Four Ways to Show Thanksgiving in Leadership

Four Ways to Show Thanksgiving in Leadership

    Showing thanksgiving as a leader is a very important task to do.  It is important that our teams realize that we share the successes as well as the failures.  I am talking about more than just performance appraisals and feedback.  I am talking about the showing of gratitude by leaders to their subordinates. 

    It is far too easy for subordinates to feel like cogs in a machine due to the everyday swing of operations.  It is important as leaders that we instill a sense of appreciation in our team, after all, they are the ones doing the work.  As leaders, we need to explore the various reasons why to show thanksgiving and then the ways to convey gratitude to our team.

Why Show Gratitude?

    To some people this may seem silly, and hopefully you are one of them.  Showing gratitude is a very important part of maintaining healthy relationships within a team.  Your team needs to know that you appreciate them, and the benefits of them understanding this are many.  A team that feels thanksgiving from their leader or management are more likely to perform, respond to pressure to perform, trust their management more, and have overall healthier relationships with their management team.  Teams who feel that their leadership is thankful for their work are also happier to be a part of a team, which directly boosts day to day morale.  There is something to be said about how individual confidence is maximized when team members believe that their superiors are thankful for their service, and confident team members boost the overall performance of the team.

Four Ways to Show Thanksgiving in Leadership

1. Immediate Follow-Ups

    The most applicable and used technique of showing thankfulness as a leader is certainly the follow-up.  When I refer to follow-up, I am talking about delegating a task, and then following up to assess whether that task was completed adequately.  When you delegate as a leader and follow up to find that the task was successfully completed, an important relationship building tool is to then follow up with the individual that the task was delegated to and let them know that you followed up.  Expressing thankfulness for the successful completion of the task yields multiple benefits.

    The first benefit is one that impacts your span of influence as a manager.  If you delegate a task to an individual and follow up, that communicates that you care about the task and you are willing to see if it will be completed.  It also communicates that the task that you delegated was a chunk of important authority that deserved a part of your attention, and it was not just some mindless drivel that you blindly sent someone off to do in order to keep them busy.  The end game to this is that when you delegate in the future, this individual as well as other individuals uninvolved will be more than willing to carry the authority that you give to them with the delegation, and strive to successfully carry out the task.  The showing of gratitude at the finality of this is the final stamp that seals this exchange.  The delivery of the gratitude can be as simple as a “Thank you”, or “Good job.”

2. Huddle Meeting Topics

    Every day my team and I typically have a start-up and final huddle meeting.  By design during both huddle meetings, on my agenda is a short time set aside to recognize excellence, positive performance, or goals achieved.  It is important that we show thankfulness in this type of forum in front of our team as-a-whole.  By doing this, we completely remove the potential label of us being closed-souled slave-drivers and boost our chances of being perceived by our team as thankful leaders of a successful team.

    Taking time to recognize others and show our thankfulness for their work will create an atmosphere for the positive relationships that are required of a fully functional team and will create great relationships between everyone.  It is important when doing group recognition to identify the correct behaviors to recognize, and publicly thank those who are excelling.  This will create an atmosphere of competition among the team to strive to achieve this type of recognition while supplying those who do excel with the delight of public acknowledgement.

    Despite many people showing bashfulness or unwillingness to accept public displays of thanks and gratitude, I believe the benefits are clear regardless.  No matter the degree of the individual rejecting the public acknowledgement, the benefits of acknowledgement still exist.

3. Performance Appraisal

    A performance appraisal is a regular discussion between a leader and subordinate where the leader outlines how the individual has been performing.  Even in the event of a performance appraisal that contains criticisms and coaching for improved performance, it is still important to show thankfulness.  As leaders we should adopt a thankful attitude to those who are willing to follow us, and even if for no other reason, we should take this opportunity for thanking the individual for being a part of our team.  Depending on the flavor of the performance appraisal, we may include this in the open, close, or both.  We may also center the performance appraisal around our gratitude for having the team member a continuing part of our team in the case of high performing team members.  In any case, we should take a bit of time during our performance appraisals to let our team members know how much we appreciate them.

