What's New in your Leadership Toolkit?
"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." Abraham Maslow, the Psychology of Science, 1966.
What is in your leadership toolkit? I asked this at a recent speaking engagement, and was astonished that most of the audience didn't even know what a leadership toolkit is; much less what it should contain. Given the diversity of the participants across traditional age, occupation, gender, race, and interest lines, this was a surprising commentary on a missed opportunity. What are the tools you utilize each and every day? Part wisdom, part experience-based, and often learned from others in the workplace, our leadership toolkit supports us in everything from creating mundane expense reports to having a difficult conversation with a colleague. As Abraham Maslow opined back in the 60's, however, to rely upon just one tool sub-optimizes our leadership potential and conspires against carefully cultivating our creativity and flexibility.
For knowledge workers, time management tools often exemplify the hammers we cling to and trot out when we reach the end of our rope, look forward to a hectic week filled with travel and meetings, or wake up at night thinking about all of our deliverables that just keep coming without an end in sight. Millions of dollars have been harvested from desperate professionals in search of shaving off minutes from mundane tasks such as scheduling a myriad of meetings or optimizing their search process for information and connections using everything from sophisticated apps to old pen and paper. Savvy leaders, however, are starting to lean into the use of a new tool I call the, "Rigor-ometer," a subtle but important way to help gauge what and how you should invest not only your time, but your energy as well.
Imagine a spectrum with one end representing, "uber-rigor" while the other end of the spectrum representing "light" rigor. Every time you are engaging with a person, work product, or presentation, ask yourself, 'what kind of rigor is required here?' For example, if you have to prepare a presentation for a client that you know every well at a meeting where you are deeply familiar with the audience and what they care about, you are at the "light" end of the "Rigor-ometer" and can plan to invest less time and energy. Conversely, if you are asked to be the Keynote Speaker at an event where all the prep work is being done by phone without benefit of knowing the culture or passion of the participants, clearly more energy, time, and preparation is needed. Simple, but very powerful. When we assign the same level of urgency to everything that comes across our desk, notebook, Smart phone, or a conversation with a colleague, we start to adversely affect our adrenal glands and lose the power of nuance. The Rigor-ometer can therefore remind us of when to step it up or step away.
As a facilitator and speaker, I am regularly gifted with the opportunity to witness the power of truly engaging with others when there are so very many things vying for people's time and attention. In designing a recent team offsite, I therefore called it an, "Engage-atron" verses a "meeting." Simple name change for a ubiquitous tool, but people came into the engage-atron with a different set of expectations and heightened curiosity that helped moved their engagement to the next level of excellence, not perfection.
My favorite new tool in my personal leadership toolkit is "having fun." How can one be a passionate professional and dare to use the "f" word? Remember the adage, "Work hard, play hard?" That is even more necessary and relevant in today's diverse work environments because having fun is a great equalizer, tension reducer, and way to help people bond without it feeling artificial or forced. What are some examples of "having fun" @work? Things I have tried include bringing a picnic lunch for a noon meeting complete with a tablecloth and flowers, organizing an opt-in swim in the SF Bay before the start of an off-site to hosting a virtual baby shower (starting with FedEx delivering the baby gift at the start of the party for the expectant mother).
What's new in your Leadership Toolkit? Drop me a line and let me know @ ann.bundy@cadena.biz.
by: Ann Bundy
