Run It On a Real Situation

Be honest with yourself here because I may never know how you answer this in your own head: how often have you attended an event or a course, taken pages of notes detailing all the great ideas you had while you were there, then got slammed by all the urgencies of life the moment you got back to your office. We’ve seen that more times than we can count, and we’ve experienced it too! The HR Manager I worked under (indirectly) for more than a decade always held me accountable for providing a list of what I learned and, more importantly, how the specific action step I would be implementing would improve our organization’s productivity and profitability. His clear (and high) expectations had such an impact, which often felt like adversities in the moment, that Cindy and I have built the same kind of expectation into every lesson we deliver. That also served as the premise for me writing What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!) a few years ago.

Nearly all of our digital programs have assessments tied to each lesson, challenging participants to detail what they plan to apply immediately, the result they want to achieve, and what they can do to sustain that new action long term. While those have their place and add tremendous value to a lot of people, the biggest gap we’ve seen is follow through. Without someone to be accountable to, many of us still get pulled toward whatever fire is currently burning our backsides. Through in-person engagements, like our Emerging Leader Development course, we always kick off the second session by having each participant detail what they’ve applied since the first session and we circle back soon after the engagement to present certificates of completion to every participant who identified at least one action step from each lesson - and shared it with whoever they report to. Since our IMPACT Leadership Academy and Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank groups consist of mid and high-level leaders with packed schedules, we build time into those sessions for them to map out their action steps before they ever leave - because we know their fires are usually waiting the moment they walk out the door.

Hopefully, each adversity I’ve shared through this process and the questions I challenged you with after each has helped you list a multitude of seeds that you had never recognized previously. If adding them to a list is all you do, though, I’ve failed you. Even with the six steps we just worked through for leading from wherever you stand, I know all too well how easy it can be to get pulled back into the routine of dealing with whatever is most urgent while some of the most important things we can do to move forward get pushed to the back burner. Here, as much as anywhere else I’ve ever seen, this framework delivers the most value when those six steps are put in place immediately, executed consistently, and progress is measured intentionally.

If you already have a position with leadership responsibility, my challenge for you is to identify the situation you’re dealing with today that you can run through those six steps AND pick the person you’re willing to be accountable to as you do it. That said, this framework is even more useful for the person with no title, limited time, and a fresh adversity that still stings. If that’s you and you want to lead from where you stand right now, be sure to run it before the week is over. Make no mistake, though, your first time through these steps is bound to be messy. That’s fine. Avoiding them is not. You’ll be able to measure your harvest in influence so we’ll dig into that next.