Sean WillChene is the CEO and founder of Shared Solar Advisors USA. He is based in Minneapolis, MN.
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We can often judge corporate leadership by how they respond to a company’s problems.
On the poor end of the spectrum, there is denial and secrecy. We’ve all seen the news stories of leaders covering up their company’s problems and keeping vital information hidden from the public and even their own employees.
This article is about advocating for the other side of the leadership spectrum – treating problems as an integral part of business management – and outlining how we are implementing this new perspective.
First step: check in
Once you’ve identified the problem you want to solve, start scheduling short, recurring interviews with your employees. I should add that by conducting these meetings you become aware of issues in the company that would otherwise be completely out of your sight. These check-ins should feel casual and fun, because it’s essential that your employees feel they can speak openly without fear of criticism or retaliation.
But even though the meeting should feel informal, as a leader it is your responsibility to ensure that the relationship you have with your staff is genuine and productive. This dynamic requires doing two pieces of homework.
1. Identify the quirks of the person in front of you. How are they motivated? What are their strengths? Weak points? When approached with a problem, what kind of approach do they respond to best? What can they do to solve the problem?
2. Familiarize yourself and make peace with your own shortcomings. Being honest about your limitations as a leader creates mutual respect and reinforces job boundaries, giving your employees a sense of purpose and self-respect. If you were “perfect,” they probably wouldn’t need a job.
Next step: resolution
Now that you’ve identified the problem and listened carefully to the nuances from your employees’ perspective, the next step is a solution. Whether the issue you are discussing relates to individuals not performing their jobs properly or is a functional issue within your organization – technical or scalability issues are common functional issues – it is crucial to rely on core values ​​to drive our behavior in a positive way. to anchor.
What are the core values ​​of a company? They are positive qualities that we publicly strive for and that shape our way of coping with stress. For example, at my company, we have five core values: communication, gratitude, acceptance of failure, camaraderie, and consistency. Rather than being a bland list of words on a poster in a break room, these values ​​should be something your team regularly turns to for guidance during your meetings.
If a problem arises because an employee does not do his job well, it is always because he has strayed from the core values. All the time. But we are humans. This happens.
I work in direct sales and I’ve seen tragedy, depression, and anxiety pull great salespeople away from their potential more times than I can count. As a leader, I have learned that I have the best chance of holding my employee accountable again when I use my core values ​​for myself to dictate my behavior.
An employee’s struggle can leave you feeling angry, scared, or bewildered. But instead of blindly following those emotions in your conversation, process them through the lens of your core values ​​and then conduct your meeting at the “top of your intelligence.” Top of your intelligence is an expression in improv comedy. It means you don’t do the first thing that comes to mind that might be funny, but ruin the scene, and wait for a smarter, funnier choice to come to mind.
The same strategy applies to responding to larger organizational or logistical problems. While I may not be able to provide a prescriptive all-in-one solution to a problem in your industry (don’t trust anyone who says they can), I promise that if you take the time to deepen your relationship with your employees, what they motivates and comes up with a list of inspiring core values, your company is much more likely to adapt to problems that previously seemed unmanageable.
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