I get a daily Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. I tend to keep them in a file for future review and often I use some of the topics in helping leaders navigate best for humanity skills with empathy. Often these daily tips are useful. However, they tend to be very focused on “in the moment” ideas of how to deal with this or that issue or employee. Caveat – HBR and their experts are very smart. They have specialists across major disparate disciplines who they consult, and I have no doubt a team spends countless hours and resources strategizing on what they deem relevant and topical. I read them daily but how effective are they and how can we learn and implement some of their topics into our daily lives and organizations?
not often did a ‘process-oriented result driven’ procedure actually stick and stay.
Obviously in the past four years the world of work and leadership has shifted. The age gaps seem wider than they were before between leadership and management.
Remote and hybrid work is now the norm. Take a minute here in LinkedIn and search the job boards and many job offerings around the country are listed as either hybrid or remote. You can literally work from anywhere in any time zone with little to no daily accountability or connection to your colleagues. HBR has countless tips of wisdom when it comes to managing, leading or encouraging different demos – their needs, their wants, their desires – and how to best interact with and guide to get the best for them and out of them as employees and colleagues. One of the most recent HBR titles was Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Focusing on Others. This seems like a no brainer. We all want to be conscience of focusing on others. But how do we actually get there and are there simple steps in our busy daily lives to not only learn new tactics but to realize real change from the inside out?
One of my major internal questions is ‘how do I build new rhythms and habits into my daily life that no longer look like new rhythms and habits?’ I call this constant process my ‘re-humanizing’ process or how to change my DNA. When reading an article such as this, it is so easy to stop and move onto the next item of the day thinking, ‘I do not have time for another process or exercise to make me more human.’
In this episode, we try and boil it down to a couple points that for me at least, seem super easy and something that I may actually do versus something I am told to do and hope I do. In our day to day lives between family, relationships, children, workloads, off-sites, continuing education, weekend retreats, executive coaches…. ugh… the list goes on and on…when are we supposed to do something enough to make a difference? I have been through coaching sessions and counseling and it is a very long process to make something stick that is useful - Change that sticks and stays.
I have coached several executives who oversee a lot of human capital as well as have incredible responsibility and I can say, not often did a ‘process-oriented result driven’ procedure actually stick and stay. Oh, it sticks for a while but once I leave and they are on their own, often, they return to what is more comfortable or what they have grown used to. Change is hard…I can see no less than five books right in front of me on Organizational Change and Change Management. Now, maybe I am just a poor guide or influencer or coach…that could be the case…but I have also worked under many who have been coached, with the same exact results.
Get to the point Nick – Change is difficult. There are many processes to help aid in changing but many are process driven or goal driven and in time, we tend to fall back on what feels very comfortable and what we have grown used to.
Experiential learning works. In this episode of Are You Stacking, there are two very simple examples towards actual useful change. Find what works for you and start implementing it into your daily life.
1) How do we ask questions?
2) Consider what you stack on a regular basis.
Seems simple enough, but is it?
I am tired of spending hours in online courses and off-sites attempting to learn things that really can only be learned through an experience. - anonymous
