Winning Mindset to deal with challenges

 Winning Mindset to deal with challenges 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

As we conclude the topic “Achievement Orientation,” the last aspect is how an individual or effective leader deals with the challenges during the execution of any task.

 
Despite the planning process, clarity on values, purpose, being in conducive envelopment, self-commitment, and clarity on the roadmap, the reality is that the execution journey may not be rosy. The execution may not go as per plan.

Sometimes, we ended up with a different result than what we planned at the beginning of the journey. Dealing with reality needs a mindset that looks at everything as a winning opportunity in the journey. We can develop the mindset with awareness and practice.

Some of my observations from the effective leaders on dealing with the challenges
 
Embracing the challenges with excitement:

Effective leaders embrace the challenges when they initiate. I know one of the managing directors of an organization always starts with “I am excited to initiate some actions."Whenever he begins a difficult task, he began with that vocabulary. He demonstrated his energy and enthusiasm towards facing difficult task challenges, and he succeeded in most of the tasks. The key is how you look at the challenges at the beginning of the journey. That will give you the power to navigate.

Being adaptable during navigation

Effective people are good at being adaptive to the challenges or changes during the journey. Adaptability is the ability to accept the changes at the given moment and accordingly change the plan considering the task's holistic view. This emotional aspect is essential as, in reality, the plan may not go as expected. The person who has adaptability is happier than the person being rigid.
 
Learn from the experience

Another mindset the effective people demonstrate is that they take the outcome, whether favorable or unfavorable, as a learning experience. They always look at challenges in an optimistic way as "what I have learned from this experience." When you look at every outcome as a learning experience, you will not get much disappointment.

Taking a step back and self-introspect

Some people take a step back and reflect the things that went wrong from the planning. This mindset is the most effective way to deal with challenges and avoids mistakes in the future. The strong person can only admit the mistakes, and self-introspection makes the individual further emotionally stronger.
 
Our mindset in dealing with reality is essential than the celebration of the successful outcome as life is an experience than an event. The mindset to deal with each experience matters on emotional wellness!
 

Sense of achievement

 Sense of achievement  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Recently, in one of the management review forums, one manager narrated his daily work experience and asked the following question, which I felt is relevant for the topic "achievement orientation."
 
The question is, “I am working hard throughout the day in the office, doing many activities and being busy throughout the day, still at the end of the day, i do not get the satisfaction that I did achieve something.”Why don't i get the sense of fulfillment?
 
I am sure most of us relate ourselves as we might have experienced sometimes.
 
What could be the reason for not feeling the sense of achievement?
 
My view is that lack of FOCUS on the priorities …. In an organizational setup, each role is expected to meet some of the priorities. Else, at the end of the day or eventually, at some period, we will feel, or others will perceive us that we are not achieving as expected.
 
Let me give an example,
 
If you are a functional finance head, your core priority or expectation from others is managing the fund flow in the organization seamlessly and looking at the opportunities for cash generation. Only when you have the clarity on the same and focus your energy, effort, time in achieving the core priorities, then only you feel the sense of achievement.

Alternatively, suppose you concentrate more on other non-core activities or working on others' priorities and being busy always, at the end of the day, despite your hard work, you feel a sense of non-achievement only. Here the issue is a lack of clarity on the priorities/expectation and lack of focus on the priorities.
 
The point is for any professional, depending on the position or role, we need to have
 

• Clarity on what we want or what is expected out of us
• Ability to focus on the priority
• Working on the priority and get the desired result.
• Feeling the sense of achievement.

 
Clarity and Focus on priority are much essential for getting a sense of achievement.

Just relate to your life experience and let me know your views!

Have a great week ahead.
 

How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?

 How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we discussed last week on the importance of personal conviction to achieve something in the workplace, two factors determine the conviction. One is the emotional part, and the other is the rational part.
 
The emotional part is bringing on the compelling need to achieve, and the rational part gives clarity on the path to move ahead. When both are ensured in any task, there is a high possibility to succeed. When either one of the parts is missing or not given appropriate weightage, there are high possibilities for slow progress or underperformance.
 
For example,
Generally, most of us take the goal of achieving physical fitness. But not all people succeed consistently. The reason is the lack of deep, compelling need. If we give ourselves that fitness is good for health, it won’t help push us to achieve. Alternatively, if we associate physical fitness with our survival or associate with family members, the probability of achieving the desired fitness level is high.

I had witnessed one of my relatives gave up some of his lifestyle habits when he was diagnosed with a life-challenging disease. The change happened because emotionally, there was a compelling need to change from a survival perspective. 

There is a high level of conviction to achieve when there is an emotional connection with any achievement goal and personal life like survival, pride, reputation, appreciation, monetary benefits, or growth.
 
The next aspect is that even though we have an emotional connection to achieve when there is a lack of clarity on attaining (to some extent), it likely affects the conviction. For example, one wants to become financially independent but does not know the methods, avenues, and environment. The rational part makes it less likely to bring orientation towards achievement.
 
