If you take risks … you’ve likely seen your share of mistakes too. Whenever you stand on the front lines and do what is different … you can bet that errors slip into the mix as sure as you get wet when caught in a downpour. So how do risk-takers cope?
After 30 years of risktaking to help people draw on more brainpower at work … I have learned ten tips to reduce curve balls and ratchet up a few more home runs.
1. Learn from mistakes in ways that apply lessons you learn to improve the next try through. Be specific. List the errors and add a tactic to solve each problem encountered on the last time through. Then watch for solutions and check them off as they come.
2. Look for feedback at many intervals along the way. In one of my books I created an exit slip – where people offer brief feedback daily. A). What went well today … and, b). What would you suggest could be changed to improve this process...? When people speak and feel heard along the way … they contribute value to the change process, and you avoid their pent up frustrations that come out in final feedbacks.
3. Ask an expert to observe and offer insights. Have an outsider come into the process and shadow your efforts for one day. Ask that person to suggest 5 things that went especially well, and a few areas that could change to improve the process.
4. Sketch your plans and share with those involved so that participants can visibly see the benefits to themselves and to their organization. Ask for ideas and implement the best suggestions. Here – keep participants clearly in mind … and their takeaways in sight. People tend to run with what they value… and value what they help to shape.
5. Create a support group of fellow risk-takers. This could be a bag lunch event at work – or a walk through the park after dinner. It should be weekly though and it should deliberately set agendas to share good ideas and offer support to others’ ideas.
6. Keep people at the center. Talk to them, enlist their support, alter what you do to facilitate their highest goals, share the vision you have for excellence together, encourage their progress, measure their growth, and implement their suggestions.
7. Turn mistakes into stepping stones forward. Laugh at yourself and you’ll begin to recapture the energy and momentum forward. Risk-takers who find the most success often tend to make the most mistakes. Learn to factor these into the change process, and watch others capitalize on lessons learned from their miss-steps too.
8. Start with positives. Expect the best from others, ask feedback questions that allow others to share the wonderful positives they see and are engaging, Encourage what works well, start the day with a question that invites other’s positive input, play with new ideas, listen more than you speak and praise people’s advances when you hear them, see the best in each person you work with.
9. Identify people strengths through surveying multiple intelligences ... and brainstorm for how these could be tools in the change process. Ask people to help organize the process forward so that their strengths lead their way, and then check-in to see how they are doing.
10. Problem solve with the brain in mind. Avoid telling people facts ... and instead ... help them to build on curiosity for how facts can solve problems faced that day. Create a problem solving process for the group – with the group – and then check off the parts that worked well each week.
While MITA is my risk taking venture and change process… it’s actually never about MITA when it’s applied well. MITA is far more about solving people and organization and content problems that face participants. It’s about using more brainpower to reach higher peaks, in ways that you see evidence of positive dividends along the way. It’s about carrying a vision for renewal into broken systems, with a language and communication approach that draws others in and opens new opportunities for growth and success. That is the reward that keeps risk-takers alive and well.
Ready to try again?
I make a lot of mistakes and I've never seen such a directive to move beyond them all in one place. Whew, sure gives me a breath of fresh air to start afresh today!
Posted by: Robyn McMaster | January 30, 2008 7:12 AM | Permalink to Comment