    Often a performance appraisal is an intimate time between a manager and an employee.  These experiences are memorable and usually either painful or extremely delightful.  A good manager is able to take a performance appraisal that would otherwise be painful and turn it into a situation that both parties can walk away from feeling enlightened and not confused.  Expressing thankfulness and gratitude during these events is one way that we can have a positive impact on the situation in multiple ways.  We can deepen the relationship with our employees as well as create a positive atmosphere for the performance appraisal.

4. Human Conversation

    All too often as leaders we are seen by our team as just another cog in the machine of an organization.  We are thought of just as managers and not as humans, and managers can’t be thankful, right?  Sometimes we need to appeal to our team as fellow humans and reveal that we have human emotions and feelings.  I believe we can do this by engaging in a normal human exchange of words, and then once we are here, we are able to display gratitude.  This will be in a different forum than the other suggestions, and it will probably be more well received, because we are communicating as people, and not as businessmen or businesswomen.  Successfully interjecting thanks into a normal human conversation with members of our team will allow us to deliver a personally received message of thanks that is able to impact our team members on a deeper level than a professional thanks.

The Take Away

    As leaders, it is important that we value our team members as individual humans that follow us in order to complete goals that we subscribe to.  The very act of having those willing to genuinely follow you is a compliment.  We should be thankful for this opportunity, and while we are unable to hide this if it is the case, it is also impossible to hide it if it is not the case.  I challenge every leader in the world to communicate a message of thankfulness and gratitude to their team during this holiday season.  I also challenge anyone who believes that this isn’t tied to your goals to try it and assess your situation after you create a culture of gratitude among your team.  I believe you, like myself, will have concrete proof in the development of your relationships as well as the performance of your team clearly apparent as a result of your show of gratitude.

2 Key Questions a Leader Should Ask Themselves Before Leading

2 Key Questions a Leader Should Ask Themselves Before Leading

    Sometimes we reach a point in our group, team, or organization where we want to identify an opportunity to step up and lead.  Sometimes it may not be formal or permanent.  It may be a passing thought, or a notion to help the current situation progress along for a short time.  In any case, potential leadership is very thought provoking.  Earlier in my career I would say that it reminds me of going out on a date for the first time, awkward and forced.  As time has passed, I would say that it becomes natural and easy, sometimes making what would be an awkward situation one more bearable for all involved.

    I joined a collegiate organization some time ago where I was required to complete multiple steps before induction.  There were maybe a dozen steps to complete.  Towards the end of this period of induction, I was randomly paired with a group of people.  Among ourselves we had to develop a team complete with assigned jobs and self-prepared meetings.  I feel that this was in a lot of ways a test, because in our first scheduled meeting, we all showed up having no idea what to do.  While my group members and I sat around a table staring at each other and talking it became clear that there was a lack of leadership.  A few members had left early, some other broke off and began talking about life in general, and some were scoffing about how poorly ran the organization was.

     We were all in the dark.  We had no clue what to do or what we were even meeting for aside from us understanding that it was a requirement for induction.  Through this first painful meeting, I had gotten only one thing, someone had to make the next one less painful, assuming anyone even returned.  I decided to take the position of facilitator and prepare for the next meeting, hoping that if nothing else we would have something to do besides gossip about politics.

     Sometimes it takes being placed in an awkward situation with others before it is clear who the leader may be, and sometimes it will be surprising to see who that person is.  Whether it is a blindly assembled group, or a department in an organization, there should be only a few unorganized gatherings before it becomes clear who the leader is.  Here we look at some key questions to ask ourselves to determine if we have identified an opportunity to lead.

    

1.  Do we have the functional or technical knowledge required to lead?

    Having the functional knowledge to lead a group is a key question to ask yourself.  It is not a black and white barrier that should direct whether you pursue a leadership role.  It should, however, give you the direction that you should take if you do decide to pursue that leadership role.  If you conclude that you do not have a lot of functional knowledge of the group that you want to lead, then we must understand this if we decide to push forward.

