Lawrence Fine

One of the mistakes many managers make is to try to force people into a leadership position when it’s not something they want.

Leaders frequently assume everyone wants to be leaders but the reality is, some people are perfectly content being a follower and doing their job as well as they can.

Even people with excellent leadership qualities might not want to be leaders and forcing them to do so will only result in losing excellent followers (and without followers, who would leaders lead?).

Never force leadership on others but rather, help those who want to be leaders and have the qualities to be leaders achieve their goals.

Forcing people to do things they don’t want to do will make them unhappy as well as making those around them unhappy.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

Tags: Leadership, Management, Uncategorized by Lawrence Fine
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Sharing is a great way to help others as well as helping yourself.

The progression to follow is actually quite simple, learn then do, then teach.

First a person would learn how to do something (sometimes by trial and error and other times through more formal education) and then, once they learn how to do it, they proceed to do it. This could be a case of a soccer player having been taught by a coach to how to shoot or it could be an HR employee learning how to process applications.

The next step is for them to apply what they have learned. Examples would be the soccer player shooting when the opportunity arises in a game or the HR person processing applications.

Unfortunately, this is as far as many organizations ever go.

The next step is to share this knowledge with others. In this case, sharing would be teaching someone else how to shoot or what to do as applications arrive.

Not only does this type of sharing/teaching help others but it’s also is a great way for the new teacher to get a better understanding of the process. A month ago, I was representing a company in a meeting where an organization was making a presentation regarding the services they offered. Rather than having the VP make the whole presentation, they had part of the presentation done by a relatively new employee who was making his first presentation. While he did an excellent job with his presentation, a more experienced person might have been more polished. However, this was part of his education process and will help make him a better employee. For a soccer player who has learned how to shoot and is able to shoot in a game, the next step might be to help coach younger players on shooting. Not only does this help the younger players (the sharing) but it also will make the older player think more about the technique which will eventually make them a better player.

Create opportunities to learn, then do, then teach and you are others will continue to grow

Have a great day!

Lawrence

Tags: Leadership, Management, Uncategorized by Lawrence Fine
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One of the things people are regularly being encouraged to do is “take action”.

While there is no doubt that some people have to step and up and, as NIKE would say ‘Just Do It!’, to be successful, it takes much more than this.

Before ‘taking action’, you would want to plan. Those who plan before taking action (without over planning which can result in analysis paralysis) are most likely going to be more successful than those who simply take action.

The next step after planning and then taking action is to evaluate. The evaluation stage allows you to learn from what you have done, whether it’s how to repeat and build upon what you have done well or to correct what didn’t work. If you do not incorporate the evaluation stage, you will not grow since you will not be learning from previous experiences.

The people who use all three phases frequently do it in a linear way:

Plan then Act then Evaluate.

However, it’s important to think of this as more of a circular process where you:

Plan then Act then Evaluate then Plan then Act then Evaluate etc

Your planning should be based on previous evaluation so this is a constantly evolving process rather than simply a linear one.

Learn from previous actions, plan to improve on future actions and continue to grow as a person!

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Have a great day!

Lawrence

Tags: Leadership, Management, Motivation, Uncategorized by Lawrence Fine
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One of the things I tell people when I start coaching them is if I tell them to do something and they don’t know why, they need to ask.

Anybody can do things the right way for a short time but if they don’t know whey they are doing it that way, they haven’t actually learned anything and will inevitably deviate from that way at some point because they don’t know why they are doing it that way anyway.

Learning takes place not when the person does it the right way but rather when they know why they are doing it that way and what make it the right way.

In school, some people will memorize answers to questions, take a test, get an “A” and never learn a thing. It’s the people who actually understand the how the answer was arrived at (in other words, they not only know the answer but they also know the reason for the answer), who have actually learned. The difference between the people who memorized the answer and the people who actually learned the reason why is the people who learned the reason why will be able to do it the correct way over and over again, even when minor variables changed. The people who just memorized the answer wont get any further than that one day.

If you are taught something and you just do it and don’t take the time to ask why, it’s your fault you aren’t growing as a person.

There are still many people who think an adequate answer to “why” is “because I said so”. While the people who respond this way think it’s their way of showing authority, the reality is, in most cases, it shows a lack of knowledge. When someone says “because I said so” I hear “I don’t know so will pretend instead”.

If I tell someone to do something and they ask me the reason behind it, I see this as a learning opportunity for them. The exception is if they are asking “why?” as a stalling technique (meaning rather than doing something, they simply keep asking why, similar to what a little kid might do), if they do this, then I will take a harder stand and simply insist they do the task.

On the rare occasions I ask someone to do something, they ask me why and I can’t explain, I will step back and reexamine why I asked and frequently, will change the request.

The other exception to this (besides the stalling) is that occasionally, I will ask someone to do something and once they do it, it will become evident the reason why they did it. In cases like that, I will explain that they will understand shortly and if, after doing the task, they still don’t understand, I will then explain in full.

Asking why is a great way to learn and not doing so will result in many lost opportunities.

Have a great day!

Lawrence

Tags: Leadership, Management, Uncategorized by Lawrence Fine
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