Change your thinking or get left behind … it’s simple.

One of the greatest personal challenges for us as leaders today is to change the way we think.

George Lee Sye

Here’s the reality. If we are going to move our lives and our companies to the next level, obviously we can only do it through a change in the way we see the world; in other words our paradigms. The reason it can be so difficult to do is because our paradigms are simply mental patterns that run at an unconscious level. And the problem with that is we will argue black and blue that the way we think is RIGHT because we simply do not know what we don’t know.

Thinking About Thinking

Traditional leadership models tend towards organisation structures or personal characteristics or leader behaviours. While they may fill the pages of management text to the point of overflow and line the corridors of corporations intent on growth, models don’t get results. Models create a framework for having meaningful discussion and help embed an idea in visual form in one’s mind. However, when it comes to the crunch you can teach as many models as you want but results may never eventuate. So let’s forget about models for a bit and think about thinking.

Flexibility in Leader Thinking

Effective leaders today must have flexibility in the way they think, flexibility in their paradigm or the framework through which they view the world in different contexts. For example, a leader can’t be so fixed on cost that cost becomes the only paradigm for decision making. When a consultant comes to them and offers to do work for say $50,000 per week, the response should not be “That’s way too much, what’s your best price.” That leader must also be able to shift to a value paradigm when needed and in this case a more appropriate response might be “What return will you deliver to me for that outlay?” If that consultant returns a bottom line impact of $70,000 per week, it is a clear value adding investment. The only thing that would have prevented them from making that investment was a cost mentality.

With the cost paradigm, as with all others, it was learnt, quite correctly I might add, in a specific context (e.g. when budgeting, when the economic situation was tight, or purchasing something that doesn’t generate revenue etc). However, it is inadvertently utilised in other situations some of which are not appropriate (e.g. when undertaking revenue generating purchases).

I am convinced that the most common shifts in thinking [with respect to specific contexts leaders operate within] leaders must be able to engage in consciously include these.

Making the shift when relevant between …

• Cost (how much you pay) and Value (what it returns to you)
• Behaviour Control (you controlling them) and Employee Release (letting them explore their own talent and potential)
• Authority (they do it because you are the boss) and Influence (they do it willingly)
• Answers (content knowledge) and Questions (extracting answers)
• Actions (what to do) and Results (what to produce as an outcome)
• Fixing (in reaction) and Improving (before things break)
• Solutions (the how to improve now) and Scenarios (what we might have to improve for)

Flexibility of Time Span

Not only is flexibility a necessity from a paradigm perspective, it’s vital that leaders understand the shifts they must make from a time span perspective.

One of the most significant barriers in business thinking can be observed in the meetings held at various levels in the company. ‘Replication of Time Span’ is so common I now expect to see it when I visit a company. Permit me to give you an example of what I mean. The business leadership team meets and their discussion is focused on what happened last week and what has to happen in the coming week. The content is regurgitated at the department level meeting – last week and next week is the focus of discussion. And so on ……. each level of meeting replicating the span of time that dominated the previous conversation.

I know it doesn’t make sense, but this is practiced widely.

The strategy of ‘cascading objectives downward’ into a company is understood in principle, but the mental inflexibility embedded through this type of time span replication limits the ability to actually make the strategy come to life.

Time Spans of Relevance for Leaders in Business Today …

• 1 to 5 year horizon (the big picture about where you would like to be in the future)
• 1 year (the specific business objectives you have to hit to make the numbers)
• Quarterly (the milestones you must achieve in order to move closer to the 1 year objectives)
• Weekly (the results you must get in order to move closer to the quarterly milestones)
• Daily (right down to the specific activities that must be undertaken to get the specified weekly results)

Different levels of leadership must not only think at different levels of detail, they must also have the mental dexterity to shift focus to different time spans relevant to their level in the organisation. But ….. how many business leaders would be comfortable with only talking about progress towards some milestone a quarter out, and not worrying about what’s happening next week? Only those who are able to trust AND hold people accountable for results.

I hope I have stimulated your thinking with this topic. I realise that I probably raised more questions than answers with this, so if you would like to know more, why not attend one of my 3-hour Changing Paradigms of Leadership events in Australia and New Zealand.

I’d love to share more of this topic with you. Until next time, take care.

George Lee Sye