The Behaviors of Growth Part 2

 The Behaviors of Growth - Part 2

Behaviors Are Driven by The Skills People Develop

Behaviors are always connected to skills. To create the behaviors of growth you must equip everyone on your team with the skills that help them see, anticipate, and respond in ways that drive individual, team, and organizational growth. Talking about skills, though, leads to one of my pet peeves  - the language we use when referring to skills!  Words are important, especially adjectives. We still refer to skills as “Hard Skills & Soft Skills.”

Do you know when these adjectives for skills were created? The late 1960’s. They were created for the US military to distinguish the technical skills that someone needs to do the specific tasks in their role from the other skills that are needed in most every role. Mechanics need specific skills related to repairing equipment. Software developers need specific skills related to developing software. These are the hard skills related to these specific roles. Soft skills include things like communication, collaboration, leadership, problem solving, time management, and other skills that don’t fit with a specific role.

Here's the problem with using these definitions of skills today. The meaning of words changes over time. These two adjectives (hard and soft) were created during the Centralized Leadership era, over 50 years ago at the writing of this book. What they meant in that era may be completely different than the meaning we give them today. If you hear the words “hard skills & soft skills,” which skills do you think are more important? Most people identify hard skills as more important than soft skills. But… When you deal with performance issues at work, is the problem their ”hard skills,” or a lack of “soft skills?” Most people are not fired because of their hard skills. They are terminated because of behaviors that fall in the category of “soft skills.” They don’t collaborate. They don’t consistently show up for work. They don’t communicate. They consistently miss deadlines. So which ones are the most important skills?

We need to rename skills for the 21^st century.  They are not hard skills and soft skills. They are “technical skills” and “essential skills.”

Technical Skills & Essential Skills

Technical skills are the skills necessary to successfully do the tasks of a specific role. These could be computer skills, skills to run machinery, skills to draw blood, and many more. These are the initial skills you seek in someone for a specific role in your organization.

Essential skills are the skills that someone needs to master and apply technical skills, collaborate with others, solve problems, make great decisions, communicate effective, lead people, manage their time and tasks, and much more. We call these essential skills because these are the skills that determine if someone will be successful in their role and help you grow your organization. Think about the number of people you have known or read about who had great technical skills, but their essential skills were so poor that they created chaos and were eventually fired. Technical skills may get someone in the door of your organization, but essential skills determine if someone succeeds.

In the era of Given Leadership, essential skills are more important than ever. The world is simply moving too fast for you to keep power in your hands. Working remotely makes them even more important. Putting the power in the hands of your team, though, without developing the essential skills creates more chaos than creativity and more problems than performance. The behaviors of growth (see, anticipate, respond) are built on three essential skills:

Awareness, Initiative, and Discipline

Everything that someone needs to excel at an incredibly high level can be achieved if these 3 skills are mastered. Without them, you will forever be trying to manage and motivate people. Invest the time to develop these skills, though, and the behaviors of growth begin to emerge. Their vision becomes clearer. Because they understand how their actions impact others, they anticipate and respond more effectively with everyone. The results are significant. When you combine the impact of these skills with the importance of role growth, which we will talk about in the next chapter, the impact is explosive.  But I’m getting ahead of myself now.

Awareness, initiative, and discipline each have 3 dimensions.

Awareness

Awareness is the ability to be aware of your surroundings, thoughts, and actions at any given moment. It helps you avoid the trap of responding emotionally or impulsively, which rarely leads to better outcomes. The greater your awareness the faster you can process information from your surroundings and make the best decision in your current circumstances. Awareness has 3 dimensions: self-awareness, situational awareness, and strategic awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead of judging your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you observe them. You are aware of how you react to internal and external factors and the choices you make in response to them. Situational awareness is the ability to be aware of the different dimensions of any situation. Instead of seeing what you “want to be there” or “what you are afraid is there,” situational awareness enables us to look at the situation objectively and honestly. Strategic awareness is the ability to see the long-term implications of the actions you may take. Every action has a consequence. Strategic awareness enables you to quickly assess how different actions will impact future outcomes and make choices that lead to greater performance.

Initiative

The second skill you must develop in your team is initiative. Initiative is the ability to assess and implement things independently. People who develop initiative start things without someone telling them to act. Like awareness, initiative has 3 dimensions – self-driven action, awareness-based action, and grit.

Self-driven action means that you start movement without being pushed externally to do so. People who take initiative focus on what is within their control rather than complaining about things that are outside of their control. Awareness-based action means that the actions you take are based on the awareness you have of your surroundings, the situation, and the strategic goals you are trying to achieve. Awareness enables you to modify your thoughts and actions to be more successful in the future. People who develop awareness-based action are better able to connect the dots between their current actions and the long-term goals they are working to achieve. Grit is the courage and resolve you discover within yourself to keep moving forward when others quit. Grit is essential for long term success because when you take initiative, you will make mistakes. You will fail. It is guaranteed. There is no growth without risk. You will be doing things that you have not done before. At some point you will stumble, struggle, and fail. Grit helps you get back up, learn, adjust, and keep going.  Think of grit as the organic material that makes up resilience. Some people never achieve their dreams because they are afraid to start the journey.  Others fall short because they give up when they experience failure. Grit keeps you going when others quit.  

Discipline

Discipline is the ability to follow a planned course of action to achieve a desired goal. Growth always involves change. When change happens, people initially develop cloudy thinking. The brain has built a neural pathway that enables you to do the old behavior without consciously thinking about it. Doing it a different way messes with the current neural pathway. Cloudy thinking leads to hesitation. You now must consciously focus on each step in the new action. This hesitation leads to awkward execution. Awkward execution leads to failure, at least the first few times you do something.  The emotional desire is to go back to the old way of doing things is strong. Discipline enables you to focus on the new process until it becomes comfortable and automatic, just like the previous behavior was before you changed it.  

Discipline has three life-changing dimensions: self-control; self-mastery; and actions & consequences. Self-control is the ability to be aware of your emotions and actions and be able to control them rather than them controlling you. Self-mastery is the willingness to continue using a new way of thinking or a new rhythm of action until it becomes comfortable, and you can do it confidently in a variety of situations. Self-mastery is about choosing to do specific things because they will create the long-term outcomes you desire. The final dimension of discipline is the ability to quickly assess actions & consequence to determine the best path of action. Every action has a consequence. Some actions lead to the outcomes you desire while other actions with not. The more you develop discipline in your life you can quickly assess a situation, determine the probable consequences of the various options you have, and choose options that support the future you want to create.

When people begin to master awareness, initiative, and discipline, it creates a transforming energy within your whole organization. People begin to access more of the capability, capacity, and drive that exists within them. They begin to see clearer and act with greater confidence. Over time, they will embody a new vision of themselves and the world around them, which leads to greater impact. It all begins, though, with how you lead and develop your team.  In part 3 we will explore the basic building blocks that will help you build the behaviors of growth in your team.