Being aware of the importance of emotional and rational aspects towards achievement orientation, the leaders plan well when delegating the task. They bring the compelling need of any task to the team by connecting the benefits to them and available with the team for guidance/support during the journey to enable the team to perform better.
 
Hence, one has to ensure both emotional and rational parts are being addressed equally for any achievement orientation.

You can relate with your experience where you succeed in any task, and there could be a balanced mix of emotional and logical parts!

Have a great week ahead.

Why do we fail sometimes to achieve?

 Why do we fail sometimes to achieve?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Have you come across a situation where despite knowing the clarity on our values, purpose, being in a conducive environment, committed self, we still do not achieve what we intend in any new venture or assignment or delay the pace of achievement.

What is preventing us from achieving as per plan, or why is there slowness in progress?
 
It is due to the intensity of self-efficacy or, alternatively, lack of conviction.
 
Self-efficacy is the person’s belief that he/ she can complete the task. It refers to the individual conviction that he/ she can accomplish the task or mission. We know that to achieve something, we need to change some of the behaviors, but we have internal doubt that we can change our behavior. Given that self-doubt, we choose not to change the behavior. In that stage, we lose the conviction.
 
For example,

we are aware of the importance of physical fitness and knowhow of maintaining healthy practices. However, still, most of us never achieved the target of fitness, whatever we set ourselves. We have self-doubt about our ability to accomplish, say we need to get the early morning to do exercise. When we have doubt, we lose conviction.

The point is that the failure is not because of awareness, know-how, but at an individual level, lack of conviction.

In many organizations, the business heads set the business goals during the financial year beginning but ended up with a flat result or delaying the progress. It is mainly due to a lack of conviction of the result or lack of self-doubt in accomplishing it. Rarely external factors play a role in the achievement.

However, in some organizations, the business head sets the target and achieves the same. How they bring the conviction themselves on the result and process, and how do they convince the team to succeed?

Mainly two factors that determine the conviction. One is emotional, and another one is rational thinking.

Let us discuss more bringing the conviction through balancing emotional and rational aspects in next week!

Commitment -Nature or Nurture?

 Commitment -Nature or Nurture? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

Last week, we ended up with one question, whether the personal commitment is an inborn quality or can be nurtured to any person?

 
For quite a long time, i use to observe and wonder how some people are committed to their work, being consistent. Also, i use to hear from business heads/managers that some people are not committed to the work or towards achievement. One question i always seek answers to is whether the commitment is naturally existed as inborn quality or being nurtured by the environment. 
 
I found some research studies on personality traits and the impact of genetics and the environment.

The finding summarised below for quick reference.
 

• People develop a strong identity as they age, and maturity brings a more significant commitment to whatever task they take. At a young age, people are exploring their identity. In this process, there is a perceived gap in the commitment of others.
• Even though some of the personality traits are inborn, those are not stable. Those are subject to environmental factors like those with whom they are associating and get influenced.
• Role clarity and continuity in the role bring more commitment than consistency in the environment.

The key learning for me is that both inborn and environmental matters in cultivating the commitment among the people in the workplace.

How can the leader interpret the above findings and apply them in the workplace?
 

• People are at different levels of evolution. Each one requires TIME to change. Let us give it.
• Leaders / Managers are role models in demonstrating commitment consistently. When people work under a committed person, eventually he/ she becomes, which I have witnessed in many places. For example, when the leader is committed to responding to customer complaints within 24 hrs, people under them also committed the same pace as i have witnessed in one of the organizations.
• Since people are struggling with their identity, role clarity, distractions, overnight success pressure, and dilemma,  the leader’s time in spending time with people brings change towards achievement commitment.
• People development is a nurturing process, and it is the role of the people manager.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are committed to people's development in the workplace!

Committing Self for Achievement

 Committing Self for Achievement 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have discussed the factors affecting an individual towards achievement orientation like clarifying personal values, knowing the purpose, being in a conducive environment, the next important factor is “ Committing self for achievement."

 
What is "committing self"?
 
Committing self is taking responsibility for the action and the consequence. In a business context, most of the time, the term responsibility is perceived as the external enforcement of commitment to some person. But at a personal or an individual level, responsibility is a feeling of owning some task or profession or, on a higher level, life itself. 

The only difference between achievers and non-achiever is “ commitment “ or “ taking responsibility.”

When you observe any achievement, apart from skill, knowledge, luck, environment, there would be one fundamental invisible ingredient, that is  "personal commitment of an individual or group of people". 
 
When you take responsibility for any task, you will get the following benefits.

• Intention to achievement will be relatively more.
• Person display solutions orientation in any challenges
• Despite failure or any setback, the person looks for the learning from the failure.
• Always look at the setback or failure from a 360 perspective rather than blaming or fixing someone.
• Always look for doing better in the given context as much as possible.
• When we take personal responsibility, it puts us on a highly energetic emotional level during the journey.
   

