Challenge ahead – Bring the best out of your team!

A new year have just started and in the business world – that means that most leaders and teams have new goals. This usually means that they are trying to define the initiatives and changes that will secure success while facing new challenges. Goals are guaranteed to be set higher, as they usually are with each year. The expectation is perhaps, that we will find ways to improve and get better at what we do. Some people refer to this as “raising the bar”. Nevertheless, challenges don’t always come from higher targets and a new business year. We have experienced recessions and technology disruptions in the past and now we face a global pandemic, which seemly makes it even more difficult.

The impact of this global pandemic that started almost a year ago has been felt in a magnitude of different ways. For some industries such as travel, leisure, hotels and tourism it has been brutal. The business has almost vanished, at least for now. For other sectors, such as the IT industry, it has been the opposite, and it has fueled growth and new opportunities (Zoom, Slack, Amazon etc).  

Digitalization and the Pandemic

Digitalization started before the pandemic, yet has undergone a real acceleration in many ways. Effecting how we work , how we interact with people and how businesses are being run. DNB Markets in Norway have just run a survey with 151 global companies. The conclusion is that working from home is here to stay and increase: we will spend 3X as much time working from home after the pandemic as we did before. Another example is the adoption of buying food over the internet by the older generation, (those born in the 30’s and 40’s) who had less than 1% adoption before Covid, but now have over 22%. Many companies have also been forced to reduce staff as a means to meeting the economical challenges and a means to survival. Currently, few companies, have the luxury to recruit new staff to meet the ever-existing needs for upskill. “Pack light” and do better with the teams you have is the only option for many.

Feeling the pressure to deliver results in good times and bad times, leaders can face a variety of challenges:

• • • • • • • We can’t hire, but we need to grow.
            • We need everyone to be highly productive, but people are burned out.
            • We’re okay today, but we’re not ready to compete tomorrow.
            • We have the best talent, but they’re not engaged

If I look back over the past 30 years at my own journey as a business leader, like many others, I have faced the challenges of recessions and technology disruptions, nevertheless most of the times have turned out to be successful or at least really good progress has been made. I am certainly not a genius, the achievement has come from great teamwork, where members have been engaged, and have worked synergistically and provided innovative ideas and solutions. I have learnt many good lessons through the long journey of leadership and personal development.

As a leader you perhaps already have a plan to address the future challenges in front of you. If not, is there help?

There is help for all leaders, at any level of an organization. Significant research has been invested into finding a “universal” solution for improving leadership whilst increasing the capabilities and effectiveness of your team. The approach is called Multipliers and it brings value to almost all teams, especially in today’s challenging environment.

It’s based on the research that Mrs. Liz Wiseman has done with thousands of leaders from around the globe. Her work showed that leaders of high performing teams demonstrate four traits that they do consistently, which bring an increased engagement and effectivity out from the existing teams. The four traits are called multiplying behaviors. Her research identified that these four core behaviors will ignite the full intelligence of others and dramatically improve the results they get.

The traits are as follows;

• • • • • • • Ask better questions, which will both inspire the team, and access and amplify the
              intelligence of others.
            • Identifying the individual talents of each team member. We are all good at different
              things, and using each member for things that they are relatively better at, will both
              benefit the member and produce better results for the organization.
            • Create space for others, which includes creating an environment where individuals can
              step up with their best thinking and work.
            • Offer bigger challenges. To be trusted with bigger tasks and responsibilities is
              incredibly inspiring, especially when people are challenged to “stretch”, and receive the
              reward of progress and individual growth

It is common that successful leaders have other behaviors as well, which have often been instrumental to their success and career. However these strengths when overly used will turn into diminishing behaviors and thereafter lead to a reduction of the engagement and drain the intellect of the team members. These behaviors are called accidental diminishing behaviors. Being aware of these accidental diminishing behaviors and balancing the behaviors is a key insight of being a multiplier.

Bite sized, online learning!

At Franklin Covey we have turned her research and knowledge into an effective leadership solution, to be used at all levels in a company, and delivered live, or online / virtual training. The program requires a short amount of time and is proven to significantly improve the overall performance and genius of a team. The staff engagement and performance of a “Multiplying” leader is 96% higher than for a diminishing leader!

I wish I had these insights much earlier in my career, it would have saved struggles, provided better results for myself and for my team members. But as they say – better late than never!