    Function or technical knowledge is the boots-on-the-floor know how of getting a job done and demonstrating successful action against the task.  A leader that has a load of technical knowledge and the skills related to successfully obtaining the goals will approach leading a team a bit differently than one who has little technical knowledge.  To this leader I would suggest a teaching and mentoring strategy.  A lot can be gained, and relationships can be developed by a leader who has knowledge to distribute among a group of peers.

    A lack of functional or technical knowledge does not mean that we should avoid pursuing leadership.  It should be a factor in your decision though, as opting to lead without having a broad span of knowledge of the tasks at hand does make the job more difficult.  To the leader without technical knowledge, I would advise taking a learn together approach, and never shy away from the opportunity to learn from a team member.  There is great value in allowing a team member the opportunity to teach you something.

    In my case, I chose the latter approach.  I knew that I had the ability to publicly speak, as well as research and present information that I had acquired, so I contacted my group and let them know as long as no one opposed it that I would have something prepared for us to review at our next meeting.  After scheduling the day with everyone, I was nervous about what may happen.

   

   

2.  Do we have proper relationships established with our team?

    One of the most difficult situations that a leader can face is being thrust into a new team with the expectation of leading them.  Success isn’t guaranteed, goals are not understood, and the people can sometimes be strangers.  It is much more favorable to lead a team that you have already had the opportunity to develop relationships with.  Developing relationships is one of the key tools of a leader.  It is arguably one of the most important things that a leader can do, and the flavor of these relationships will often determine the level of success that a leader will experience.

    To a leader that has had the opportunity to develop proper relationships with his team, I would suggest that he search those relationships and make certain that they are facilitating good communication as well as mutual respect.  If these two qualities of a relationship aren’t present, then the leader should be doing things to foster the growth of them.  Without these qualities in the relationships, success will be very difficult.  If good communication and mutual respect are present, the ability to lead will be readily available and from here it is simply undertaking the task.

    After being thrust into an environment with strangers, and attending a dry pointless meeting, I knew that we had to turn it around.  It seemed clear that we were all good communicators that had adequate mutual respect; however, our little organization just required some leadership.  In this informal situation, it was as simple as standing up and doing it.  I didn’t believe it should be a forceful or delegatory thing, rather, I first communicated that I had done some research on how our group should be put together and suggested that if no one else had any material, that I be allowed to present what I had learned.

     After playing a presentation that I had found on my chapter’s website, I outlined what I thought the meeting should include and led the discussion.  I asked questions and listened to answers.  As we continued and time passed, we all became more familiar with each other and felt exactly what it was that this challenge was about.  This wasn’t some formal take-charge-and-conquer test, rather, it was a test of our ability to come together as a team and hold each other accountable to being team members.

 
The Take Away

    I believe these are two key questions we should ask ourselves before we decide to venture into the idea of leadership in any situation.  Regardless of our direction of thought, or where we end up after pondering all the information, I believe that the task of asking ourselves the questions better prepares us to lead.  We can further analyze and break this down, however the idea itself is intended to spark the thinking that a potential leader should be doing before undertaking the task.

    In some instances, we may decide that leadership in the current situation isn’t for us, or that there is someone better suited.  To that I would say, even a leader knows when to follow.  A good leader knows when to be led.  It should not be taken as a failure when it becomes apparent that there is someone more qualified to lead a team than ourselves, rather, we should still fulfill our obligation to be team members and continue to strive to achieve the organizations goals, however big or small.

    It is important as leaders that we continue to think about these things as we travel through life and come across different situations that require different things of us.  It is important that leaders identify situations where we believe that our service as a leader will affect the outcome of the group for the better, and to allow ourselves to be a special part of the group, for the better of the group.  There is no more fulfilling thing to be than a servant leader, and that will be a topic of future discussion.

   

Using Intuition in Decision Making

Intuitive Decision Making in Leadership and Management

What is Decision Making?

