Leadership

5 Strategies for Hard Times

Andrew Cooke Business Growth, Coaching, Complexity, Growth and Profit Solutions, Growth Solutions, Leadership, Leadership Development, Uncategorized, Uncertainty

5 Things to Do When Times Are Tough

When the business environment is becoming harder, here are 5 strategies to help you focus your effort, time, resources and investment.

tough times ahead Every few years the business cycle turns down and things get tough. For good business people, this is a sign to get going because with competitors struggling, it is a great time to build your business. There are two key areas you need to focus on, your survival and your growth. This paper outlines just five things you must do to make the best out of the general business downturn. Follow the suggestions made and you will not only survive, you will prosper.

1. CASH FLOW

Cash is the lifeblood of every business.  You need to get as much cash as you can into the business and protect it once you have it.

  • Where do you have cash stored? It may be with your customers who are slow in paying you. It may be in overheads that you don’t need. It may be in assets that you don’t really need to own.
  • If you had to get some money within 30 days, how much could you get in if you really put all your effort into it?
  • Look at the cash going out of your business. Can you stop spending in any areas?  Can you slow down the speed at which it goes out?

2. RETAIN YOUR PEOPLE

In most businesses that employ people you have a third of your staff that you are lucky to have, a third you would do be better without and the remaining third are somewhere in-between. In tough times you must protect your best people, the top two-thirds (maybe you need to get rid of the bottom third?).

  • How can you make sure you keep the ones you need?
  • Do they have contracts?
  • Do you reward them?
  • Do you tell them how much you appreciate their efforts?
  • Is working with you fun?

3. RETAIN YOUR CUSTOMERS

Keeping your best customers is much like keeping your best employees. Work out who the top two-thirds are and spend time on them.

  • Find out what problems they are having and what you can do to help them.
  • Keep in close contact with them on what you are doing for them.
  • Thank them for their business; ask if they can give more business.
  • Do they have any friends who they can refer you to?
  • Are you linking your best people with your best customers?
  • How can you help your customer increase their business?

4. IMPROVE YOUR PROFIT

Cash and profit are closely related. Around 20-30% of your operational expenses are due to waste in your business. You could remove that waste and the savings become instant profit (and probably cash).

  • Can you reduce your overheads? What about your people and material costs?
  • If by law you had to double your profit within three months what would you do? Why not just do it anyway?
  • Do you really know what profit you make each year? What about each month? What about each day?
  • Where do you make your profit? Did you know that 20% of your customers and 20% of your products (and services) generates 80% of your profit? Why not just focus on these customers and products for the next six months?

5. MAINTAIN YOUR ENERGY

When you are energized your business is energized. You must develop and guard your energy levels.

  • Are you fit?
  • Do you love what you do?
  • Are the people you work with fun to be with or are they energy vampires?
  • Do you work too hard?
  • Do you make time for yourself?

Time management is the biggest thing to address in tough times. 20% of what you do generates 80% of the benefit you are to your business (and family) so what are you doing for the rest of the time? Maybe if you stop doing some of the low-value stuff, you will boost your energy levels.

Getting your business under control is critical in tough times. There is no point in growing a business that does not have good cash flow, profit or leadership. Get these five things largely right and your business will grow. Every leader and every business is different, so you need to decide where to start. All five strategies are equally important and the need for discipline and accountability for them lies with everyone – the responsibility is yours, it is up to you to make it happen.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

Where Leaders of the Future Will Come From…

Andrew Cooke Leadership, Leadership Development ,
 by  Andrew Cooke, Growth & Profit Solutions

Forecasts on where the future leaders will come from, and where they will not!The Ticking Timebomb for Talent

Are you worried about the lack of management and leadership talent in your business?  You should be.  There is an underlying shift in demographics that is driving this – and it isn’t going to go away.  The baby-boomers are beginning to retire in large numbers and this represents a major exodus of experience and talent.  This problem is being compounded by the influx of a smaller, less-experienced generation of workers, managers, and leaders.

How did we get into this mess?

