Do you struggle to achieve a certain metric but accelerate in others? Are you continually asked how you will obtain the targeted results? More often than not, within the operational leadership role, initiatives you are responsible for achieving that influence change, sometimes feel as if they change weekly.
Are you at a point in your role where you are great with the majority of initiatives but struggle with one or two? When questioned on what redirection you will provide and what you will do differently, have you ever uttered the response, “I don’t know?”
More often then not, when uttering “I don’t know what else to do, I always talk about it,” is a cop out where you are unintentionally trying to displace accountability and responsibility away from your performance. Now, at the moment, you may feel as if you do not know the solution. However, your role is to remove I don’t know from your vocabulary and switch it with “What else can I do to achieve this result” and continually switch gears until you stumble upon the solution.
If you truly always talk about it, your results would improve. If your team felt this was a priority, your results would improve. If you tracked and followed up consistently with your team, your results would improve. If you led your team the exact same way on this metric / KPI, with the same tenacity as the metrics / KPI you are successful with, you would see accelerated improvement.
The reality behind the lag in performance improvement in this scenario is you are not communicating constantly, not explaining the bigger picture – the why’s of why it is important, not building in mid day / week follow up, outlining accountability actions for failed performance and recognizing your team frequently for improvement.
Again, if you have success with other metrics / KPI’s – “I don’t know,” is simply not true, the answer, though a tough pill to swallow, is that you have not prioritized the new initiative as important and bucketed it as just another thing to do. Utilize the same tenacity and tactics with your successful metrics with the one you are struggling with. The only real difference would be your passion to exceed, your prioritization of importance and level of communication.
Self reflect and reprioritize today, ask yourself what else can I do and communicate with gentle pressure relentlessly applied and success is inevitable. YOU DO KNOW! Now go and drive for results this week!
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