The Fair Ladies Wisdom

I love Audrey Hepburn’s words in that 1964 classic movie – My Fair Lady: words, words, words. She is sick of words and the lack of action that they are not conveying. Business can also fit this pattern. Sometimes, we speak and offer words, great ideas are brought forth and then no action is followed through with.

There is risk in action, something may go wrong or unexpectedly have unintended consequences. Many companies discourage action unintentionally by creating a punishment mentality for the consequences that follow. Let’s say I take an action, follow the best guidance and lay out a plan, get permission, build a team and then – OH NO – it flops! But, the key here is that action was taken. Now, we have more information before and we can find out why this plan didn’t work. Perhaps the solution is a simple tweaking of a process, a new team player that needs to be added, etc…

Action requires a bit of courage, but needs to be encouraged. If you have a team that is well placed, appropriately trained and developed for their task, they can accomplish great things. Before that takes place, it is your task to find inspiration, to set them up for success as much as possible. Then, when the team is ready, purpose and plan in place, set them up to do more than just speak. How difficult for your team to work and plan, then be poised on taking action only to have them realize that it was really only words and not action. If you aren’t sure, start with something small, and put the plan into place. When that first action has started, evaluate and then build on it to something bigger.

Imagine what can occur when you take action, and not have Audrey’s music ringing in your head.

All I Ever Really Needed To Know - I Learned Teaching Elementary School?

Have you ever head the phrase that expresses the sentiment everything you ever needed to know was somehow packaged nice and neatly in the walls of elementary school. I found myself wondering the other day if that were somehow more true that I gave it credit for.

I used to be a teacher and have taught elementary, middle and high school. Elementary school teachers know that the more senses you can lead students when teaching, the better chance you have for students to really learn. Those synapses fire and form stronger bonds of memory when you are making letters from play dough or making letter games with spelling words. Somehow though, we think as learners grow older they don’t need those strategies.

However, adult learners not only need to understand why they are learning something, but also need more multiple sensory inputs. Before you plan your next training topic, take a moment to think how you can make it interactive. This may mean putting your audience in a bit of a uncomfortable area. Most likely, they will not be expecting something that will put them into a multi-sensory environment. However, if you start tying what is being learned into multi-sensory approaches, go ahead and look for how changes are made in the affected work areas. Start looking for changes.

The whY

Why? Why not? Are you sure? How come? Come on - WHY??

Why, it’s a great question! Why are we doing this and not that? Why does it look this way? Why is this still done, does it work?

If you are looking at motivating people within your company for a new idea or changing a current practice, the WHY must be understood. Not only must it be understood, but digested and accepted by those who you would like the change to be with.

A young man once had a problem where people needed to understand the why. Llywelyn Fawr was born in the late 1100s, a young royal Welsh man. At age 14, he claimed his inheritance at the point of a sword. But, he needed the help of the nobles who controlled armies and the people of Wales. To motivate his people, he needed a plan.

But, what does this have to do with business? Good – you are asking the WHY! Think of Llywelyn as the President or CEO, the nobles as the executive team, the people as your employees. The uncles that Llywelyn was fighting against are your fiercest competitors.

So, what did this young prince understand? He had a good grasp of the scenery – he knew his market and competitors. He knew he would have to fight – a commitment to a strategy. He knew the ability of his armies – he was aware of the performance of his own people and used to his best advantage. In other words, he knew why he could defeat his enemies, he knew why he could motivate his people, and he knew why the terrain could be used to his advantage.

Motivate your people – grab your best Medieval gear and head to the conference room, armed with Why.

Succession Planning – Looking under the Plans

The Broad Overview

Anyone who has spent much time in a growing company eventually hears the whispers of succession planning. It might be phrased differently, sponsor, mentor, leadership planning, growing but they all point to the same thing. Somehow, the knowledge that is contained in the company, the key knowledge which resides with people in certain key positions, must be captured and transferred. Let’s say you approach a sampling of companies, many times you will receive a massive plan, with a laser beam focus on a set of positions.

These positions and plans are important. But, companies have been doing this for quite some time and many are proficient planners. Others are coming along with a slower momentum to grasp this, but again – the combination of research and technology is rich and robust. Instead, let’s consider under the plans that are established. By under the plans, I mean literally under. Consider what positions are typically included in succession planning, the upper executive ranks. These positions are key, however they are not the sole knowledge holders within a company. Draw a mental dotted line under those key positions, who resides there? Is it a larger group than the one previously planned?

The questions to ask next, they are a chance to be open and ask the all consuming –Who & Why. Who holds this information? Why is it done this way? Why does this go to this person and not that person? Why does this department look this way? Once you start determining the whys and the whos, you can start determining if this truly makes an efficient process flow. If not, stop here and work on the process. Now, let me take an aside and state that it is easy for me to say stop and change this here. However, this will be an enormous amount of work within most companies. People are often quite reluctant to make changes, so you need to be prepared. But why make these changes at all, why even stop to understand this? Stop and consider the position of an assistant that knows his or her position well. Think about the tasks that you can ask them to do, what they do on a regular basis. If they suddenly were not in that position, for whatever reason, is there someone else who can step in and pick up the pieces? If not, how will this change your work load, the efficiency, the ripple effect into the work of others. This is not your typical succession planning, but is more broad and forward in thinking.