Let’s be honest here, business has only looked at its available pool of talent only in the short-term.  A few forward-thinking companies may have looked at this issue over a slightly longer time the horizon, but they are few and far between.  The problem is that business is driven by short-term results, and this is at the expense of the long-term.  Leadership is increasingly short-term as a result and this is reflected in the average tenure of CEOs continuing to decline.

So where are we now with our leadership pipeline, and where will we be in the future?  What will this mean for our ability to recruit and retain the talent we need to survive and thrive both now and in the future?  The 2012 Global Leadership Survey from SHL provides a worldwide view of leadership potential spanning 25 countries.

The Findings

The countries which currently today have the most effective leaders are not those with the greatest leadership potential.

Developed Countries Decline, Developing Countries on the Rise

Notably, it is the developing countries that will have greatest leadership potential in the future, in part because they have the populations that are large and growing, and that many developed countries which will experience leadership shortages where the population growth is low.  This is summarized in the graphic below:

Why is this happening?

The main reason for this is the demographic shift that is occurring, with baby boomers beginning to retire and the next generation of the workforce (Gen Y) being significantly smaller in size and with less experience.  The implications as regards this for future effective leadership are:

  • For developing countries –rising education standards and a culture of entrepreneurialism are some of the environmental factors that are driving emerging economies.  They have a huge growth opportunity if they can identify, nurture and develop this potential.
  • For developed countries – although they have a strong supply of leaders today, they will be impacted if they continue to fail to invest in learning and development to cultivate their future supply of leaders and remain competitive.

What constitutes an effective leader?

An effective leader has many of the key leadership characteristics including:

  • The ability to build relationships
  • The ability to solve problems
  • The ability to communicate effectively
  • The ability to think laterally
  • The ability to influence
  • The ability to respond positively to change
  • The ability to organize
  • The ability to motivate and be motivated

Potential Leaders of tomorrow

Leaders of tomorrow are those individuals who exhibit some of the key leadership characteristics (outlined above) but require additional development to realize their full leadership potential.

Companies need to build their leadership talent pipeline and look outside their home markets for further talent. Understanding the supply of leadership is crucial for organizations.  As such, they need to develop and invest in their future leadership talent for the long-term in order to remain competitive in the global economy.

The Four Quadrants

Leadership Development 2b

Countries fall into four quadrants:

In The Talent Vacuum – countries with leadership gaps both today and in the future;

Talent Leapfroggers – countries in short supply of leaders today but have a huge pool of leadership potential in the future;

Talent Timebombs – countries with strong supplies of leaders today and gaps in leadership supplies in the future;

Talent Trailblazers – Countries with strong supplies today and in the future;

Depending on your geography you will fall into one of the four quadrants – the question is, given where you are, what are you going to do to address the long-term problems and implications in the now?

Five Steps to Cultivating Leadership Success

So what can you and your business do to build long-term success by building the necessary leadership skills and future pipeline?  There are 5 steps:

  1. Identify the behaviors and skills which make a successful leader in your organization;
  2. Have a complete overview of the leadership potential across your organization and don’t restrict that view to only those you think are high potential;
  3. Using data, benchmark your people against competitor talent and identify leadership shortages to avoid succession risk;
  4. Focus on development interventions including where to spend learning and development budgets and apply this across the business;
  5. Take a global view of where your leadership talent is located and be prepared to use creative strategies to source talent across borders to fill leadership gaps

What are you doing to develop and retain leadership and high-potentials in your organization?  Do you have a long-term view or are you driven by short-term requirements? Share your ideas, insights, and experiences here for others to benefit.

Share the knowledge, share the wealth!

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Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

Using the Leadership/Management Matrix to Develop Your People

Andrew Cooke Attitude, Behavior, Behaviour, Business Growth, Leadership, Leadership Development, Learning, Profit, Tool, Uncategorized

Leadership and management may complement each other, but they are very different

So which is more important, management or leadership? This is not the right question to ask, rather the question to ask what is the balance between management and leadership that you need to have? To answer this, you need to at what role each plays. Management ensures the stability and efficiency necessary to run today’s business reliably. Leadership creates the change needed to take advantage of new opportunities, to avoid serious threats, and to create and execute new strategies. The point is that management and leadership are very different, and when organizations are of any size and exist in environments which are volatile, both are essential to helping them win.

