It’s time to make the critical shift from leading the business by yourself to leading an organization of people. At P2Excellence, we help you navigate the uncharted territories of organizational growth with clarity and confidence.
Although Autumn is technically a month old, my head and heart are still thinking about new Fall beginnings – that new school year feeling where we recalibrate and think about being more organized, more focused, more ready. Ready to be so smart in class, so attentive, so interested, so ready to earn an ‘A’!
All that preparation and re-positioning can be fun and exhilarating. But then the weeks go by, and that initial enthusiasm is replaced with the sometimes tedious task of sustaining those patterns of excellence. And what do I do to recalibrate if I am not that smartest in the class, not that attentive, not that interested, and hoping for a ‘C’?
In other words, my desires for a result and my behaviors are not aligned.
What I know now is that in those stressful times – in business as well as in life – we act according to our core, behaviorally based values. The real ones. Not the ones we boast about or set up arbitrarily.
Recently, I have begun to consider my responsibility and options when I lack alignment between my actions and my values. I have loved finding that often a smaller incremental change in behavior sometimes can bring alignment. Thank goodness it’s typically a 10 degree change required – and not the 90-degree change I feared! This is true in business, too. No matter where you sit on the team, you are part of the team, and responsible for earning the A. Where do you recognize your misalignment?
At P2Excellence we generally start with an initial dialogue around the noise, the angst, the issue, the problem. The reason behind the reason you called us. And then we assess where you are and who you are. Not a list of aspirational values to guide the culture, but rather a discussion about the conflicting goals and values that get produced under stressful behaviors.
Until you know where you are and why, it’s hard to figure out the realistic steps needed to go forward. In most instances, we find out that – just as with individuals – gaining alignment in business may only require a few incremental changes.
To do well, goals and values must be in alignment. Values are demonstrated in action – what we do, not what we say. Believe me, others recognize these behaviors. This week I am thinking about the values I want to show (and often do) and the values that do not serve my larger goals. I invite you to do the same.
Let’s chat, anytime! Contact us; we’d love to talk about how to make your organization more successful!
