Know Yourself
What are you core competencies, what is your philosophy on leadership. No seriously, what are you known for? We will delve into why you need to understand yourself, your customer and your context. That by so doing you will be better able to pick up on weak signals regarding change, focus more on facts than emotions and accept that it is more important to reach your potential than your goals. I will also encourage that you leave your comfort zone and ask other people what they think about you! Realizing that people all love to be listened to and you probably stopped paying attention to people talking years ago. Sure you hear them but are you actually listening? Such tasks will hopefully lead you to transform, to fail forward and deliver messages you never thought yourself capable of.
Build Trust
As I am sure you are all aware trust can be a very precious commodity, we will explore how to develop it with you team, your customers and your boss. Sometimes it is important to simply be there, listen and empathize as people love to be heard. When trust is established information can flow more freely, questions like “why?” can be asked without fear of recrimination and you can work past compromises to consensus. We will also discuss the importance of lesson learned session, the need for metrics and ensuring your team has a clear understanding of what good looks like. When trust is established it is easy to fail forward as you and your team know exactly what to expect from each other. It also helps frame for your customers what they can expect from you.
Establish Accountability
Would you sign a blank piece of paper regarding a statement of work? Then why should your customers? Here we will look into ways to introduce milestones and review, create and continually develop tools for your toolbox and establish metrics. All of these things with a view to driving accountability as when people are involved in projects there are no cookie cutter solutions. Hunger is a great motivator but your team needs to learn that customer’s problems of today are opportunities for you tomorrow.
You need your team to realize that not all projects will run to completion and you will be setting up a project portfolio to make sure your IT projects are well balanced. To expect their solutions to be challenged and actively debated as you work towards an optimal solution for the customer, guaranteeing them that will be assigned challenging interesting work if they are willing to be held accountable. People will do what they want you need to make sure that what they want to do aligns with what you need them to do. So you must detail to them what good looks like for projects, demonstrated you are dedicated to developing future leaders and are prepared to iterate through solutions, share personal stories and play devil’s advocate to your own ideas.
Nourish Relationships
When you surround yourself with accountable people you trust they have a wonderful habit of cutting across the status quo! They go about their work asking for forgiveness and not permission as they are empowered to provide the optimal solution. We will discuss the importance of executive buy in and that no matter how important you are everyone is replaceable. Would you not sooner pick your replacement than leave it to chance? Remember what is obvious to you is not obvious to everyone and the people love to talk, so make sure you are communicating. Eliminating the concept of “them”, the unseen forces that hold you back working towards the “we” that gets things done. You also need to ensure you love what you are doing and with healthy relationships in place you can identify the artificial hardships you create for yourself and your team and tear them down.
Innovate
Are you aware that a dedicated team will be more innovative than a lone genius? That their diverse opinions and experience generate insight the loner can never hope to spark. So do not jump to conclusion but spend a little time up front to ensure you are embarking on the right path. We will dive into failing forward and ask you to reflect did you learn more in challenging or good times in your career? We will ask how often you tackled things with the gusto of a child learning something new or how often you consider challenging your bad habits. People will forget what you say and do but never how you make them feel, so how are you going to make your team feel about innovation? Are you going to give them tools, encourage building a library of their own or just pay lip service to the idea? What about you is innovating? Can your users see this? What about if these users where customers?
Transform
Any change can only take place at the pace your organization can digest it with, so if you are working inside a conservative organization this may be a slow process for you. But that pace of the change will depend on your context and it is crucial you understand this. Do your customers understand what is unique about your services? Would members of your customer’s team join your team if they had the choice? What would it be like if they did? Are you securing your own financial future, you are no use to your customer if you are not their tomorrow! And remember customers do not always know what they want.
Are you teaching your team how to experiment? How to challenge themselves in good time so they are fit and well equipped for bad times? How to never regret the mistakes they do not make? Are you providing them with communication so good they are forced to take notice? We will discuss how to start doing these things. People are always more important than any given project or process, do you treat them that way? Change only happens through pain or gain and we will delve into what you can do to demonstrate you love what you do, are committed to learn and developing your team to treat users like customers.
Awareness of Pitfalls
Are you aware that people love to give advice? Now you do not always have to listen but people love to share when asked for help for the most part and given the right circumstance, your customers will share freely. But you need to learn to focus, build reserves in good times and relationships that will last a career. As by doing these you can avoid common pitfalls and stop your job owning you.
