Boost Your Leadership Skills Simply By Answering The Question, "What Does Our Organization Really Re

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Word count: 900

Summary: The author contends that most organizations reward the wrong things. He offers a four step process for turning wrong rewards into the right results.

Boost Your Leadership Skills Simply By Answering The Question, "What Does Our Organization Really Reward?"
By Brent Filson

The difference between leaders is ears. Good leaders not only ask good questions, but they actually listen to the answers.

Ask people in your organization: "What does our organization REALLY reward?" Listening to the answer may help you achieve marked increased in results.

Rewards and punishments make up the drive shaft of any organization. But my experience of working with thousands of leaders during the past 23 years reveals that most of their organizations reward the wrong things.

Such organizations may pay lip service to rewarding people for what is viewed as the right things: getting results, getting the right results, getting the right results in the right ways. But what they may really reward, often in terms of promotions and job perks, are such things as the care and feeding of top leaders' egos, political conniving, tyrannical leadership ....

Here is a way to transform wrong rewards into right results.

(1) Ask people in your organization what your organization REALLY rewards. The answers may surprise you. But don't get caught up in those answers. Don't make value judgments. At this stage, you are just an observer. Simply compile the list.

(2) Gauge each item on the list against results your organization really needs. Does it help get results? Does it detract from results?

Do it this way: Pick out a single item from your list. Describe the problem in the item and identify who controls its solution. Execute a "stop-start-continue" process. What reward do you stop, what do you start, and what do you continue?

You'll get results, but don't expect overnight success. Not only are many of these wrong rewards ingrained habits but changing them seldom achieves quick results. Still, keep asking, What does my organization really reward? In the long run, when tackling the challenges that comes with listening to the answers, you'll be getting more results as well as sharpening your leadership skills.

(3) Ask, "What does your leadership really reward?" When your leadership rewards the wrong things, you're getting a fraction of the results you're capable of. However, since we see the faults of others more clearly than our own, it may be more difficult identifying and dealing with your own issues rather than your organization's.

Do a 360 degree assessment. Select a single item from the list and apply the start-stop-continue process. Don't simply eliminate the item. Such items can be grist for the results mill. Identify the problem in the item then have the solution be a tool that gets results.

Guaranteed you will get results. After all, you are eliminating a negative aspect of your leadership and replacing it with a results-producing one. When you make this a long term endeavor