I coach executives. The ones whose organizations are doing well are the ones who are leading, not the ones trying to hang on by managing. The distinction is critical.
Managing focuses on organizing and controlling the complexity of work. It involves planning and expanding what we want, and fixing or getting rid of what we don’t want. Managers are experts at preserving the status quo. Their work bounces from fix it to restore it to maintain it and back to fix it.
But organizing, fixing, and controlling are not sufficient for creating new direction and helping people discover strategies to get there.
That’s what leading is about: defining a new future. It’s grounded in what if… rather than what now thinking. It looks forward rather than back. It protects the future rather than preserves the status quo. Powerful leading inspires with a promise of greatness and anchors us in the world of possibility. And people are hungry for it.
When times are tough, most of us fall back on what we know best. We revert to patterned behavior that’s familiar and got us through tough times before. For harried executives, that means falling back on tried and true management practices. But times are changing. Management isn’t getting the job done. We desperately need leaders to set the course.
If you want to take up the challenge, start with the following.
Coaching tips:
- What if you could create the ideal experience for those you serve? Imagine it for a minute. Then get out your Mont Blanc and jot down some responses to the following (yes, longhand; something about scripting letters brings them to life and increases the likelihood of moving them from fantasy to reality):
- What would the ideal experience look like from your customers’ vantage point?
- What systems and processes would need to be different?
- How would employees be (as opposed to what would they do)?
- Now add more detail. Imagine what your customers and employees might imagine. Then leave the executive suite and get their views.
- Next, work your way through these first-cousin questions:
- What if your organization became THE system of choice in the industry? What would it look like? What would exist that doesn’t exist now?
- What if each employee believed in and was committed to working backward from the customer’s experience?
- What if all the people in your organization could realize their potential?
- Now imagine what would happen if you asked yourself questions like these every morning on your way to the office. What if you asked the same of customers, employees, and one another?
- What if you developed the habit of asking, “What if…” rather than “What now…”?
- What if you paid close attention to when you’re managing and when you’re leading? And to how and when people’s behavior is aligned with what you’re striving to create?
- What if ‘what if…’ became your theme song?