If you plan to achieve great things, you must develop great leaders.
How to Fail
The break-fix model seldom develops greatness. The break-fix model is problem-centric and backward-facing. Break-fix works for systems and processes, but not for people.
Fix organizations – develop people.
Closely related to the demoralizing break-fix approach is the ever faithful but always useless, blame-relief model. Blaming enables us to wash our hands – relieving ourselves of responsibility. “Phew! It’s not my fault; it’s theirs.”
Experience shows fixing and blaming creates defeatist, problem-centric, demoralizing orientations. Blaming and fixing aren’t the paths to greatness.
How to Succeed
When it comes to people, don’t fix the past.
6 Things You Can Do With the Past
1. See it.
2. Accept it.
3. Take responsibility.
4. Learn.
5. Let it go.
6. Begin where you are – stand on it.
The past can never be changed, improved, or ignored. Stay in the past briefly, but don’t camp out. Everyone had good reasons or excuses for past choices. Proving they were dumb doesn’t motivate. Help them see their mistakes for themselves. You can’t learn for others.
Create success, quickly. People say, “I see what I was doing wrong,” in the light of current success. If you can’t help someone find fresh success, you’re just a pain in the ass (when it comes to developing people).
Employ a start-step model. Developing leaders always start in the same place, where they are not where you wish they were. An immediate step toward a preferred future always improves attitudes, enhances performance, and creates positive momentum. Start where they are and step toward their future.
Result: People radically improve in as few as two working sessions because we begin where they are and create success quickly.
What are key components to developing both yourself and others?
