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Professional Development

BlogTeam

GPS4Leaders

by Ron Potter

Over the last couple of years, I have been working with a team of people to bring some of our (myself and other coaches on the team) experiences to users in an app.  I would like to share a video with you about that journey.

GPS4Leaders

Good GPS devices perform three functions:

  • Show you where you are
  • Show you where you’re going
  • Give you the best route to get there.

GPS4Leaders performs the same functions.  It will show you where you are as a team through

  • Personal Assessments
  • Team Dynamic Assessments

It will show you where you’re going through

  • Models of great teams, leaders, and cultures

It will give you the best route to get there

  • By talking team dynamic assessment, showing you where to focus and progress towards becoming great teams, leaders, and culture

Cost-Effective

GPS4Teams (including two of the four modules of GPS4Leaders) is very cost-effective.  At $150/year/person it will cost only a fraction of a good executive or team coach.   However, our goal is not to replace the good executive or team coach, it’s to help them be much more effective by focusing their work and requiring less of their time to help you grow teams, leaders, and cultures.

Visit GPS4Leaders.com

Join us today to help grow your organization.

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BlogTeamTeam Series

Team Elements – Respect: Humility, Development, Compassion

by Ron Potter

Teams are at the heart of great performance, great happiness, and the best memories.  These blogs are built on the 4 Levels of Happiness by Aristotle.  In his framework, Aristotle says that the highest level of happiness will be achieved at Level 4.  In describing Level 4 Happiness, Aristotle Used five words:

  • Truth
  • Love
  • Purpose
  • Beauty
  • Unity

Love (Respect)

The Greeks had several words that are all translated into the English word “love.”  The Greek word for Love that Aristotle used had nothing to do with emotions or the feeling of love that we have for another person.  This word referred to treating the other person with respect.  It’s about what we do, not how we feel.

As human beings, we seem to have an innate sense that someone respects us or not.  Great teams require great respect (love) for each other.

In unpacking the concept of Respect (or love), we will look at the following concepts over the next couple of posts:

  • Three elements of building Trust: Humility, Development, Compassion
  • Patience
  • Kindness
  • Envy
  • Anger
  • Grudges

In our last post, we looked at Psychological Safety (both Truth and Respect being at their highest level).  Research has indicated that Psychological Safety is one of the best indicators of high team performance.

This post will start a series digging deeper into the concept of Respect.  How do we define it?  How do we use it?

Humility, Development, and Compassion

These are three of the eight concepts that we learn from my book, Trust Me are present with great leadership.  Let’s look at each one and see how they relate to Respect.

Humility

When someone does not demonstrate humility, it’s hard to believe they have respect for others.  Lack of humility becomes self-focused.  When someone is self-focused, they are not “other” focused.  Humility means that I have an interest in your opinion.  Steven Covey listed one of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as “Seek to understand first before being understood.”  When someone wants to know what I think before sharing with me what they think, I feel respected.  I feel like my opinion counts.  I’m more interested in their opinion because they were interested in my opinion first.  I feel respected.

Development

When a leader believes it’s worth their time to grow and develop me, I feel respected.  Leaders dedicated to development will provide straight and meaningful feedback.

I once worked with a client who told me their boss was a wonderful person, always positive and encouraging but not very useful.  They went on to explain that all of their performance reviews were great with nothing but good feedback.  However, it gave them nothing to work with.  There were no suggestions for growth or betterment.  Therefore, it just wasn’t very useful.

Positive Development means straightforward feedback about what’s working and what is not working with suggestions for development and follow-up on efforts.  Taking the time to develop people demonstrates respect.

Compassion

I would often get negative comments about this topic when we first published Trust Me.  Many managers would express the sentiment that they were not running a charitable organization; they were running a business and business was rough and tumble, not soft and cushy!

I started dealing with this question by asking these rough and tumble leaders about their doctors.  Did they like doctors that looked at the lab results only and treated them as numbers on a graph or did they like doctors that related to them as human beings first and then talked to them about how the clinical numbers might be affecting their quality of life.  They all like doctors who were professionally competent but treated them as human beings first and foremost.  The same is true with your teammates.

