Is your company divided between the “creatives” versus the “practical” people?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Do you divide your team into “creatives” and ” practical” people? If so, are you missing out on the creative ideas of the other half?

If you ask David Kelley, one of the founders of IDEO, and winner of countless innovation awards he will say yes.

David maintains that human beings are naturally creative and it is fear of judgment that stifles creativity in most of us. He asks, what might happen if we were to overcome that fear of judgment and unleash our creativity? Perhaps the secret lies in what psychologist Albert Bandura calls guided mastery – a process whereby we identify a fear or phobia and by forcing ourselves to overcome that fear, we release our creative abilities.

How might you as a leader create an environment that enables your employees to build their creative confidence? Perhaps a simple starting place is with more legitimate brainstorming – following the brainstorming rules – no idea is a bad idea!

If you want to take this further, are you willing to expose your team to guided mastery? Sound too touchy-feely for you?

Before rushing to judgment, take a look at this 12 minute TED Video where David tells stories from his legendary design career and his own life and offers ways to build the confidence to create.

Elisa K Spain http://elisaspain.com/leadership/

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click http://elisaspain.com/impact/

Trust Your Gut For the No

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Often when we are buyers, we find someone or something we like and then work to find data (experience, accomplishments, etc.) to convince ourselves why this person or this product is something we should buy.

When it comes to interviewing for key candidates, Vistage speaker, Barry Deutsch recommends we take a more structured approach to interviewing to improve our hiring success. He recommends we start the process first by clearly defining the success factors for the role and then asking the candidate to tell us stories about how they have achieved this success in the past and how they will do it for us.

It dawned on me recently that this approach works in many (most?) situations when we are buyers. After all, when we are hiring, we are buyers.

So, am I saying no gut at all? All data? No. Absolutely, there is a gut to every decision we make, and in most situations, especially when we are buyers, trust your gut for the no. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. When hiring, it’s the behavioral questions that help us learn if a person is a cultural fit. If a person’s style, ethics or values don’t fit, it doesn’t matter if they can do the job.

When committing our time or buying a product, isn’t it really the same key question?

  • What are my expectations (success factors)?
  • What is the data that supports that my expectations will be met?
  • Then the gut question: How does this feel?

In short, if it’s not going well in the sales process, it has nowhere to go but down. If we are paying attention and listening, our gut tells us this.

Elisa K Spain http://elisaspain.com/leadershipcoach/

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click http://elisaspain.com/impact

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That’s Not What I Meant

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

In my work as a leadership coach and peer advisory board chair, I am constantly reminded that despite the fact that we are all the same species, with many characteristics in common, we truly do see the world differently.

We expect this to be so when we interact with people who speak a different language than we do. In these situations, most of us have a heightened awareness of our differences and most of us realize we need to pause, think about what the norms are for the other person, think about what we have learned about their culture and modify our interaction and our behavior accordingly. An easy example is how we exchange business cards. In the U.S., we simply toss our card on the table. In Japan, a business card is “presented”; held in two hands and a formal exchange takes place.

Yet, when dealing with people who speak our same language, we often forget to pause. I remember a colleague of mine from the UK saying, “we are two countries, divided by a common language”.

We forget that just because we speak the same language, may even come from the same community, we see the world differently. And the closer a person is to us, the more likely we are to forget. We simply carry on, behave in a manner that comes naturally to us and when it works, it works. And when it doesn’t, we leave a wake. Sometimes we recognize the wake we are leaving and work to repair it; sometimes we don’t see it.

When we are in a leadership position and leave a wake with our folks, it is rare that it is brought to our attention directly. Rather, we learn about the impact we had, from actions and behaviors exhibited by our staff. Often we don’t connect the dots and see that it was our wake that caused the behavior in others that we don’t want to see.

So, what to do? Here are the questions I am asking myself:

  • Can I slow down, so that I have this heightened awareness in all conversations?
  • Once I notice the conversation is one that requires special attention, like the business card exchange, what do I already know and what do I need to learn about the other person, that will help me handle my delivery in a way that lands as intended?
  • When I leave a wake, what do I need to do to clean it up?

Elisa K Spain http://elisaspain.com/leadershipcoach/

Are You a CEO or President of a Privately Held Business? If you are also a lifetime learner and want to learn more about my Vistage Group, click http://elisaspain.com/impact/