Guest Blog - Talent and determination get you there, but how do you get them? by Saira Iqbal of Zircon Management Consulting

Zircon Management Consulting is an award winning Business Psychology Company specialising in Talent Management

We know it's important, where does it come form?

One of the most successful men I know grew up in the roughest streets of Bristol, and shared a cramped bedroom with his five brothers until he could  leave the family home and ‘escape’ to his second choice university.  Now a multi-millionaire cabinet minister, each of his milestones made it more and more apparent that his success was no simple stroke of luck.

There were no useful networks that his working class parents were a part of, there was no private school education to teach social poise; but there was drive that came from great ambition and pure determination.

There is a lot of research to suggest that importance of ambition and determination to success (McCann, 2015; Meier, 2011; Rath & Conchie 2008), yet little evidence on how we can develop these attributes.

If ambition, and determination are core principles of success, then why do some people have it in droves, whilst others pay no attention to life’s opportunities?

Why do some have an immense hunger to pursue their aspirations, whilst others are satisfied with living in the moment and focusing on the day as it comes?

Our recent white paper, Winning Attitudes, addresses this very issue. Our interviewees often described adversity, loss, pain and rejection as being the core, pivotal moments that changed the way they viewed themselves and the world around them, helping create the drive they needed to succeed.

 “The loss created the drive.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“The terrain to success is not a motorway, it is a swamp with ups and downs.” Jeremy Snape, Founder, Sporting Edge

“My father used to put me down, that drove me to prove myself. It gave me determination and focus.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“You need to have survival mentality.” Adam Freeman-Pask, Olympian, Rowing

Is adversity a necessary prerequisite? 

Similar to the experiences our interviewees shared, the aforementioned cabinet minister, after facing adversity and financial issues in his childhood, often stated that ‘he had to find a way out’. He knew ‘there was more out there for him’. His drive came from a psychological desire to move away from his childhood experience.

Taking this even further, one may ask, ‘does there need to be some type of adversity in order for success to happen?’

McCann (2015) suggests that using adversity as a means for success is a ‘Move From’ mind-set, where the biggest driver is a fear of failure. Success factors such as Burning Ambition, Dogged Determination, Unwavering Belief and Maximising Opportunities, are often triggered from a moment in adversity – such as a disadvantaged childhood.

Whilst specific events can result in a fear of failure, it is the winning mind-set that keeps us going: The Winners among us never give up. They persist, and are determined and unwavering in the pursuit of their goals and their dreams. It is their response to these adverse circumstances that ultimately results in a positive outcome.

“You need to keep going in one direction and strive. If there is a bump in the road, go around it.” Nicola Murphy, CEO, The River Group

“I was determined not to be dependent or reliant on anyone.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. –Jimmy Dean on “Good Morning America,” ABC.

Some surrender.

Others gain a thirst to win.

You may need to battle your circumstances, but it is your attitude that determines whether you will allow your situation to make you kneel over and give up, or rise up through every blow, so you can win the war.

To read more about what makes up a Winning Attitude from the point of view of 42 business savvy corporate CEOs and edgy entrepreneurs, committed Olympic and sporting stars through to charismatic media personalities, please take a look at our White Paper.

Written by Saira Iqbal of Zircon

Leading Through Uncertainty: Seven principles for practice

Many leaders are currently facing the challenge of leading in conditions of great uncertainty in an unpredictable environment. Yet much leadership and change guidance is predicated on the assumption of a relatively stable or foreseeable future – for which plans can be made. Here are some principles to help leaders continue to offer leadership even when firm predictions are hard to come by and plans are difficult to make.

1. Keep Leading

When researching his book ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ Atul Gawande turned to the airline industry for case-studies on how to prepare emergency checklists. He discovered that these pioneers in the creation of a checklist for every scenario had quickly learnt that the first instruction on every list had to be ‘keep flying the plane’. Similarly, all may be in turmoil about you, but ‘keep offering leadership’ has to be at the top of your checklist.