Quite contrary to the above behavior, if the person is not committed or not taking personal responsibility, he/ she displays the following behaviors.

• Less interest in actions and finding reasons or excuses for procrastination
• Look for the problems at any moment.
• Any failure or setback put the individual down.
• Momentarily blame someone or try to fix the external reason for failure or setbacks

when there is a commitment, eventually you win despite all challenges ...In the absence of commitment, nothing sustains.

One of the questions most of the Business heads / Managers look for answers is whether the commitment is inborn or built within the person. How to inculcate the feeling of responsibility in people's minds in an organizational setup?

Solicit your views/experiences on the above questions...
 

How to be positive in a non-conducive workplace environment?

 How to be positive in a non-conducive workplace environment? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

In response to our last week's discussion on "Creating a conducive workplace environment for achievement orientation," one of the queries asked was " When the workplace environment is not conducive for achievement, how can we perform?"

As said, creating a conducive environment for achievement orientation is the primary responsibility of the leaders in the workplace. In the absence of it, it is challenging to perform and even manage the survival itself a challenge for most people. However, depends on our positions and the level of influential skill, anyone can initiate or bring some level of conduciveness for achievement orientation.

The answer could vary from person to person as it is purely from the perspective of how we wired our thought process towards work and self in the workplace.

As I fortunate to work with some bosses/colleagues who turnaround the toxic environment into a high-performance workplace. I observed some of the patterns or qualities they demonstrated. That may be the basis for reflecting your management style.
 
They focus more on their job and the contribution than to whom they are working for. They believe in the hard work and continue to strive for DOING. They believe that they stand out through their contribution.

They always incline to positively impact others through their behaviors, communication process or adding value to others whenever an opportunity arises.

They accept the situation and try to make a difference through their personal skill rather than blaming complaining about someone or past decisions.

They leverage the personal skill more than the position that makes them go beyond their boundary or levels to make things happen.

When they do it consistently, the negative bias people also turned to listen to them eventually.

I have been with some people who have turnaround the workplace environment from firefighting, blaming, excuse culture to the performance-oriented workplace only through their positive orientation and friendly, firm behavior.

The idea is irrespective of your power or position when we demonstrate the above qualities, there are possibilities of turning the situation favorable. Also, there is a high probability that we would be seen as lead or influential personalities.

It all depends on your energy level, your perspective on work and people, persistence in working in a non-conducive environment, and converting to your advantage as well as to organizational benefits.

When the possibility of turning into conducive is very low, we always choose to move out. That is the ultimate option available to anyone.

How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people?

 How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

 

Last week, we discussed how an environment affects the individual in terms of his/ her thought process towards achievement orientation like “to be successful” or “not to be failed.”

Now, in an organizational setup, let us understand how influential managers/leaders create a conducive environment for his/her team towards achievement orientation.

As I observed, some of the effective managers/leaders have some typical working style patterns. They ensured that they are pushing the team towards achievement orientation by inculcating some of the following habits at the self-level or the organizational level.

                                           
 
Making the expectation clear:

First, leader/manager BRINGS CLARITY what they want and from whom they want it. They set the expectation clear among the team. When they are certain about what they want, from whom they expect, they become much focussed. When they communicate the expectation to other people, the other people are also working without any ambiguity. Only when the people have a dilemma about the direction, they slow down the execution speed, decision-making capability. When people know what is expected out of them, it puts them in the right direction.
 
Leaders ensure this first step by bringing role clarity, setting the targets and deployment to the right people,

Establishing a communication forum:

Once the expectation is set, the next thing an effective manager/ leader ensures that establishing communication forums for two-way communication. The communication forum is mainly for being in reality by everyone on the task. The communication forum could be exchanging information through various electronic channels on a fixed time interval or meeting face to face to review the progress. The advantage of establishing a communication forum is to get convinced about progress and ensure that all are on the same page.

Facilitation and feedback:

The next step is the leader believes more in facilitation than commanding to help the people arrive at the right solutions approach or right decisions as facilitation helps the people think and move confidently than in giving instruction mode. The advantage of facilitation is that the leader/manager's presence is not required when the people face a similar challenge. People learned to think from the leader/ manager's perspective.

Recognizing: 

This is one of the steps most people ignore or not giving much importance due to various reasons. That is, to recognize or appreciate the people for the effort and the result. Recognizing the work will reinforce the positiveness in the people's minds, which will help them replicate next time.

In a corporate environment, it is always a debate whether to appreciate the effort or the result. As I observed, most effective leaders recognize the people’s effort first, and then they concern about the result. They believe that eventually, the result would come once the effort is put in the right direction.
 
When we create an ecosystem, as mentioned above, with varying intensity levels depending on the task or complication of the task, people also orient themselves to achieve.

Environment triggers the behavior, and it is the primary responsibility of the manager /leader to create a conducive environment.!