    A fork in the road, options, and choices all afford us the opportunity to make decisions.  Making decisions, and more importantly, making effective decisions is a staple in leadership.  It is difficult to be a leader or manager and continue to make bad decisions.  It is also true that it is hard to continually make good decisions and not be looked at as a leader.  “Decision making is the process of identifying and choosing alternative courses of action.” “A decision is a choice made from among available alternatives.” (Kinicki et al, 2020) 

A System of Decision Making

    Nobel Prize in economics winner of 2020, Daniel Kahneman authored Thinking, Fast and Slow.  In his book he summarized systems of decision making.  We will be focusing on his first system of decision making, known as the “intuitive and largely unconscious” system.  I recommend his book for a read if you are interested in researching this further and have included the link immediately below.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 7th (seventh) Impression edition by Kahneman, Daniel(Author) published by Doubleday Canada (2011) [Hardc

 
Leaders and Managers Making Decisions

    There exists a rational model for decision making, that boasts completely acquiring information, removing emotion from the equation, and coming to the most optimal decision for the organization.  While this is ideal in a perfect world, we often find that this is unrealistic.  We run into problems such as the inability to accurately collect all the information, as well as completely removing our emotions from the situation.  There are many problems and issues here that can hold us back.  Time, money, and values are just three.  Due to this, we look at the way managers make decisions in the real world.

    When making decisions in the real world, in a real organization, managers and leaders turn to a system of non-rational decision making.  While referring to it as non-rational, it may have a negative net effect on us consciously, but all this means is that we are not compiling and analyzing all the information to make the most optimal decision.  We should strive to do this, however, as managers and leaders with deadlines, schedules, and other requirements, it is difficult to do so.

The Satisficing Model

    Herbert Simon, a 1950s economist who received the Nobel Prize described the satisficing model as “managers seeking alternatives until they find one that is satisfactory, not optimal.” (Kinicki et al, 2020)  If we study this, we understand that sometimes there is efficiency in coming to a decision that satisfies the current situation, however, may not be the optimal decision at the time.  There is a level of sacrifice here in that we are not making the most effective decision, but we are making one effective enough.  The trade off is that we are able to then distribute the saved time, money, and other resources to focus on other decisions and tasks that need to be addressed as well.  There may be times that we are able to come closer to making an optimal decision depending on the circumstances, however, there is a large varying degree of middle ground depending on the situation.

    While a lot of organizations and leaders want to believe a real pie in the sky idea that good leaders and managers always make the best, most optimal decisions that they can for their organizations, the truth is that this isn’t always the case.  This is also the case with life in general.  We are often pulled in many different directions, and that results in us not being able to completely analyze all situations and requires us to be able to make a decision that satisfies the current situational goals and necessary outcomes while affording us more time to tackle other problems.  Even in parenting, it is common to shortchange adding up all the nutritional value of baby foods to ensure that the child is getting one hundred percent daily value of all nutrients in lieu of scheduling a visit with the doctor to address a persistent fever.  We are not making a complete sacrifice; however, we are making a determination of what is satisfactory and then moving on.

    Sometimes we shortchange the decision-making process too much.  Situations where we do not give ourselves proper time to analyze even for a satisficing type decision can be referred to as snap situations, where snap decisions are made.  Often, we find ourselves in situations where a quick decision is required and there is no getting around making one.  We cannot allow ourselves to be beat up by these situations, and as I always say, “You win some, you lose some.”  Many times, you will find that a poor decision is better than indecision, especially in leadership.  I would suggest that you try to foresee these decisions so that quick draw decisions are kept to a minimum, as forced quick decisions carry the most risk.

Intuition, the Intuitive Model

    Intuition is known as “going with your gut”, or “Making a choice without the use of conscious thought or logical inference.” (Kinicki et al, 2020) This is a shoot from the hip approach that can be honed to accuracy.  I would describe intuition as the awareness of unconscious self-talk.  Pure intuition carries no knowledge, experience, or expertise in the area where the decision is made and is said to be extremely risky.  In leadership and management, however, we want to be well informed on the topics that we are making intuitive decisions on.  Our experience and expertise in our areas paired with an intuitive approach allows us to make a decision known as a holistic hunch.

    When afforded the opportunity to make a decision that relies on intuition, we should always allow our knowledge in the general area of the decision to play a role in that decision.  This keeps us from shooting in the blind as well as allows us to develop our intuition and increase our chances of using intuition and reaching a close-to-optimum decision.  This takes practice and courage.  Let’s face it, to make a decision in an important or high-pressure setting based on a gut feeling is very bold.  If we continually refrain from using this approach and always take say, a rational approach, our team will quickly notice this lack of intuition and at least subconsciously think it as a mark against our leadership.