The Leadership/Management Matrix

The management/leadership matrix show what happens when you have weak or strong leadership interacting with weak or strong management.  The four quadrants are:

  • Doomed – weak management, weak leadership.  Here the business is run inefficiently and with no clear direction to guide and align people’s efforts, decisions and the allocation of resources.  People are not inspired or motivated to achieve high-performance, and the business is losing to its competitors.  The business is unlikely to survive beyond the short-term.
  • Innovative – weak management, strong leadership. Here the business is able to adapt quickly and effectively, but there is insufficient management and associated skills in place to drive stability, efficiency and to create the necessary order to manage the resulting complexity and create order from which to build.
  • Well run but bureaucratic – strong management, weak leadership.  Here the business is well-structured and managed; it works efficiently which is good while the status quo exists.  However, in an environment of change it finds itself relatively rigid and inflexible with its existing bureaucracy and organization being unable to adapt effectively.  This can expose the business with existing strengths potentially becoming major liabilities, potential competitors going unrecognized or changes in customer needs going unmet.
  • Well run and innovative – strong management, strong leadership.  Here there is a healthy balance of management and leadership skills and capacity.  The business has a clear direction around which everyone and all actions are aligned, people are inspired and motivated, and as a result they work both efficiently and effectively.  They are competitive, adaptive and have the right mix of skills, capacity enabled by a strong business culture which supports the people in their work.

Look at this matrix and, for you and your team, assess their level of management and their level of leadership.  People do not need to be a manager or a leader per se, nor is it about their position in their hierarchy. Rather it is how good they are at delivering on and exemplifying the attributes got management and leadership (see the table below for ideas).

Score yourself and each of your team members on leadership and management using the following scoring range of 0 (very weak) to 10 (very strong).  The two scorings will give you each individual’s relative positioning and your own.  A good idea is to assess people yourself, then get them to self-assess, and then to share your respective findings and discuss the differences/similarities. This is a good tool to identify where and how an individual needs to develop their management and/or leadership skills. This can then be used in helping put together their personal development plan.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

Do You REALLY have a Leadership Team?

Andrew Cooke Delegation, Efficiency, Growth and Profit Solutions, Leadership, Performance, Productivity, Uncategorized

The differences and the impacts of leadership by a team and by committees.

Teams or Committees?

Many CEOs and senior leaders in companies with which I have worked with often believe, in all sincerity, that they have a leadership team or executive team which works together to help focus and drives the business.

This, in my experience, is rarely the case. More often than it is not a leadership or executive team, but a committee.  This is true for all levels of the business but becomes increasingly more frequent the further you go up the hierarchy.

It is important to understand whether you have a leadership team or a leadership committee?  The impact of each is considerable and quite different.  Many problems that you may be experiencing with your leadership team have, at their root, the fact that the leadership team is actually a leadership committee.

Let me explain by looking at teams and committees in turn:

Teams

For the purpose of this article, I define a team as a group of individuals who are working together, towards a common goal or goals, in which they will either succeed or fail to do so together.  There is a strong common purpose, common understanding and real alignment to which all members of the team are committed.

A team that is well-aligned and works well together only does so because there is a high level of trust.  As such the team sets its own goals, and all the members share resources, information, and insights. There is open and frank communication between the members, with members, prepared to challenge each other in order to resolve issues and achieve the desired outcomes. Honesty and candor underpin the team allowing alternatives to be discussed and decisions are taken only after healthy and robust debate.

Committees

Here a group of people come together because of their title or role or function (and in a role as a representative of a given area or function) and agree to work together as long as it is individually beneficial, but at any time they can withhold information, resources, or not comply; also they can be rewarded differentially i.e. I win, you lose.  The individuals participate rather than promising an outcome or a result.

