after I woke up, I started by making sure I reviewed what every person on my team was coming to work for, their goals and I spent my entire day making sure that everything they did was leading them towards that goal. Don’t get me wrong, it was not easy, in fact at times it was one of the hardest part of my role, especially if they were having bad days and not meeting targets or their egos were getting in the way. To stay calm and keep bringing them back to centre would be the most exhausting part of the day. I would go home some nights and have zero words or energy left, but at the end of the day, we did end up being the number one team in the company month after month after month and all because it was never about me. I had earned their permission to get more production because it was always about THEM.
- ITS ALWAYS ABOUT YOU — In the spirit of famous quotes, Jim Rohn says it all when he said “For things to change first you must change” and again thats what successful leadership is all about. You can’t expect others to change themselves for you, you have to adapt yourself to support them. It does not mean being someone different, but it does mean stopping and counting to 100 before you react to your teams behaviours and actions. You are there to take them to the next level, that’s why they pay you the big bucks, not the other way around. Not always an easy thing to do when you have never really led a team before, however if you want to grow your team and make them even more successful and maybe one day a leader themselves, then every time something is not going the way you want it to, stop and ask YOURSELF the question…”what can I do differently to get a better results” or “how could I have done that in a better way”. Only then will you see the team start to follow suit and change their behaviours because they see you taking responsibility for your own behaviours.
So, just when you thought it was all fun and games being in the top job, its often harder than it looks from the ground up, but if you can start with these 2 hard truth’s early on and spend time mastering them, it will get easier and you will watch success all around you, including your own.
The only way to lead a team to go the extra mile or deliver day in and day out is to get their PERMISSION. Production with permission leads to incredible results. It is no longer good enough to expect teams to work for money alone, they have to have a WHY that resonates with them and that all starts with YOU and your WHY. Is it to stand on a pedestal and be recognised by the world, or is it to motivate, engage, excite the teams you lead so that they can achieve their WHY?