1. Recognizing Your Intuition

    The first step at developing our intuitive senses is to be able to accurately identify situations where they should be applied.  We shouldn’t force this search, rather, we should strive to stay mindful in all situations and search our own feelings.  We must be able to recognize when we feel a certain way about something in terms of an innate right-or-wrong.  This is achieved by first finding what just feels wrong.  Everyone has been placed in a situation where everything feels wrong, and your guts are screaming at you to turn and run the other direction.  It is in this place that exists in our mind, but referred to as our guts, that is the platform for intuitive thinking.  Once we recognize applicable situations, we must learn to listen to ourselves, and not only in those situations that tell us to run away.  The most difficult part of developing intuition is knowing when we should strive for something or go for it.  The gut feeling to pursue is usually a much duller sensation than that of the feeling to flee.

2. Using Your Intuition

    Once we can mindfully be aware of when we are communicating with ourselves subconsciously, we are able to use this self-communication to make decisions.  This is powerful because it removes having to use our conscious mental resources to make decisions that are optimum.  This when developed allows us to make optimum decisions with little effort.  A fallacy here is that undeveloped application of intuition is akin to shooting in the dark, and we should seek to develop our intuitive abilities in order to make the best use out of them and take our leadership and management skills to the next level.

    After the initial recognition of intuitive thought, we must extract what we have told ourselves subconsciously.  This is achieved by assessing our feelings about the situation.  With practice it becomes clear, but at first it may just be a feeling that we have to identify through trial and error.  At first it may seem that your intuitive thought is clouded with emotions and other subconscious clutter and that trusting these thoughts will result in very muddy decisions that don’t help much of anyone, much less the organization.

    I recommend at first, we use lower profile situations in order to develop our intuition to a satisficing level before applying it to more important decisions within your life and organization.  This is one of those skills of development that just by acknowledging it gives you a boost in ability to practice it.

3. The Feedback Loop: Did My Intuition Serve Me Well?

    The third step in developing and using your intuition is to then engage in a feedback loop.  This is probably the most important step because this is the step that facilitates development and growth.  We need to recognize that we encountered a situation where our subconscious minds engaged in self-talk that led us to make a decision.  We need to follow this up with how that decision performed for us in order to determine the accuracy of the intuitive gut-feeling. 

    This is important, because if we are making poor decisions based on intuition, we may not be making them on true intuition and instead making them based on other feelings or emotions.  It is as important to recognize that we are making intuitive decisions as much as it is that we do make intuitive decisions, and even more so, because what is the point in constantly shooting in the dark?

The Take Away

    Intuition is a very useful tool to help us as leaders and managers make decisions.  Intuition is subconscious communication within us that analyze problems and produce decisions immediately and without our knowledge.  These decisions and analyses present themselves in the form of “gut-feelings” that persuade us to consciously act or decide.  We can learn to trust our subconscious analytical self and its products as decisions after understanding what they are by remaining mindful of three things; recognizing intuitive situations, actively using your intuition to come to conscious decisions, and then analyzing the results to determine whether your subconscious mind came to a satisfactory conclusion in the form of a decision.  This provides the foundation of developing a powerful skill in leadership.

References

    Kinicki, Angelo, Williams, Brian K. (2020) Management: a practical introduction, 245-        247 


                           

4 Activities to Develop Strategic Thinking in Leaders and Managers

4 Activities to Develop Strategic Thinking in Leaders and Managers

What is Strategic Thinking?

    Strategic thinking according to “Management, A Practical Introduction” by Angelo Kinicki and Brian K. Williams is “Envisioning what might happen in the future and then applying that to our current circumstances.”  Strategic thinkers tend to be more proactive people rather than reactive.  Due to this nature, one of the best skills to develop if you have the tendency to be a reaction person is to develop your strategic thinking.