There is a lack of trust and there is no common purpose or any alignment, or it is very weak if there is any.  The focus of the committee tends not to be on achieving the outcomes, but on tasks and following process. Political battles and turf wars break out as committee members jockey for position.  They can withhold resources and information from others in doing so, and people will work or collaborate with others only so far as doing so helps their individual interests.  In a committee, people can win at the expense of the others. This means decisions are made on a sub-optimal basis and, although they can advance one area’s interests, may do so even though it causes damage to the business itself.

Which Do You Have – Teams or Committees?

So how do you know which you have?  Chance is that you probably already have a pretty good idea, but sometimes the group may be in a “gray area”.  In these instances, I suggest you apply the five criteria:

Andrew Cooke’s Five Golden Keys for Evaluating Groups

Look at the questions in the following areas.  If the answers tend to favor the group over the individual you have a team, if it is the individual over the group then you have a committee.

  1. Individual and Group Intention – how would you describe the individual intentions for each group member and the group overall?  Are they prepared to put the interest of others ahead of their own in advancing the group’s interests?  Are the group’s interests shared or do they vary from each individual?
  2. Effectiveness – is the group and the members focused on doing the right things?  Are there a clearly shared and understood set of priorities and outcomes? Is the group delivering progress towards the defined outcomes, or is progress being achieved in a multiple and conflicting directions against outcomes which may or may not be those which were defined initially? Are members participating or working to deliver outcomes.
  3. Communication –what kind of discussions and debate is there between group members?  Do they focus on the issue at hand or the personalities involved?  How well do they share with others what they are doing and why?  Do they have a shared and common understanding which they can consistently and clearly articulate?
  4. Relationships  – are they cooperative and collaborative, or is it a case of acting in the individual’s self-interest?  Is the nature of the relationship long-term, strategic and aligned; or are the relationships short-term and transactional in their focus?
  5. Power – is power perceived by the group and its members to be vested in the group itself, and thus all members are subordinate to the group; or is it perceived to be vested in certain individuals for who the group’s interests are subordinate to theirs?

Do you have a leadership team or a leadership committee?  Think carefully before you answer.  If your team is exhibiting signs of dysfunction then it is likely that you have a group that is a committee or has strong leanings to some of the characteristics of a committee than a team.

Consider one of the dysfunctional teams you either have been on or are a part of now.  Is your team a committee in disguise as a team?  If so, can you apply this distinction to diagnose the problem and get your team on track?

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How to Use Frames to Control Conversations

Andrew Cooke Decision, Decision Making, Growth and Profit Solutions, Leadership, Uncategorized

Frames are a powerful tool that allows you to define how a situation, event or occurrence can be viewed.  If you set the frame, you control the conversation; if you control the conversation, you can control the relationship; and if you control the relationship, you control the business opportunity.

A framework in the same way as the frame around a picture.  A good picture frame draws you into the picture so you can focus on it, and enhances the picture, without being apparent itself.

  1. Provides focus – so you are able to focus your clients, via your use and control of language, on what you see to be as the pith of the matter
  2. Reduces mental clutter – make it easier to identify what you need to focus on
  3. Helps to gain agreement
  4. Accelerates movement and progress
  5. Provides control

Inside of the frame is what is important, what is outside is what is not important as shown in the picture below.

Framing

Framing a Situation

For example, you may be behind budget by $20m.  You could frame this in a couple of different ways, and how you frame it will affect and determine how you perceive and act on this.

  • Frame 1 – As a Problem: We have a target of $200m for the year and we are currently behind by $20m. We should have made $150m by this point in the year, but we have only made $130m. This means that we now have to make $70m before the year end.  We need to work harder to get more deals in.
  • Frame 2 – As an Opportunity: We are working hard and well in a difficult market. We are $20m shy of where we currently want to be and need to make $70m by the year-end.  How can we leverage what we have already done?  How can we work with other areas to help them and us accelerate the time it takes to do deals and increase the average deal size?

