Management Win-Wins – Challenging Personal Perceptions
One of the biggest challenges for managers, is how they are able to shift their very personal view of their people.
Once that’s in hand, they then need to sway and influence the way their people see the world differently too, without intimidating or imposing on them…
We all take a position in the way we live our lives. It isn’t something that we consciously do, minute by minute, it’s how we evolve as we live through the experiences from our earliest days after our birth.
The things that happen to us day-by-day – every day of our lives – shape who we are. Within this we take positions that impact on our behaviors, in every moment, right now.
So, we all have a perspective on life that we show up with in the things we do. We do as managers; our customers do and we mustn’t forget that every single one of our employees has their own story too.
That presents us with a series of problems when we attempt to build relationships with our people:-
About Us
1. We have our own perceptions that shows up in our behaviors
2. We have our own perceptions which judge others
3. Our own behaviors (from our perceptions) cause others to amend their behaviors
4. This can lead to different and even more incorrect perceptions
About Them
1. They have their own perceptions of life and work that show up in their behaviors
2. Their own perceptions amend their behaviors away from what would be real
3. Their perceptions are used to judge others
4. Their own perceptions cause behaviors in them that cause you to adjust your behaviors
…and so on!
So that becomes a challenge when we create relationships with our employees, because we have perceptions about them that can, unless we are careful, be false. Perceptions potentially causing erroneous decisions
that can affect our abilities to create win-win outcomes for both sides.
Our experiences lead us to make perceptions of our circumstances. When we’re with our people, they can be incorrectly judged because of times when we had similar experiences that we learned from. We then use that
experience to be too quick off the mark as we use our perceptions to make decisions.
So it’s important when we work with our employees, that we make the effort to set aside perceptions that don’t come with actual proof, so that the relationships we build have the chance to develop and grow.
When we are able to set aside the often false perceptions we have of our people – even those we seem to get on well with – the opportunities that fall out of the relationships we have with them, have every chance of being the win-win that we want.
Using Visioning Activities to Lead to Future Success
It’s easy to get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of your existence as a manager from day to day.
Surviving even in the short-term can become a challenge – and that’s on a good day! But what about making it better into the future?
What can you see?
The future is the way forward. Good managers understand that their day job – whilst important – is not just about overcoming the crises and fire-fighting that fills their days.
It’s vital to see the current as a stepping-stone to a future which is more relaxed, creative and stabilized. So many times, it’s easy to say ‘There’s got to be a better way’. The good managers do something about this.
Whilst having a sense of what the future might need to be, there’s nothing like experiencing it, as close to first hand as you can get. This might require a bit of imagination and letting go of current challenges, but it is a refreshing way to understand that things can change.
Grasping, as openly as you can, the possibilities that the future holds for your team is all about experiencing ‘What good looks like’.
In fact, with an element of trust and belief, there are ways that the best managers help their people practically live the dream of their workplace being how they want it to be, to be the very best themselves too.
Visioning is the activity of appreciating fully what you want to achieve, in very sensory ways. It’s about helping your people put themselves in a position where they experience in their mind’s eye, the experiences they would have when they achieve the dream of perfection in their working day.
Being able to ‘see’ where you are aiming for builds a real appreciation of what it is that you expect from your workplace, if it is exactly how you would like it to be.
Now, timescales for achieving this will always vary, depending on the circumstances that you decide to use visioning for – that’s for you to decide.
The key to using visioning techniques is to remember that you will be using all of your senses to describe the future in as detailed a way possible. It’s not just what you ‘see’, it’s what you hear, feel, smell and even taste along the way!
You want to know what ‘perfection’ is and what you will fully experience when you get there.
This is a bit like goal setting with the twist of having a fun experiential playtime too!
You can appreciate why this can be so exceptionally powerful to draw out the most fascinating expectation you – and your people – can have together.
You can work on a vision on your own; together and, if you want really smart, you can use both together!
Visioning is a powerful tool to draw the best expectations from your people for the future that you can build for your team, together.
(c) 2010 Martin Haworth. This is a short excerpt from one of 52 lessons in management development at Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.
