| |
| |
|
Leadership Information |
|
|
|
Ask Yourself Whats In It For WE?
"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." - Henry Ford "Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." - Vince Lombardi _______________________________________ "What's in it for WE?" is a question we ask ourselves. It is not a question we ask of other people. It reflects a way of thinking that affects nearly all of our relationships and interactions with other people. In this article, I will briefly address three points that illustrate the importance of "What's in it for WE?" thinking to leadership, teamwork, and collaboration. 1) Effective collaboration is one of the keys to your business/financial success. I propose that few great things come from the efforts of only one person. Consider these great collaborations from the world of entertainment: ? Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ? Elton John and Bernie Taupin ? Paul McCartney and John Lennon ? Bud Abbot and Lou Costello. How about these collaborations from the world of exploration: ? Capt Meriwether Lewis and William Clark ? Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. In business we can look to: ? Bill Gates and Paul Allen ? David Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch ? James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas ? William Proctor and James Gamble ? Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck. Which of these people would have achieved the same level of success had they attempted to go it alone? I think few of them would have been as successful. 2) How you think determines how others react to you. People know how you are thinking about them because your thinking impacts your word choice, your tone, and your body language. The better you get at focusing your thoughts on mutual benefit, the more your words, tone and body language will reflect that thinking. As your external behaviors reflect more "What's in it for WE?" thinking, people will be more receptive to working collaboratively with you. 3) If you ask the wrong question, you'll get the wrong answer. This statement is the primary thought behind this article. I have heard this statement, or some variation of it, applied to sales training, conflict resolution, and communication training. In "QBQ!: The Question Behind The Question", John Miller discusses this statement as it applies to personal accountability. I hope you will apply it to your thinking regarding all of your interactions with other people. There are two basic types of questions you can ask yourself when you work with others. You can ask yourself "What's in it for ME?" questions or "What's in it for WE?" questions. "What's in it for ME?" questions focus on the benefit to you alone. They sound like: ? How can I get them to do business with me? ? How can I get people to refer other people to me? ? How can I sell them my product or service? ? Why don't they understand me? ? Why don't they listen to me? ? What's wrong with them? ? How can I get my employees to do what I want them to do? ? How can I get them to work harder? ? Why don't they get more done? ? Why aren't they helping me? "What's in it for WE?" questions focus on mutual benefit. They sound like: ? How can I add value to this relationship? ? What can I do to help this person? ? Who do I know that can help this person? ? What can we do together that we can't do separately? ? How do we complement each other? ? How can I communicate my ideas more clearly? ? How do I make myself the kind of person that people want to follow? As I said in the opening paragraph, "What's in it for WE?" is a question we ask ourselves that reflects a way of thinking about other people and our relationships with them. Learn to ask "What's in it for WE?" questions, and you will demonstrate "What's in it for WE?" behaviors. When you demonstrate "What's in it for WE?" behaviors, you will form mutually beneficial, collaborative relationships. These relationships will then form the foundation for your success. Remember to ask yourself - "What's in it for WE?" Copyright 2005, Guy Harris About the Author: Guy Harris is the Chief Relationship Officer with Principle Driven Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders build trust, reduce conflict, and improve team performance. Learn more at http://www.principledriven.com Guy co-authored "The Behavior Bucks System TM" to help parents reduce stress and conflict with their children. Learn more about this book at http://www.behaviorbucks.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Leadership - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Are You A Leader in the Chrysalis? Let's get this straight at the outset?Leadership skills can be found in their droves on an Internet search. Lists? dozen of them; and if you want to define yourself and tick the box by a pre-set, ready made standard based on what 'experts' in business and the church think, then go right ahead and look because I am not going to reproduce it here and encourage you to pigeon-hole yourself. Benefits of Leadership Skill Training DESCRIPTION CMOE's Leadership Skill Training addresses a wide range of leadership development topics, based on the needs of the audience and scope of delivery. Leadership Skill Training for new leaders might be targeted to help them make the transition from individual contributor to effective leader. Leadership and Power - Being the Boss Doesnt Guarantee Either of Them Some people mistakenly associate supervisory positions, or seats of power, with leadership. They presume that these two things are synonymous. The Flexible Leadership Workshop The Leadership ChallengeLeaders in today's society are faced with an increasingly complex challenge: To deliver business results in the face of rapidly changing conditions, while building team members' capacity to address the future. While organizations are becoming generally flatter, less