You can see in the second frame provides a positive, optimistic and creative context from which to drive the conversation and generate innovative ideas and actions. This helps to inspire and motivate people.  The first frame is negative, pessimistic and looks at doing more of the same (which isn’t working well as they are behind budget). This is more judgmental and is likely to lower morale.

Think how you can frame things to engage and include others in what you are trying to do and to share this technique with your people, in turn, A powerful frame can help to shape the perception, interpretation and how people engage with the situation, occurrence or event.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here.

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

What to Do Before You Start Making Decisions

Andrew Cooke Decision, GPS, Growth and Profit Solutions, Influence, Leadership, Meetings, Negotiation, Process, Uncategorized

What you need to do before you start the decision-making process

by Andrew Cooke, Growth & Profit Solutions

Decisions Before You DecideWe make decisions every day; small ones, big ones, unusual ones, specific or general and those which have become a force of habit.  We get so involved in the decision itself that we become blind to the key dimensions that surround it. So what are they, why are they important and how can we use them to help us make better and more effective decisions?

The Four Key Dimensions

There are four key dimensions which need to be considered when making a decision.  This includes:

  1. Composition: Who should be involved in the decision-making process?  You need to make sure you have the right people, with the right information, who can contribute and develop the necessary decision.4 Dimensions of Decision-Making
  2. Context: In what type of environment does the decision take place?  Is it an open environment that fosters open, constructive dialogue?  Or a closed environment in which personal interests supersedes those of the group?
  3. Communication: What are the “means of dialogue” among the participants?  Does it involve considerable direct discussion with those with relevant knowledge and expertise, or is it ‘filtered’ through reports from senior people in the hierarchy?  Are there face-to-face meetings or is it via phone, email, reports etcetera?
  4. Control: How will the leader control the process and the content of the decision?
  • Control of the Process – how do you want to shape the way that the deliberations are undertaken and followed;
  • Control of the Content – how much do you want to control the outcome of the decision

This last factor- Control – is the hardest, and has the greatest impact on the decision.

A Balanced Approach

A balance between control of the process and control of the content is required.  Too little or too much control of the process and/or the content will result in sub-optimal decisions.  Some of the impacts of low or high levels of control on the process or content are shown below.

Impact of the Level of Control of Content & Process in Decision-Making

 Decisions and Control

So how can we achieve a balance in controlling both the process and content of a decision?  There are three steps:

 3 Steps for a Balanced Approach

1.      Be Clear on the Decision

Are you clear on what the decision is that you are making is?   For example, you are looking at how to improve your retention of key customers.  This is not a decision; this is a problem that needs to be solved.  Be careful not to confuse decisions with problems.

2.      Know What Objectives & Outcomes You Want to Achieve

Have a clear understanding of where you want to be as a result of the decision you have made.  Knowing this will help you understand what expertise and information you need, from whom you need to get it, and the people who should be involved.

3.      Have Checks & Counter-Balances

You will find that you and others involved in the decision-making process will fall into common decision-making traps or errors of judgement.  Understanding them, and how to avoid them will provide you with the means to check your collective thoughts, ideas and insights and reduce the likelihood of your decision being subverted.

Use this as a checklist – make sure you address the four dimensions: Composition, Context, Communication and Control – and build the means for better decisions.  Will you share this with your colleagues and those who participate in your decision-making processes?

It’s your decision.

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5 Steps to Creating Your Leadership Brand

Andrew Cooke Leadership, Leadership Development, Personal Profile

Just as businesses need to build their brands, so leaders need to build their leadership brand.

You probably already have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one? And is it the one that will take you from where you are to where you want to be?

This is an important question as it is your leadership brand that conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. It communicates the value you offer. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact it could. A strong personal leadership brand allows all that’s powerful and effective about your leadership to become known to your colleagues, enabling you to generate maximum value.

What’s more, choosing a leadership brand can help give you focus. When you clearly identify what you want to be known for, it is easier to let go of the tasks and projects that do not let you deliver on that brand. Instead, you can concentrate on the activities that do.