You want a teammate who tells it to you straight but knows you as a human being first.  We are not motivated or encouraged by people who treat us as a human ‘doing’ (relating to what we do rather than who we are) rather than a human being.  If we’re treated as human beings (which means we’re respected) first, we are much more likely to respond to our fullest.

Patience, Kindness, Envy, Anger, and Grudges.

These are concepts that we’ll look at in our next post about Respect.

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BlogTrust Me

Four Ways to Develop Change Through Mentoring

by Ron Potter

Is there a surefire, can’t-fail approach to mentoring effectively in an organizational setting? Probably not. But that should not come as a surprise because, after all, we are talking about relationships between people.

But there are some simple ideas that will help illumine your path to a satisfying and successful mentoring experience.

Encourage

Encouragement is one of the mentor’s most powerful tools for leading another person to higher levels of personal growth. The Greek word for encouragement means “coming alongside.” This means helping another person by being right there, offering whatever assistance is required.

All of us need encouragement—a word from somebody who believes in us, stands by us, and reassures us. Encouragement renews our courage, refreshes our spirits, and rekindles our hope. Encouragement goes beyond appreciation to affirmation; we appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Affirmation does not insist on a particular level of performance, and it is not earned.

Be Patient

Mentoring requires a good amount of patience from both parties. The endurance factor is quite important when the person with whom a mentor is working reacts with what might be considered a silly response (in words or actions). It takes patience to watch someone grow and develop into a better person. It takes patience to see missteps and not immediately go in and either change the behavior or solve the problem.

Be Trustworthy

As a mentor you must exhibit integrity. The person you are mentoring will be open and vulnerable only after watching you live a consistently ethical life. Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.

Be An Opportunist

A good mentor is always searching for mentoring opportunities. The best mentoring happens in “teachable moments.” These impromptu opportunities to share insights and experiences require no formal agenda or time schedule, just a willingness on the leader’s part to be available and recognize moments when the other person needs help. This should flow naturally and not be contrived or forced. The protégé may not even realize that a “mentoring moment” has occurred.

The opportunity to mentor exists in every setting where people need to draw on one another’s talents to accomplish a goal.

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BlogLeadership

3 Ways to Develop Dynamic Change in Others

by Ron Potter

Is there a surefire, can’t-fail approach to mentoring effectively in an organizational setting? Probably not. But that should not come as a surprise because, after all, we are talking about relationships between people. However, here are some ideas, principles, and goals that will help illumine your path to a satisfying and successful mentoring experience.

1.Be an encourager

Encouragement is one of the mentor’s most powerful tools for leading another person to higher levels of personal growth. The Greek word for encouragement means “coming alongside.” This means helping another person by being right there, offering whatever assistance is required.

All of us need encouragement—a word from somebody who believes in us, stands by us, and reassures us. Encouragement renews our courage, refreshes our spirits, and rekindles our hope. Encouragement goes beyond appreciation to affirmation; we appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Affirmation does not insist on a particular level of performance, and it is not earned.

Based on our observation, we do offer one caution related to the issue of encouragement: Many leaders themselves appear to have a low need for personal affirmation and approval and therefore have difficulty understanding the need to encourage and affirm others. If this describes you, you will need to train yourself to give what may feel like over-encouragement to others.

2.Be patient

Mentoring requires a good amount of patience from both parties. The endurance factor is quite important when the person with whom a mentor is working reacts with what might be considered a silly response (in words or actions). It takes patience to watch someone grow and develop into a better person. It takes patience to see missteps and not immediately go in and either change the behavior or solve the problem.

3. Be trustworthy

As a mentor you must exhibit integrity. The person you are mentoring will be open and vulnerable only after watching you live a consistently ethical life. Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.

The opportunity to mentor exists in every setting where people need to draw on one another’s talents to accomplish a goal.

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