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I was walking through the airport on my way to business meetings in California

I saw a poster of a pair of hard core cowboy boots and denim with the word “Follower”. It immediately got my attention. The ad immediately confronted my expectations by playing on what we usually project when we think of a ‘follower’.

I was curious, who’s the leader? Sure enough, the next poster, “Leader” had a figure in a snappy suit, shirt and tie. That seemed to make sense but I wasn’t sure I saw the point.

But the ads weren’t done. The next set of posters came up, this time with the figures reversed. Now the suited guy was the follower and cowboy boots was the leader.

“Got me!”

Okay  so now I’m paying attention and I want to know who’s playing with my mind. I looked for the advertiser …www.hsbc.com. http://www.yourpointofview.com/page03.html

There was another set of contrasts on the jet way for me to chew on: a camping trip “stressful” or “relaxing” depending on your perspective. A party deck on a cruise ship, “stressful” or “relaxing” depending on your perspective.

Reminds me of conversations with many top performers and leaders.

Good performers stop or slow when it comes to the crux of labeling the moment with the client in front of them…

“close” “open”

“aggressive” “patient”

“support” “challenge”

They look for the right answer - either/ or.

But the best do it differently.

The best just plow through - they know the answer is both! New insight comes from the tension in the new spaces discovered by reconciling what looked like contradictions:

Open-close

Aggressive-patient

Tactical-strategic

Consistent-adaptive

If you can be in both spaces at once, holding the space for both to be possible in any given moment, then you are playing a top performer game.

Catch People  Doing Things Right

When I first meet with a client, I want to know: what is this organization doing right?  I assume that they wouldn’t still be in business (least of all able to hire me) if they weren’t doing something that customers were buying into.  So my goal is to discover what some of the things they are doing right, and help them accentuate these qualities to their customers.

What does it mean to “play to your strengths”?

An old paradigm for business improvement is to “fix the gaps” - that is, look for the holes and try and fill them.  You can spend a lot of time filling holes, because - just like people - organizations have weaknesses that are part and parcel of who they are.  It’s kind of the easy way out though - to look from the outside and see what’s missing or to poke holes in a strategy or a sales team.

How much effort in your business is focused on coaching “from the top” rather than under performers?

What’s harder is to look beyond the obvious “problems” to find out what’s working, and then leverage what’s working into more effective strategies that suit the organization and the people in them.  There’s a method called appreciative inquiry, which you can read more about here.

Let me give you an example.  I worked with a company that made a complex technical widget to do with manufacturing.  The company wasn’t flashy or sexy, but they made a very intricate product that had to be tailored to each individual customer.  Further to that, there was a “middle man” in the sales chain, an outside broker who was not as technically savvy but was the funnel for clients.  It didn’t leave them a lot of room to get polished at top performance sales techniques.

In interviewing the executive team, I found out that the company’s greatest asset was its technical knowledge.  They could answer the most detailed of questions that had my brain reeling trying to grasp the meaning, much less the way it would be used in a factory.  So the leverage point, the strength of this company was technical knowledge, and I encouraged them to get it down on paper, in short, clear documents that they could use to support their middle men when a sale was being transacted.  This not only helped their customer but created stronger bonds with the middle men as well.

Sell on features?  No…  Build solutions!

Learning how to leverage strengths in an organization, and in individual’s performance is a new art, but one that reaps productivity, engagement and results.  Best of all, it leaves people in a place of strength and achievement.

And who doesn’t want to live there?

Success builds on success.  Repeatable succcess builds excellence and innovation.

We all know bad press and scandal sells.

Hats off to Ode magazine.  They have a broad range of stories every month covering people, politics, environment and social trends.  All stories of progress and optimism.  Try it, you’ll like it!

If you were inspired by and attracted to the thought of working to your organization’s, team’s and personal strengths, I’ve got a resource for you this week.

Does the continual and relentless negative news stories weigh you down?  Check out the online magazine Ode, a site guaranteed to make you feel more upbeat.  Here you can learn that driving in the U.S. has recently suffered a decline or that there is a way for hundreds of people to party outside all night long without creating any noise pollution.

Playing to strengths means feeling like there’s an upside, that’s it’s not all about our gaps.  I really like this online magazine because it does for news what appreciative inquiry does for business.