Lori Hellefinger thinks that the most effective leaders “consume” their development in small, digestible serving sizes.
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I’ve been observing a phenomenon lately with my clients: “WANTING IT ALL NOW” – wanting to be fully developed leaders and professionals today. This insatiable need and a compulsive urge to have “it” now has shown up with my clients in the following ways: 1) On the first day of a three month bi-weekly program, leaders are already talking about “what’s next” when this is over, 2) two days into a week long program in a two year masters program, mid-career leaders and professionals are asking how to apply the learnings the following week – concepts that are still being explained over the next several days, and 3) leaders at another client organization wondering why their senior leaders haven’t implemented a change effort on a topic everyone is learning “real-time.”
This insatiable need to “have it all now and today” is understandable in our complex and rapidly changing world. Most of us recognize that if we don’t update our skills or help change our organizations we could become obsolete and our organizations could fall behind. We worry that if we don’t “get ourselves together” today, we’ll be out of business tomorrow. And yet there is only so much any of us or our organizations are humanly capable of at any given time.
And so what do we do then? Before you “gorge yourself” on development, consider these three ideas: 1) learn to love tapas* for digestible learning, 2) become more self-aware, and 3) be more accepting and tolerant of others who are also learning.
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Learn to love tapas (digestible bites of learning)*
The beautiful thing about tapas is that they are small and easily digestible. After you have eaten several servings, you can listen to your body to determine if you are full or have room for more. The same is true of learning – one human being can only process so many concepts, skills, and techniques at one time. When working with coaching clients – I suggest to my client(s) that they only focus on only one or two development areas for 6 months or so. Leadership skills take time to develop and often come after many trials and errors across multiple experiences, opportunities, successes and failures. Perhaps you attend a leadership course and among a number of things – you learn that an effective way of having more influence during meetings is to be more prepared ahead of time and to meet with others ahead of the meeting. This could be the one great idea that your try for the next 6 months. You “digest” the learnings from the course, apply idea the idea, refine it, reapply it, get feedback/coaching from others on how you did, and then continue experimenting with it until you are fairly comfortable. Now you have something you can teach others and you’ll continue to learn as you this. Take it easy on yourself – indulge yourself in small morsels of learning and then really digest them.
Become more self-aware – get feedback
It’s easy to gorge yourself on a bunch of concepts and theories and want to implement it all right now. However, if you aren’t self-aware or know enough about your strengths and development areas, how do you know where to focus your development? Do you know what specific knowledge, skills, and behaviors you need to be most effective in your current role/next role? Recently I was asked to do a leadership program for a client organization, but I discovered no one could tell me what type of leader the business needed, nor the development needs of the leaders I would be working with. I ultimately focused the development program on “becoming more self-aware” — getting them to ask their employees, peers, and managers for feedback and then choosing areas where they wanted to enhance or improve. Contrast that to another client where the executives had a very good understanding of where the business needed to go and what their leaders needed to be able to do differently – the development for that group of leaders was far more productive and those leaders much more appreciative of the development they received.
Take time to get feedback from your staff, peers, manager, mentors. Ask “what is one thing I could do now that could make a significant different in my leadership (or for my team, or for my job). This could be a strength that need to leverage or it could be a slight change in your behavior that could make a significant difference in your effectiveness.
Be gentle with yourself – know that you can only really make improvements in yourself in a few areas at a time. Sometimes these improvements really are tweaks – toning down a strength that is overused, amplifying a strength so that your organization benefits from it more. Then find someone to hold you accountable to this development area: a peer, a mentor, a coach. Be ok with the phrase “less is more.” Know that “mastery” comes after doing something over and over and learning from your successes and failures. How many hours did Tiger Woods practice before he became the golf pro he is today?
Be more tolerant of others who are also learning
Those of you who consider yourselves “learners” are on a long and winding developmental journey; a lifetime journey by the way. While you will learn a lot and improve your leadership skills throughout your career, there will also be some areas in which you will be learning and improving throughout your life. And if this is true for you, it is true for others as well, who may be learning and growing in areas where you already have mastery. When I am working with a leader or leadership team, I try to encourage those around them (peers, staff, boss) to be accepting and tolerant of those who are developing new skills and behaviors – to give them encouragement as well as constructive feedback. None of us grows and develops in isolation. It’s a rare person who can read a book, attend a course, and then immediately and effectively be able to apply what they have learned. Most of us learn and grow in relationships with others. For it’s in those many and varied relationships that we learn how to apply what we’ve learned – how to tweak what we are learning – what to do and not do in a variety of situations and with a variety of different people and organizations. If we are all on life-long learning journeys with varying and different skills, talents, and strengths it makes sense that at any given time, we are going to be working with someone who drives us nuts. How we decide to react to that frustration is key – we can get upset, judge, criticize, or complain about that person or group of people or we can figure out what challenges they are facing and how to help them through those challenges so we can get what we need from the interaction with them.
If you are frustrated with your boss or “higher ups” – ask them what they are trying to achieve and what’s important to them and then figure out a way to help them accomplish it. Use your skills and resources to help them. As you move up the ladder – a lot of your success will be determined by how well you understand and manage your boss. The same could be said for your peers. Peer relationships also become more critical as you move up, especially when reach the Director and Vice President level. Leaders at these levels in most organizations are essentially running the business – figuring out ways to work with your peers by pooling your talents, knowledge, networks, and resources will further your career and the success of your organization.
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So before you think you “need to have it all right now” and “gorge yourself” on development – think again! Take some time to: 1) determine what you are trying to accomplish in your role or business , 2) reflect on your next possible move, 3) get feedback from your others you trust, and then and only then – prioritize one or two areas of development and focus on them for the next six months or so. As mentioned earlier, “less is more” and “mastery” comes after doing something over and over and learning from your successes and failures. Take time each year to this do reflection and you’ll find yourself to be more productive, more satisfied, and ultimately more successful than you could have imagined. Enjoy those tapas – they are so delightful.
*The use of “tapas” for learning was Inspired by Jennifer Riggins blog article: “How much could you learn with just five minutes a day?” December 18, 2012. ZDNet.com
Photo credit: Flickr/Ben Sutherland