2. People First

When thing are running smoothly people issues can seem to be looking after themselves and leaders often devote their energies to more of the task aspects of the role. Once uncertainty and unpredictability become a key part of the picture – are we being sold? Will there be redundancies? Is our line/factory/project being discontinued? – all this changes and working with your people must become the main focus of the leadership role. Essentially all managers have to become leaders, able to inspire loyalty, trust and courage. This may not come easy to those promoted on their technical skills. They need support to understand that spending time with people to help them remain motivated, optimistic and performing is now the key aspect of their job.

3. Engender Hope and Optimism

One of the first causalities when uncertainty looms large is hope. People can’t see the future clearly; they don’t understand how they can influence it. They feel hopeless in the face of bigger circumstances.  A collapse in motivation and morale can quickly follow. Creating a sense of hope and optimism is a key factor in restoring motivation and so levels of productivity. Appreciative Inquiry as a change methodology is particularly effective at this. The general principle is to help people, in the midst of all the gloom and despair, to focus on what is good, is still working, is worthwhile, and on what they can influence. Help them be proactive in dealing with, coping with, responding to or interacting with the situation. These things engender hopefulness.

4. Learn to Love Emergence and Discovery

Many change approaches rely on analysis and implementation through planning. This approach is too slow, too inaccurate and too prone to be rendered obsolete by a sudden shift in the wind in conditions of great uncertainty. Instead we have to become experts at sensing small shifts, capturing emerging trends, discovering ways forward by trying things out and seeing what happens. We have to engage pro-actively with an emerging future. Working this way can initially feel messy, inefficient, and worryingly uncontrollable. By the same token it is timely, fast, flexible, engaging and involving and can lead to surprising discoveries about the possible. Appreciative Inquiry and the other collaborative transformational approaches such as Open Space and World Café are good approaches for emergent situations.

5. Call on the Collective Intelligence of Your Unit

When things are changing fast and new information is constantly emerging it is impossible for one person, or even a small group of senior people, to keep on top of it all, never mind sorting it, sifting it and creating new possibilities for action. The collaborative transformational technologies allow the collective intelligence of the whole unit to work together in an effective way. Involving others adds value and effectiveness to the process. It greatly increases the likelihood of creative, collectively endorsed ways forward emerging. Involve your people in the challenge. Recognise them as intelligent adults and reap the rewards of a huge increase in brain-power on the task. Make finding ways forward and staying pro-active everyone’s challenge.

6. Have Many Review and Reflection Points

As situations constantly change so must our plans. Learning from fire-fighters Weick suggests a shift is necessary in highly uncertain situations from decision-making to sense-making. Leadership behaviour in these highly changeable situations is characterised by ambivalence, an ability to move quickly between seemingly contrasting states - such as taking risks and being cautious, using repetition and improvisation, or working with intuition and deliberation. In addition, proceeding by trial and error, they assess and reassess the appropriateness of their actions frequently, involving others as well to ‘calibrate’ their sense of the situation and the appropriate action against the insight of others. Constant adaptation of plans is adaptive in these situations.

7. Reveal Your Authenticity and Integrity

In unpredictable and uncertain situations it is easy to be blown off course by the temporary prevailing wind. Good people can find themselves doing bad things when they lose their bearings. Research by Avolio and colleagues identified four key features of authentic leadership, one of which is having a strong internal moral compass. Make sure you consult yours often. Another is what they term ‘relational transparency’, by which they mean allowing people to know you, the real and true you. This may mean sometimes letting people know that you too are only human and sometimes falter or feel vulnerable, as well as sometimes feeling strong and certain. This is not licence to collapse all over your team in a heap – get a coach for that – but rather, as Goffee and Jones put it ‘to be your (best) self, more, with skill.’ Over time it builds trust and increases group capability as others step up to the mark to help.

Offering leadership during times of uncertainty is no easy task. It requires a different understanding of leadership and different leadership behaviours. Finding ways forward in a rapidly changing environment that will enable the organization to continue to flourish is too big a demand on any one individual. There is too much information, too many variables. However Open Space, World Café and Appreciative Inquiry all offer ways to call on the collective intelligence of the unit while still adding value from the unique position of ‘leader’.

More on these and related topics can be found in Sarah’s book Positive Psychology at Work.

See more articles from the Knowledge Warehouse on this topic here.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at the tools we use to foster Leadership.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715