    The term itself is rooted in strategy and the skill is universally applicable in all aspects of an organization.  Strategic thinking is a skill that is a must for a leader or manager of an organization.  This skill is rarely listed on any applications for management or leadership, because most hiring managers believe that strategic thinking is implied if you are seeking a management level position.  It is true that the strategic thinkers will be the ones up for promotion, while those lacking in the ability to think strategically will be the ones lagging behind.

What Are the Benefits of Strategic Thinking?

    Perspective and orientation are two key benefits of thinking strategically.  This skill allows its user to see a much larger picture which is a precursor for manipulating a situation.  Strategic thinking in general makes you more informed and prepared to handle not only the current situation, but any number of situations that may be produced from the present.  It goes without saying then that strategic thinking produces a problem-solving atmosphere, this becomes visible especially when difficult-to-solve problems present themselves.

Application of Strategic Thinking

    I believe that the application of strategic thinking requires that we be rooted in a business or organization, or at least have one of focus in order to grow our ability to think strategically.  I’m sure that we could apply this to other areas of life, however, with business being the platform here, I will shift the focus of the application of strategic thinking to only businesses and organizations.

Understanding the Business

    Understanding the business that you are involved in is key in order to grow your ability to think strategically.  Recall that strategic thinking is envisioning what may happen and then applying this to our current circumstances.  The best way to predict future scenarios is to thoroughly understand what is going on.  In a business, we must know what should be happening in order to predict what may happen.  This is true for any level in a tall or short organization.

    This is achieved more easily in some businesses than others, because, lets face it, some businesses get incredibly complex.  The more complex the business the more general our understanding should be.  If the business is relatively simple, then perhaps we can afford to investigate understanding it more meticulously.  At first, we should probably begin by studying the mission, vision, and value statements.  We should follow this up by researching the products, goals, and services that the organization offers as well as its methods of marketing, sales, and revenue collection.  Finally, we should study the structure and operations of the business to achieve a thorough understanding.  I would follow this up with any financial statements or reports if they are public, as well as any other written public documentation or media.  Don’t be overwhelmed and take this process slowly, as things get more complex and interwoven the deeper you probe to understand.

    When I first joined my organization and entered a warehouse that I was not familiar with, it seemed like I had entered another world.  The language and product codes seemed some ancient cuneiform text that I couldn’t decipher.  The product codes were some sort of hellish maturity of the binary programming language.  I felt lost.  I knew I couldn’t continue being a part of my organization unless I became familiar with my surroundings, and so I began to understand the business from my perspective outwards.  This is different than originally described, because I used my place in the business as a starting point and then worked my way outwards.  I suggest this to anyone that is plunged into a new business or organization and then acknowledges that they need a deeper understanding of it.  Once I was able to thoroughly understand the area of the business that I was directly involved in, I was able to pick up bits and pieces of information outside of the area.  Still today I collect information daily, ask questions, and repeat what I believe I understand in order to reinforce my knowledge.

Broadening Functional Knowledge

    Broadening your functional knowledge has to do with making connections.  Here we must understand the importance of relationship between ourselves and the industry that we are involved in.  It is important that we engage everything that is a part of our organization.  We need to engage the people, processes, ideas, and events.  This activity is one of doing, and in order to practice this, we need to get out and do.  Key to this is not to remain complacent behind a desk but go take a stab at learning that company software after it has been recently updated so that you are more apt to thoroughly understand how it works.

    Engage the industry itself to practice this activity in order to strengthen your strategic thinking.  Meet people and force conversation about the industry and its specifics.  Dig down deep into some areas so that you understand more of the underlying properties of the functions and tasks of the organization.  Some experts suggest thinking of this as the letter “T”.  The upper portion of the letter refers to your broad amount of general knowledge while the base of the letter represents a tendril of specific information and depth of understanding into a very focused area.  Seek to increase the number of tendrils of specific, functional information.

    I am involved in the logistics side of my organization, specifically shipping.  I could averagely perform the functions of my job just by knowing the job and the things that I need to do.  By understanding some of the specific details of my job, I can predict future situations and pre-formulate solutions to these situations regardless of their complexity.  So long as my understanding runs as deep as the complexity that I am referring to, I will be successful.  This is the essence of utilizing critical thinking and it is here that we unlock its power as it relates to leadership.  A leader skilled in critical thinking appears to be able to act in an instant on situations that would take a normal responding person much longer.  Things like this get noticed.