Five Steps to Building Your Leadership Brand

  1. What results do you want to achieve in the next year?

The first thing you should do is ask yourself, “In the next 12 months, what are the major results I want to deliver at work?” Take into account the interests of these four groups:

  • Customers
  • Investors
  • Employees
  • The organization
  1. What do you wish to be known for?

What are the six key descriptors which you need to have to balance your strengths and qualities? A good way to do this is to ask your boss, peers and some of your most trusted subordinates. “What are the traits that someone in this role (and/or future role) should exhibit?” Their responses will help you to refine your list.  For example, the traits you ultimately select might include being collaborative, deliberate, independent, innovative, results-oriented and strategic.

  1. Define your identity

The next step is to combine these six words into three two-word phrases that reflect your desired identity. This exercise allows you to build a deeper, more complex description: not only what you want to be known for, but how you will probably have to act to get there. For example, the above six descriptors could be combined into the following three phrases:

  • Independently innovative
  • Deliberately collaborative
  • Strategically results-oriented

Test these ideas with your colleagues.

  1. Construct your leadership brand statement, and then test it.

In this step, you pull everything together in a leadership brand statement that makes a “so that” connection between what you want to be known for (Steps 2 and 3) and your desired results (Step 1). Fill in the blanks:

“I want to be known for being ______________ so that I can deliver __________.”

For example: “I want to be known for being independently innovative, deliberately collaborative and strategically results-oriented so that I can deliver superior financial outcomes for my business.”

With your leadership brand statement drafted, ask the following three questions to see if it needs to be refined:

  • Is this the brand identity that best represents who I am and what I can do?
  • Is this brand identity something that creates value in the eyes of my organization and key stakeholders?
  • What risks am I taking by exhibiting this brand? Can I live this brand?
  1. Make your brand identity real

To ensure that the leadership brand you advertise is embodied in your day-to-day work, check in with those around you. Do they see you as you wish to be seen? If you say you are flexible and approachable, do others find you so?

Share your personal leadership brand with others. Let people know your evolving as a leader and ask them for their feedback. The exercise of forging a leadership brand requires day-to-day discipline to make it real, the courage to make the changes you need to make, and humility to ask and take on the ideas and advice of others.

Your leadership brand isn’t static; it continually evolves to the different expectations you face at different times in your career. Leaders with the self-awareness and drive to evolve their leadership brands are more likely to be successful over the long term — and to enjoy the journey more.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here.

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

How to Stop Fear from Stopping You

Andrew Cooke Attitude, Leaders, Leadership, Uncategorized

People often experience fear and concern over what is happening or not happening as they perceive it.  As a leader, how do you manage fear?

A good piece of advice from Olivia Blanchard chief economist of the IMF was: “first and foremost, reduce uncertainty….Above all, adopt clear policies and act decisively”. When people have a clear mission then they can transform anxiety into action and productivity.

People need the opportunity, a warning as it were, so they can put themselves in the right frame of mind. When people are aware there is a looming disaster or threat prepare themselves better and become more resilient.

To help your team master their fear, and to use it judo-like to their and your benefit, help them by taking these three steps:

  • Recognize that you and they are afraid – if you can’t be honest with yourself and them about this then you can’t expect them to be.  Being prepared to admit you are afraid and ready to face your fear is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. It also stops people from letting the fear fester causing their energy and self-confidence to be eroded.
  • Frame the situation as an opportunity – this helps people to think more innovatively and creatively.  To quote “When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems.  When you focus on possibilities, you’ll have more opportunities”  In changing times what got you here won’t get you there.  You need to get different results, and to get different results you need to behave and think differently. As Einstein put it “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
  • Develop a sense of urgency – help them use and focus their liberated energy and enthusiasm to take action and get some “quick wins” whilst building for the longer-term.

Fear is only in our mind, so use your mind to “throw” it to your advantage.  By doing you also help others to do the same for themselves and become more resilient, flexible and adaptable in the process.

To view or download a PDF version of this article click here.

