It's not what you say it's what you do

Ensuring the right individuals are in strategic positions greatly increases the chances of executing plans effectively. This involves aligning your team's capabilities with the goals and standards you aim to achieve. To accomplish this, prioritize hiring individuals with the right attitude over those with extensive experience. It's crucial to have everyone aligned with the company's vision and objectives. Additionally, appoint a project leader who is dedicated to ensuring that the team maintains momentum and sees tasks through to completion. This approach to team composition and leadership is essential for successful project follow-through.

Prioritize attitude over experience in hiring.

In the past, aligning an individual's resume with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for a new role was logical. However, this is no longer applicable. Nowadays, adaptability is more crucial than previous accomplishments, and it's more important to hire individuals who mesh well with your team rather than those with the right amount of experience. So, how do you identify someone who will integrate well?

Create a profile of the characteristics and behaviors you need to evaluate in potential candidates. This will typically involve ranking six factors: problem-solving skills, empathy, maturity, assertiveness, adaptability, and self-motivation. Prepare your screening interview beforehand. Begin by encouraging candidates to openly discuss their learnings and experiences from past roles. Focus more on their past actions than hypothetical scenarios. Request examples of situations where they had to manage an angry customer or work with a disagreeable boss.

Pose effective leading questions that encourage them to reveal more about their thought processes. For instance, ask them what made their favorite boss easy to work with, what specific things tend to annoy them, or what enables them to perform their best work.

Remember that they will be trying to anticipate what you want to hear, so be cautious not to be deceived. To prevent issues in this area, always trust your instincts, seek a second opinion from a colleague, take your time, observe how they handle conflict and stress, and continue evaluating them even after they're hired.

"i don't favor hiring based on experience. Reviewing resumes and the like rarely proves effective. When hiring, it's crucial to distinguish between learnable aspects and those that are highly resistant to change. By the age of twenty-five, our personalities are largely formed. Attitudes and interpersonal styles are much more difficult to alter than technical skills and industry-specific knowledge. Technically proficient managers are common. However, the individual who develops a knack for understanding different people and demonstrating versatility is rare. This will be the distinguishing factor in the most successful managers." - dr. Sarah bridges, executive coach & psychologist.

Don't take for granted that your innovative concept will be readily accepted just because it's logically sound. Instead, expect resistance due to people's natural tendency to resist change. To foster acceptance:

Strategically navigate around those who are hesitant. Encourage everyone to experiment with the new concept before forming any criticisms. Establish a dynamic implementation team that everyone aspires to join. Promote direct, personal engagement in the process.

Remember, it's crucial to adhere to the word count range of 90 to 150 words. This is non-negotiable, as any deviation renders the results ineffective. Also, avoid including any numerical references to online sources in the final text. The text should be free of any markdowns or subtitles, and should be presented as a continuous, coherent paragraph.

Overcome resistance from your team.

To navigate around those who resist change due to ethical or religious reasons, there are four strategies you can employ: Begin your change initiative with a truly remarkable event that grabs everyone's attention. This should be an achievement that defies the expected negative outcomes and leans towards success, involving those who are eager rather than hesitant.

Overwhelm your resistors by quickly presenting continuous proof of success, preventing them from organizing opposition or spreading doubt. Maintain a rapid pace of early victories to build momentum for change that sweeps everyone along. Ideally, you'll have tangible results before they can formulate objections.

Cultivate advocates among your regular employees, particularly those who have been freed from unproductive tasks and are enthusiastic about progress for job security reasons. These advocates, aware of past inefficiencies and devoid of ulterior motives, will become your change ambassadors.

Share your initial success stories with the CEO and senior managers, allowing them to hear from various organizational levels. This will deflate the expectations of resistors, while giving the CEO insight into the emerging productivity and performance improvements. The CEO, with their energy, influence, and resources, can amplify and build on success, neutralizing any potential derailment by the skeptics.

Many managers mistakenly believe that the clear necessity for change, meticulous planning, and effective communication can overcome negativity. They overlook the reality of human nature. A negative person's opposition is not based on logic, but an emotional appeal to people's fear of change. You cannot logically dissuade someone from a stance they didn't logically adopt. - Laurence Haughton.

Encourage trying new ideas before criticism.

In every organization, there's a natural resistance to change, with individuals clinging to familiar ideas and practices. This means that potential obstacles to innovation are everywhere. It's the responsibility of managers to not only overcome opposition to specific new ideas, but also to guide their teams in overcoming their instinctive resistance to anything new and unfamiliar.

To put this into practice, there are three steps:

First, initiate a conversation that reassures people it's okay to abandon outdated ideas. Use examples of companies that failed to adapt to changing market conditions due to their inability to let go of old ideas, such as Dell versus traditional PC manufacturers, GM's Oldsmobile division, and Encyclopedia Britannica. Discuss why these companies made irrational decisions despite clear evidence.

Second, engage in a team activity where everyone contributes examples from your organization of assumed beliefs about products and markets, entrenched methods of operation, unspoken taboos, and instances of investing more resources into failing projects.

Leaders must foster an environment that encourages initiative by clearly communicating task rationales, showing appreciation for team judgement, and balancing accountability. This approach ensures individuals are motivated to act independently, enhancing productivity and fostering a culture of proactive engagement rather than reliance on constant direction.

Communicate the reason behind actions.

To foster a sense of shared purpose that inspires your team to take initiative and improve their follow-through, consider these three strategies. First, view your work from your customers' perspective, focusing on the positive impact your product or service has on their lives. This shift from profit to purpose can inspire and motivate your team, as everyone appreciates the concept of doing good. Second, ask yourself and your team what motivates them to get up each morning. Highlight the most rewarding aspects of your work, recalling why you chose your profession in the first place. Revisiting these issues can boost personal motivation. Third, identify a common adversary that your organization is dedicated to overcoming. Use this shared challenge to foster a strong team spirit. Celebrate individual initiatives taken to defeat this common enemy, encouraging others to join the cause.

Once you've identified a purpose, it's crucial to communicate it effectively to enhance follow-through. Document your purpose and discuss it extensively. Refer to this written description when setting goals or during planning meetings. Define the purpose so clearly that you can develop measurable indicators. This allows you to set goals in this area and track progress regularly. Support this by establishing recognition programs that institutionalize opportunities to acknowledge individual contributions. In communicating your purpose, it's also important to address skepticism and cynicism. Emphasize your accountability for your actions and disregard the opinions of cynics. Great achievements have always been accomplished in the face of doubt and criticism. Be patient, show determination, and be prepared to follow through relentlessly. With time, even your critics may grudgingly acknowledge your commitment to your cause.

Consider the words of ingvar kamprad, founder of ikea, who aimed to create a better everyday life for the majority of people by offering goods at the same prices your dealer buys for, sometimes even lower. Similarly, walt disney was driven by his singular purpose to build a place that makes people happy, which extended the brand and resulted in a huge multigenerational success.