Are there people on your team who are confused because the manner in which they conducted business in the past isn’t working anymore? And, do you know people who are frozen, unsure what to do next, because they’re puzzled about the future?
Welcome to the Era of Confuzzlement.
Confusion and puzzlement reign, leaving too many teams arguing about their past (a complete waste of time) and ridiculously slow to respond to the future. So slow in some cases, that the future becomes the past before they can do anything about it. Which means, of course, these teams then have new (old) material to argue about. And the cycle continues, in some cases leaving entire organizations confuzzled.
Lead by Stepping Out and Up.
“This is a crisis economy,” shares a friend named Rich. “You can’t follow the same rules. You can’t think like you used to. You have to step out and up. You have to lead different.”
Rich should know. He’s part of a team that is guiding an organization through difficult – and successful – changes. Below are some of the reasons why they’re winning. Use these steps with your team to step out and up:
1) Create a culture where everyone is responsible for leading – everyone is expected to step out and up.
2) Ask forward focus questions – and lots of them. Rich’s organization knows that the moment they get comfortable with “answers” that in time, people will become confuzzled. Leadership is in the questions – not the answers.
3) Build a thinking system that responds to new ideas with “how do we make that work?” instead of the confuzzled approach of “here’s why that won’t work.”
If you are approaching business like you did three years ago, your customers will most certainly become confuzzled, too, and take their scarce dollars elsewhere.
You can lead today by clearing up the confuzzlement that grips so many. Today, step out and up.
Where will you lead – where will you stomp elephants – today?
