We are currently living in a VUCA World. This means:
- Volatile (what is true today, may not be true tomorrow)
- Uncertain (it is hard to predict things)
- Complex (there are many parts and variables)
- Ambiguous (it is possible to reach different conclusions).
In light of this it is important to identify our derailers and enablers so that we can keep on track and keep moving forward.
Derailers
There are many derailers. These are things that get us off track and disrupt us. It is important that we identify these derailers so that we can manage and overcome them.
Prompt: Take some time and identify your own personal derailers.
In particular, there are three that we wanted to note:
- being “in the weeds”
- listening to win and
- unhealthy conflict.
Being “in the weeds” means that you are being sucked into the detail of the day to day issues and you are spending your time working on “urgent, not important” things. This means that you are largely reactive rather than proactive and any future planning is limited.
While being “in the weeds” can sometimes be helpful, it is important that you have an honest look at how you are spending your time and pro-actively delegate matters so that you have more time and can properly consider what comes next.
If you are still struggling to make time – specifically book in some meetings dedicated to thinking about the future and planning ahead.
Listening to Win means that we are trapped by rightness. This means that our instinct to believe we are right closes us off to the ways we are wrong and we are trapped by our beliefs, point of view and our values. We listen to respond rather than listen to learn.
You seek to address this derailer by listening to learn and being curious. Listening to learn requires that we watch our assumption that we are right (and we can either make the problem go away by winning or make it go away by fixing) and instead believe that the other person has something to say that we don’t understand and therefore we can’t immediately help or make the problem go away.
Listening to learn requires that we hold off and try to understand for a few minutes.
“Unhealthy” conflict means conflict that is not healthy. Good, healthy conflict can help improve decision making, avoids inertia and unhelpful compromises and helps get buy in. However, unhealthy conflict can arrive where conflicts get more personal.
Help you and your team by assessing/identifying unhealthy conflict and inviting them to police themselves – label “healthly” and “unhealthy” conflict (and behaviours) so that people are clear of where they are on the scale and aim to stay in the right zone.
Enablers
To balance your derailers, you should also take the time to identify your enablers. The things that help you push and more forward in the way that you want to.
Prompt: Take some time and identify your own personal enablers.
We have also identified three enablers to help you get back on track and identify what is next.
Start with your purpose and values. It is important to be clear and explicit about your purpose as a business. Revisit your purpose and values and do a bit of a refresh/realignment as you prepare for what is next.
Secondly tap into your network. If you haven’t already remapped your network, why not carry out a remapping exercise.
Experiment, learn and adapt. Finalise don’t see change as linear. Change is an ongoing process. So experiment, learn and adapt.