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

Your Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence

Andrew Cooke Attitude, Change, Leadership, Perception, Teams

You have limited time, resources and energy to expend on getting work done, projects completed and achieving the results you are looking for.  As such you need to be able to use these limited and finite resources effectively.  To do this you need to be able to distinguish between what lies within your Circle of Concern and your Circle of Influence as shown in the picture below:

Circle of Concern and Influence

  • The Circle of Concern – this larger circle encompasses  everything that you are concerned about, including those things over which you exert no control or influence e.g. the level of tax, terrorist threats, the current interest rate on loans and mortgages etcetera.  We tend to waste a lot of our time, effort and mental energy in the Circle of Concern.  This produces nothing as we are unable to overcome the inertia or have any effect.
  • The Circle of Influence is smaller, and it encompasses those things that we can do something about.  These are those things where we can be proactive and, by taking action for ourselves, address them. Here we invest our time, energy and effort on the things that we can change.  This produces results and momentum forward.

The two circles – Concern and Influence – are about the choices you make and the results you want.

The Circle of Concern is where you find people who focus on that which they cannot influence. They are reactive, stressed and ineffectual.  The Circle of Influence is where we find people who choose to focus on things that they can influence.

By focusing attention and energy on our circle of influence, people are increasingly proactive. The energy we expend is enlarging; each small victory motivates us further exert influence. We don’t waste energy on things we can do nothing about, but direct it towards what we can change. With each step we feel stronger and more creative. And so our circle of influence expands.

By focusing on what we can influence we also start to understand better what we cannot influence. We develop a better understanding of our circle of concern, and what it includes and does not include – it may even expand our circle of concern. This provides us with a fuller and better appreciation of the context in which we work, and helps us to better focus on our efforts on what we can influence. It can be incredibly liberating to realize that, in choosing how to respond to circumstances, we affect those circumstances. If we want to cope with the challenges we face, then we need to learn how we can influence them.

Share this diagram with your team, colleagues, and clients to help them distinguish between the two, what lies within their Circle of Influence whilst being aware of what lies within their Circle of Concern – and to focus their efforts on what they can influence, not that over which they have no control. This will provide greater traction, reduced stress and a more effective and productive team who can achieve results more easily.

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Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

 

A Tool for High-Performance – The Locus of Control

Andrew Cooke Change, Leadership, Perception, Performance

There is a simple, but useful tool that helps you to understand how people respond to situations, and to anticipate their likely behaviour. It can also help you identify those who are likely to be winners and losers. This tool is called the Locus of Control.

Everyone wants to know what separates winners from losers. One of the significant factors limiting the attainment of your vision is the degree to which you believe you are in control of your destiny. Your locus of control can be internal or external. You can have a combination of both but normally one will outweigh the other.  So what are the differences between an internal Locus of Control and an external Locus of Control,, and how can you identify them?

  • External Locus of Control – you can tell by listening to what you say, or your team members, when talking about your business and your life. If you hear things like, “I would have been successful but the economy turned sour” or “I got caught by a pile of bad debts so I had to close the business down” you have an external locus of control. People with an external locus of control blame the external factors for their failure.

Locus of Control

  • Internal Locus of Control  – people with an internal locus of control feel that they can influence the issues around them. You’ll hear them say things like “I misjudged the market so I put on too many people which ended up costing me a packet of money” or “I found that my skills weren’t sufficient to handle the negotiation”.

Get into the habit of listening to the people to determine whether they have an internal or external locus of control. Of course, those who have an external locus are the ones who find it difficult to change. It’s always someone else’s fault or responsibility.

If you are setting up a team or looking at staffing make sure you have plenty of people with an internal locus of control. In simple terms, a person with an external locus of control is problem focused, while a person with an internal locus of control is solution focused. Remember, you will always find what you are looking for. Sometimes you find that by teaching someone about the locus of control, and helping them to change their own mindset they can change from having an external locus of control to an internal locus of control.

There is little point in developing a focused and aggressive business strategy if you are surrounded with people who believe that the Government, their people and even their customers are conspiring against them. You are defeated before you start. How can this be resolved?  By having people with an internal locus of control!

To see or download this blog as a PDF article click here.

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.