How To Recognise Potential
'Build your future by unlocking the potential in others.'
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Suggested Video.
This video outlines a tool that might enhance your current practice. I have never found one tool that works in 100% of cases, but this may be a useful decider where opinion is divided.
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- Respect everyone: Everyone who works for you deserves your respect. Assuming that you are paying a fair wage and receiving a fair days work, everyone from bottom to top is part of your team; they are important to the wellbeing of the organisation. It is up to leaders to recognise and reward this and the most ethical way is through basic respect.
- Don't automatically accept or reject anything. Investigate and test everything: We all project a view of ourselves that we want others to accept as real. The complication is that in almost all instances we show different 'faces' to different people. We act differently in work than at home or at the gym or on a night out etc. This means that the real us is some sort of 'mash-up' built around a set of core values. As leaders it is important that we get as close as possible to the core of an individual. Only then do we have some hope of developing long term profitable relationships.
- Make peace with your own weaknesses and the weaknesses of everyone around you: No one is perfect. Everyone you will employ will have flaws. Accept that in all but the most problematic of staff it is better (and more cost-effective) to manage around an existing person's flaws than to bring in someone new. Why? Because invariably new people come with their own flaws and if you don't have a way of managing them they have to go; all you have done is create a very expensive cycle of non-essential redundancy.
- Be happy: Everyone looks at their boss to get some idea of their future. When they look make sure they see a happy content person who sees the future as bright.
Suggested Videos.
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Learning Agility.
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How great leaders inspire action.
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What's Next?
I believe that almost all good leaders and managers have an intuitive and practical knowledge of psychology. I have seen leaders employ remarkably sophisticated psychological strategies without ever having any formal training in the subject. This remarkable innate ability has one major problem, it's not always repeatable. Because the 'actions' come from 'gut' feelings they are almost always reactive in nature. So when an issue arises the leader/manager steps in and solves it. I contend that with only a little formal effort this, reaction management, can be enhanced by a more proactive style that suggests issues that may arrive in the future, thus allowing for some type of contingency planning. Because of this my advice is -
- Become a student of psychology especially cognition and personality. Nothing intense but a basic understanding of what makes people 'tick' will be invaluable and will make sense of what you have been doing for years.
- Consider using some formal personality typing tools. I have used, and like, the Keirsey temperament sorter but the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is well thought of. As in all things these are just tools that can give indicators, they are not infallible and should not be thought of as such.
- Accept that current performance can often be the least reliable indicator of future potential. Trust yourself when you think someone is underachieving and task yourself to find out why.
- Look at the arguments that support training and retention over constant recruitment. I think you will see that it is better to promote from within wherever possible.
How Can I Help?Follow up today with an Introduction To Workplace Coaching Session: I can help with your specific issues in a private 50 minute one-on-one session delivered live online via Zoom Video - £47 per session. BOOK NOW.
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