7 Secrets to Getting Results Through Others
Brag about what you’ve helped others do, not what you’ve done.
Managers who maximize talent, produce results through others. Talent that doesn’t produce remarkable results, reflects poor management.
You’re in the way, if you can’t get results through others.
7 secrets to getting results through others:
- Focus on what others can do. Your first thought is what you can do. Successful managers shift their thinking to what others can do. The less you do, the more they get done. This isn’t about being lazy or negligent. Leverage their talent by getting out of the way.
- Build relationships with high-potential individuals. Relationship building is trust building. Trust begins with what you do for others, not what they do for you. Respect their values and skills. Expect people to be like themselves, not like you.
- Describe results. If you want results, you must describe them before they’re achieved.
- Take action when you don’t get results. Mediocrity is the result of tolerance. If you’re having the same performance conversation over and over, you are the problem.
- Develop the middle. People are great at one or two things, average at many, and lousy at a few. The middle – average areas of skill – are the best opportunities for development. Develop people who deliver results by elevating their middle. Work to make their good skills great. (Thanks to Milo and Thuy Sindel, “Hidden Strengths,” for this idea.)
- Talk more about good performance than bad. What are you doing well? What behaviors produce desired results? Talking about what went wrong doesn’t produce results. You can’t deliver positive results by “not doing” things.
- Have after-action meetings. The military calls them AAR’s, after action reports.
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- What will you do differently next time?
Bonus: Give support, but don’t coddle.
What prevents managers from getting results through others?
What’s one of your get-results-through-others tips?
Great article, as usual. One of the challenges in a school is getting people into the right position so their strengths become visible. Also creating teams of people who can work together collaboratively, building on each others’ strengths.
Thanks Dr Brennan. You nailed another important aspect of getting results. Get the right people in the right positions. I think sometimes our hopes that someone will step up is one reason we get the wrong people in the wrong position.
Build, maintain, steer and protect working environment until it becomes culture. A healthy culture people say “This is how we do it and works very well.”
“Talk more about good performance than bad.” Difficult to remember and probably the greatest barrier to getting results through others. How motivated do we expect staff to be if they hear more negatives than positives from leadership? Thanks for the reminder Dan.
Thanks Jim. You’re hitting the nail on the head. It’s about motivation. I’ve taken to using the term energized interchangeable with motivation. How energized do you feel after hearing about everything you did wrong?
I really liked suggestion #5: “Develop the middle.” So obvious once I saw it; not much gain on what do well already and a whole lot of effort to help sufficiently on what they don’t do. Therefore best use of time is helping with the things in the middle!!! Going to Consider the material at the link you provided.
Thanks John. Yes, I was skimming the book “Hidden Strengths” and that idea jumped off the page. Wisdom is usually obvious.
Dan, of the many things I enjoy most about Leadership Freak is how YOU place almost all responsibility of organizational ills on the shoulders of leaders and managers, and how YOUR READERS seem so ready and willing to accept that responsibility. It’s like the world says “the problems of man,” and you and your audience see it as “man as the problem.”
So if we are the problem, we are also the solution. The problem with our organization (and our life) is us…and we are the solution. Here’s why.
We are our organization’s greatest liability, and thus its greatest asset. The problem is not the economy, not the lack of opportunity, not our team. The problem is us. That’s the bad news.
The good news is if we’re the problem, we have the most control over our own thinking and behavior. We are the one person who can change the easiest. We can decide to grow. Grow our abilities, our sensitivities, character, vision, and our capacity to develop others into who “they” wish to become. And, we can decide who we want and need to be–to get about the business of becoming that person to solve the problem of us.
We can observe and develop the exchange between “man” and the “community” in which we work. We can decrease the “polarity” in our environment by making honor and gain—not just money—our motives. We can focus on “man’s” ills and problems, and “man’s repair” as part of our mission. And rather than talking about and teaching mere job performance, we can better the whole of “man’s” life, living, being, and doing first as cause, then as plan for contribution to others.
Results and excellence, then, come as a natural byproduct.
Thanks Books. I couldn’t agree more that if we are the problem, we are the solution. I’ve actually tweeted that in the past. Great minds!
Love the use of the term “polarity.” When we are thinking “us/them,” problems end up being someone else’s issue. We need to convince others to change. When the problem is ours, the solutions are ours also.
In one sense, I agree that results can become by-products. However, I want to mention that really great people who are getting along really well, may not produce great results. People of great character, who have built great relationships, are foundational to great results, but they aren’t a guarantee. There is a skill/know-how component to great results as well.
For example, great people in great relationship do even better when they know how to perform AAR’s.
I stand corrected, Dan. Your experience, observations and comments are worth their weight in gold. Nothing replaces the leader’s willingness and ability to espouse and teach betterment, skills and know-how.
My thoughts merely came from a recent LA Dodger game I attended, when a dodger pitcher wasn’t doing well and the manager went out to the mound and was speaking to the pitcher. Instead of taking him out of the game, he left him in. The same pitcher played the entire game and the Dodgers won. The next day, a newspaper reporter is quoted as having asked the manager what he said to the pitcher: “Well we talked about the barbecue fund-raiser at the LA Mission we were going to attend on Saturday.”
Thus, my comments on how to gain results. Instead of constant conversations on how to perform, how to do better, leaders can go beyond–and talk about the bigger picture of contribution. Thank you, Dan, very much.
Thanks Books. Your illustration is a powerful illustration of getting out of the weeds. I see this all the time with coaching clients. People need someone to throw them a rope and pull them up so they can look around. When you lower them back down, they have a new perspective. I appreciate you.
This a really super dooper good article. I agree we can only be good 2-3 things but building that middle ground is really relevant to improve our job performance. If we build on too much of our strengths we never get to harness our true potential as that middle ground gets lost.
Going to now focus on improving my middle ground immediately!!
Tanks Dan tis great you capabiliti to share you knowlege, grettings from Gautemala C.A.