Setting Aside Time to Reflect

    This activity is often overlooked but remains my favorite.  Setting aside time for reflection is the precursor to strategic thinking.  It is during the reflection time that we grow the areas of our mind that allow us to postulate the scenarios and develop the pre-solutions in order to allow strategic thinking to manifest itself in our actions on the job.  It is the reflection time that allow us to grow our ability to deeply connect thoughts with scenarios and potential outcomes to potential solutions in an arena where we have time to sort out information instead of on the fly as things happen.  This is the proactive platform that strategic thinking affords us.  If we do not take great advantage of time for reflection, we are throwing away our potential before we even have it.

    Aside from developing our strategic thinking skills, time for reflection helps us grow as leaders, managers, partners, and individuals.  This is an important activity for multiple areas of growth in our lives.  The texts that I have read suggest setting aside time at least once a week for critical thinking, however, I believe that some time once a day is ideal.  During this time, you should be thinking about what you accomplished, what you have done during the day, what you could have done, and really focus on the connection of how acting differently would have produced different results.  Really try to crunch how finely tuned changes in your actions would have finely changed (or drastically) the outcome of the situation.  Ponder on how future situations of this flavor are connectable to this situation and how the pattern of actions and events with your decisions could be translated into future manipulation of situations for the overall success of your team and organization.

    I have a lengthy commute to work that affords me about an hour of travel time there and an hour of travel time on my return trip.  Many of my days I spend time in reflection on the previous day during my trip there followed by reflection of the day spent on my return trip home.  This isn’t an everyday occurrence, as I spend a good deal of my time listening to audiobooks from my favorite authors.  I have recently completed “The 101 Collection” by author John C. Maxwell.  I have found that this reflection is incredibly helpful and has fueled my growth as a leader in my organization.  It was during this reflection that sparked my ideas of sharing what I have learned as well as many pursuits in other rewarding areas of life.

The Complete 101 Collection: What Every Leader Needs to Know

Engaging in Lateral Thinking

    This is a concept that was developed by Dr. Edward De Bono.  He had the idea of using this to encourage insight and creativity.  What Dr. De Bono created was the idea of assuming six different mental viewpoints and visualizing the situation using one of these viewpoints at a time.  In his teaching, he refers to them as hats.  He uses color correspondence in order to help the visual connection with wearing a hat and the type of thought that will occur when one is assuming thought from that viewpoint.

1.    A wearer of the white hat would be fact oriented, and their primary purpose would be to gather information required, or state information that they know to be true.

2.    A wearer of the yellow hat would express the view of an optimistic person.  This person would focus on positivity and explore value.

3.    A wearer of the black hat would be the devil’s advocate, presenting opposition and argument.

4.    A wearer of the red hat would view the situation from an emotional viewpoint.  They would use feelings and intuition to conceptualize the situation.

5.    A wearer of the green hat would focus on creative.  This hat-bearer would explore ideas and alternative views to the situation.

6.    A wearer of the blue hat is a type of fail-safe or control.  The blue hat would be the one to make sure that a cyclical fashion of rotation has occurred fairly between all hats.

    Lateral thinking is important because it allows us to step outside of ourselves and view the situation from another location.  It is called lateral thinking because we are still analyzing the same situation, we are just doing it perched above it from a different position.

The Take Away: Making Progress

    If you practice these activities and begin to grow, you will begin to notice things indicative of your growth.  One of the key indicators is your preparedness for odd situations that you would normally be stumped or overwhelmed by.  In leadership and management, we can encounter some really weird and off-the-wall things.  A lot of the time, new leaders especially, will describe leadership as just rolling through a lot of crazy situations and trying to hold on for dear life.  This is one of my explanations of it to my wife when I first became involved in leadership.  A lot of things have changed since then, and I feel like the ride is much more enjoyable now, and much less crazy.  I hope you are able to take away some of the beneficial truths from these activities, and I hope you begin to soon notice that your strategic thinking has improved.