The Behaviors of Growth Part 3

The Behaviors of Growth Part 3

The Basic Building Blocks

Five very tactical strategies are the basic building blocks to create the behaviors of growth in your team. Master these yourself. Then, help everyone on your team master them.

Stop, Look, Listen

Nothing happens until you learn to stop, look, and listen. These simple steps develop greater awareness that leads to better decision-making.

Observe Instead of Judge or Blame

Observing is about recording the facts. What is actually happening? When you judge you have already assumed something to be true about yourself, the situation, and others, and you make an assessment based on these assumptions – not necessarily the facts. The practical effect of judging is that it blocks your ability to see what is really happening in any situation. Judging blocks creative thinking. It helps justify current thinking and blocks our ability to look at people and situations objectively. When you judge, you see people, situations, and actions as you want them to be or expect them to be instead of as they are. Judging also limits the development of resilience, a key ingredient in growth. 

Blaming is the most self-destructive form of judging you can do. Here’s the reason. It makes you a victim, and it takes personal power away from you. Blaming others enables you to hold onto anger, fear, anxiety and any other negative emotion that block your ability to grow and thrive. 

Move Toward Not Away From

Moving toward anything is the physical expression of curiosity, which is an essential part of building the behaviors of growth in your team. The tendency for most people, though, is to move away from things that are unfamiliar, uncomfortable or painful. It is a natural human instinct. Creating growth, though, requires resisting this natural instinct and instead moving toward what is happening.  Moving toward what is uncomfortable is the superpower of those who excel.

Think Liberating or Limiting Instead of Positive or Negative, Good or Bad

Most of us think of beliefs and actions as good or bad, positive or negative. When you think of beliefs and actions as good or bad, positive or negative, you judge them. Judging always blocks your ability to see things objectively. You become a barrier to your own growth. Instead, think of things as liberating or limiting. Beliefs and actions either liberate you to see, anticipate, and respond in ways that support growth or they limit your ability to see, anticipate, and respond effectively.  Something that is liberating helps you move closer to your goals. Something that is limiting creates a barrier to achieving growth.

Ask Instead of Tell

The final tactical skill is to learn to “ask” instead of “tell.” Even with all the information that is available today on the importance of leaders asking questions, most leaders still spend 80% of their time telling and only 20% of their time asking questions and listening. This needs to stop now. This archaic holdover from the Centralized Leadership era needs to be tossed. Telling created “doers” and “obedience.” Is that the workforce you want in a rapidly changing world – a bunch of doers? What we need today are thinkers, adapters, and. innovators.

Mastering the skills of awareness, initiative, and discipline move you one step closer to building the behaviors of growth in your team. There’s still one more important element most people are missing.