The Leadership Challenge

The Leadership Challenge

long, it appears, that they felt they didn’t need to talk to outsiders; they were content to speak just to each other.

One of the reasons that people are often afraid to ask around for ad­ vice and input from others is because they perceive that doing so means, or at least implies, that they’re incompetent, that they don’t know some­ thing that they should already know. However, studies have shown that this fear is misplaced. People perceive those who seek advice as more competent than those who do not seek advice and this belief is even stronger when the task is difficult than when it is easy.22 You can enhance people’s opinions about your competence by asking questions and seek­ ing advice from people who know what they are talking about. For one thing, doing so makes that other person feel affi rmed. Consequently, when you have a particularly perplexing problem, don’t hesitate to talk about it with someone who has dealt with similar situations. There is a good chance they will think more of you aft erward.

One way to open yourself up to new information is by taking on mul­ tiple perspectives. What can you do to take a more expansive view of your present circumstances? Researchers have suggested three approaches:23

Take the perspective of someone who frustrates or irritates you, and consider what that person might have to teach you.

Listen to what other people have to say; that is, listen to learn rather than to necessarily change their perspective.

Seek out the opinions of people beyond your comfort zone, folks you don’t typically talk with.

Asking questions and seeking the advice of others naturally leads to knowledge sharing across an organization. This inquisitiveness also strengthens interpersonal relationships. It is imperative that you listen to the world outside, and ask good questions. You never know where a great idea will come from, which means that you need to acquire an attitude of treating every job as an adventure.

Treat Every Job as an Adventure When we asked people to tell us who initiated the projects that they selected in describing their

164 Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. <i>The Leadership Challenge : How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations</i>, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/amridge/detail.action?docID=4836524. Created from amridge on 2019-10-18 07:52:01.

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CHAPTER 7 Search for Opportunities

Personal-Best Leadership Experiences, we assumed that the majority would name themselves. That’s not what we found. Someone other than the leader—usually the person’s immediate manager—initiated more than half the cases. At first, this caught us by surprise, until we realized that much of the work that people do is assigned to them. That’s just a fact of organi­ zational life; few get to start anything they do from scratch. Consequently, whether the project is self-initiated or assigned is not the important variable. What makes the difference is how the individuals on the receiving end view the assignment. They could see it as just another job—a task to complete— or they could see it as an adventure—a possibility of making something extraordinary happen. Hands-down, exemplary leaders choose adventure.

Stuff happens in organizations and in people’s lives. It’s not critical whether you find the challenges, or they find you. What is important are the choices you make. What’s important is the purpose you fi nd for challenging the way things are. The question is this: When opportunity knocks, are you prepared? Are you ready to open the door, go outside, and pursue an opportunity? When Clay Alm stepped into a senior op­ erations leadership role with OneRent Inc., a series of mini-crises con­ fronted him. At one point, he got quite frustrated with responses from his counterpart in sales, who kept saying that it wasn’t an operations problem. Clay realized that he needed to approach the problem from a different perspective in order to get the attention of the sales team, and he set about initiating several strategies. Clay told us that he “learned that you will likely get shot down when you bring forth a proposal to change the status quo, and you will likely be denied more than once. However, good leaders do not give up when confronted with adversity; they meet that adversity with alternative solutions, and do not stop putting forth additional solutions until that adversity is overcome.”

Even if you’ve been in your job for years, treat today as if it were your first day. Ask yourself, “If I were just starting this job, what would I do?” Begin doing those things now. Always stay alert to ways to improve your organization. Identify those projects that you’ve always wanted to under­ take but never have. Ask your team members to do the same.

Be an adventurer, an explorer. Where in your organization have you not been? Where in the communities that you serve have you not

165 Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. <i>The Leadership Challenge : How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations</i>, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/amridge/detail.action?docID=4836524. Created from amridge on 2019-10-18 07:52:01.

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The Leadership Challenge

been? Make a plan to explore those places. Take a field trip to a factory, a warehouse, a distribution center, or a retail store. Visit with people in a function, department, location, or even client base that intrigues you.

You don’t have to be at the top of the organization to learn about what’s going on around you. Be on the lookout for new ideas, wherever you are. If you’re serious about promoting innovation and getting others to listen to people outside the unit, make gathering new ideas a personal priority. Encourage others to open their eyes and ears to the world outside the boundaries of the organization. Collect ideas through focus groups, advisory boards, suggestion boxes, breakfast meetings, brainstorming sessions, customer evaluation forms, mystery shoppers, mystery guests, visits to competitors, and the like. Online chat rooms are great venues for swapping ideas with those outside your fi eld.

Make idea-gathering part of your daily, weekly, and monthly sched­ ule. Call three customers or clients who haven’t used your services in a while or who have made recent purchases, and ask them why. Sure, there’s email, but the human voice is better for this sort of thing. Work the count­ er and ask people what they like and don’t like about your organization. Shop at a competitor’s store or, better yet, anonymously shop for one of your organization’s products and see what the salespeople in the store say about it. Dial your workplace and listen to how people answer telephone calls, and handle questions. Make sure that you devote at least 25 percent of every weekly staff meeting to listening to outside ideas for improving processes and technologies and developing new products and services. Don’t let staff meetings consist merely of status reports on routine, daily, inside stuff. Invite customers, suppliers, folks from other departments, and other outsiders to your meetings to offer their suggestions on how your unit can improve. Keep your antennae up, no matter where you are. You can never tell where or when you might find new ideas.

These methods will keep your eyes and ears open to new ideas. Remain receptive and expose yourself to broader views. Be willing to hear, consider, and accept ideas from sources outside the company. If you never turn your back on what is happening outside the boundaries of your organization, the waves of change that roll in won’t catch you by surprise.

166 Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. <i>The Leadership Challenge : How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations</i>, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/amridge/detail.action?docID=4836524. Created from amridge on 2019-10-18 07:52:01.

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