hierarchical, less "command-and-control," individual managers must still determine which leadership style to employ. The Sink Or Swim Approach To Leadership Looking around in most corporate environments today you'll find mission, vision and values statements proudly displayed on the walls, in print materials and even engraved in granite. Often, they've invested a great deal of time; effort and expense in crafting just the right message to best describe the foundational principles of the company. Wisdom From The Rock He grew up in Brooklyn, the son of an ex-con father and with a Mob-connected uncle who earned a living as a loan-shark. He credits his father continually saying, "Never lie, never steal," as an influence in his making a better career choice. Professional Organizations: Join or Fold? All of us join professional organizations for a reason--a friend belongs, we need to for credibility, etc. Many times we let years slide by and we don't stop and review those reasons. The Tao of Leadership There can be no doubt that the ancient author of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu, was a man of unique wisdom whose writings continue to influence people of different backgrounds and faiths.Many leaders then and now get wrapped up in selfish ambition. Managing Monsters in Meetings - Part 3, Drifting From the Topic Although new ideas lead to creative solutions, they can be a challenge when they interrupt or distract the work on an issue.Approach 1: Question the relationship to topicWhen new ideas seem inappropriate, say:"That's an interesting point (or question). Reveal the Leader Within A Leader is not a certain type of person or position of power. It is not the one at the top of the golf leader board at any specific time or the person at the top of an organisation. How to Become a Great Leader & Improve Your Leadership Skills A great leader is able to inspire his/her workers to work harder. Instead of firing workers, great leaders know how to fire his/her worker up to do their best. Make the Most of Your Mentoring Relationships Mentoring is one of the best ways to learn, to get feedback, and to take your career to the next level. Here are ten tips for making the most of your mentoring relationships. Are You a Leader or a Manager? President Ike Eisenhower once demonstrated the difference between leadership and management to his cabinet by putting a piece of string in a straight line on the conference table. He then asked one of the attendees to put his finger on one end of the string and push it. The Leadership Talk As A Living Hologram The hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made on a flat surface with laser beams.The three-dimensionality of such an image is not the only remarkable characteristic of a hologram. Building Future Leaders As a whole we spend a lot of time filling our minds with various forms of self-improvement.Believe me this is good for us!However, I think what's equally important is the amount of positives that we send to our younger generation. Women in Leadership - How to Get Promoted It is often much harder for women to get promoted than men. The most common characteristic of successful women is that they know how to express their excellence in a male dominated environment. Abe Lincoln: An Extraordinary Leader Perhaps noted as one of the greatest United States presidents of all time, Abraham Lincoln's early life may not have reflected his potential greatness. He failed in business. Value Driver Leadership CHAPTER 1 ************ VALUEThose qualities regarded by a person or group as important and desirable of standards and principlesWhat is value driven leadership? Have you ever considered having a value driven leadership team? Or even a team driven by values and not a team having to be driven by the leader? That thought alone made me consider looking into the way I ran my teams and how I could do things better; this is the driving force behind writing this book. When you think about it, in everything we do as individuals or a team we should always be 'values driven' not impulse or need driven! If we are driven by values then we will always have a "why" in everything we do, and then we will do what we do with everything that is in us, come hell or high water (test, trials, pressure, set back or circumstances). Why You Should Ignore This Advice Doesn't make too much sense does it? Am I really going to give you some advice that asks you to ignore the advice I'm giving you? Well, that's not strictly true. I am however going to show you how to qualify the advice you are given, so you can sort the wheat from the chaff, and help you to survive the information overload on the Internet. 7 AAA Ways To Succeed! [Abounding Abundant Ample Ways To Boost Your Growth!] This may come as a surprise but there are reliable,effective and powerful ways to improve your ability to learnnew things. If you will allow me to use leadership skills training asour example, you will see how poor learning forces us tosuffer through any one or more of the following problems: - leadership training programs usually cost serious money -in fact, some programs are outrageously expensive - leadership training programs last for a very short time -quite a few of them run for only one or two days - many leadership training programs fail to give studentsways to confidently resolve problem situations or meet andovercome their daily challenges - less than 1% of all leadership training programs combinecoaching and mentoring follow-ups with classroom lessons - most leadership training programs like to do 'raw datadumps'- the vast majority of them do NOT give you chances to'blend' your learning experiences with supervised support orpractical feedback In this article you will discover how to find, use and takeadvantage of every kind of performance improvement learningopportunity you encounter.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
