SUCCESS: BUILD IT ON CHANGING HABITS
“To break a habit, establish a new rhythm — simple devices, long known to the ancients. It never failed. Break down the old pattern, the worn-out connections, and the spirit breaks loose, establishes new polarities, creates new tensions, bequeaths new vitality.”
(Henry Miller — Sexus)
Sounds alright doesn’t it? And clearly, he doesn’t just mean ‘take a new route to work’ — it goes a bit deeper than that…
In Smart Thinking, the revered psychologist Art Markman writes that our cognitive systems are designed as much as possible not to think. In the main, this is a good thing. We have automated thought processes for knowing the milk is in the fridge or our underwear is in a certain drawer, and this makes life easier.
But if we start automating our thoughts and habits at work, the outcome can be dreary same-old same-old, a dearth of ideas, a dispiriting lack of energy. We need to be aware of our habits — whether personal or in our work teams, to make good on Miller’s words.
Markman talks of creating a culture of smart — analysing, streamlining, cutting activities and meetings in the working day. This will free up the mind to think more laterally, come up with new ideas, improve energy — and lead to greater participation in the workplace.
No-one was ever inspired to come up with killer ideas by being too comfortable.
Change the nature of the workplace to stimulate and engage your employees with a range of new input — books, magazines, culture. The more varied the better!
The result — a team with larger banks of knowledge and content to draw on — and that means happier people and better ideas.
Be serious about introducing new input and be patient to see the results.
REWARD BEHAVIOUR
People are often promoted or commended based on their results, not their processes. This can mask deficiencies in your work environment, and be damaging long-term.
DO NOT ASSUME THAT GOOD RESULTS ARE THE RESULT OF GOOD WORK PRACTICE
To get the best of everyone they need to feel their effort is not going unnoticed. People will become disillusioned if they work well but and are overlooked for not getting results.
It all goes back to THE WHY.
If you, as a leader, have been clear about your raison d’etre, and your employees have bought in to it and understand it, then you know that they have the right destination in mind, even if the route this time didn’t quite lead where you wanted it to. It’s all part of acceptable failure in the short-term for long-term gain and, hopefully, sustained success.
SUCCESS TAKE-AWAYS
· Careful of being infatuated with your business plans — be flexible. It is simply not the case that whatever worked before what will work in the future.
· Too much previous success can lead to maintaining status quo — this can lead to stagnation.
· Beware of hamstringing your team with best practice and rules. This sows the seeds of bureaucracy. Heed the example of American Football coach John Madden at the Oakland Raiders. When he took over there were rules for everything. He got rid of most of them. The result? The Raiders won the Superbowl.
· Luck plays its part. We tend to assume that success must be the result of good procedure and failure must mean we did something wrong. Always analyse how you went about it, not just the outcome. Your formula may be right — it just didn’t work this time.
· Know the why — if everyone’s on the same page, the means can be allowed to define themselves. This will require you to embrace the odd failure.
FINALLY…
We are certainly not saying fail for the sake of failing as the Fail, and fail often mantra seems to suggest. That’s ridiculous and pointless. But don’t be afraid if it happens — and be prepared to come back from it when it does. You do learn from mistakes. Life tells us that all the time.
And don’t be afraid to PLAY YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS. Fun feeds the imagination and in turn creates great ideas. Try it out for yourself on the IDEAFLIP PLATFORM!
Ideaflip is an ingenious tool for the remote-working era, providing the perfect, online space for all your team to connect, interact and create — wherever in the world they are.
The Ideaflip Brainstorm PROCESS is also perfect for at-work collaboration. It democratises the workplace, creating a platform for everyone to have their ideas heard — inspiring PEOPLE to participate through PLAY — and helps discover and harness everyone’s latent creativity.
