A frustrating day on the job can leave you wondering why things are so difficult. You might even wonder if you’re causing your own problems. Do you ever ask yourself, “Do I self-sabotage? Do I put myself in situations where I’m set up for failure?”
Self-sabotage is common, and for some, it’s a behavior and habit that’s hard to ignore, especially when it contributes to not achieving your goals or enjoying a happy, healthy lifestyle.
What Is Self-Sabotage?
You may realize you’re playing a part in your frustration or lack of progress, but you don’t have a name for it. Self-sabotage occurs when you create an obstacle that impacts your ability to reach a goal you’ve set. Some of the most common behaviors that could be classified as self-sabotage include:
Self-medication using alcohol or drugs
Procrastinating to accomplish tasks
Self-injury
Comfort eating
Making projects or tasks more complicated than they should be
Not taking action right away
Many people don’t recognize self-sabotaging behavior in themselves. But you may see the connection between your actions and behavior and the outcome over time. You might think, “If only I would have done it this way” or “I have to stop this!”
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Signs of Self-Sabotage: What Are They and How to Spot Them
Recognizing potential signs of self-sabotage can help you make better choices. If you’re actually engaging in self-sabotaging behavior, you can learn how to make changes to minimize negative outcomes. Here are some of the most common signs of self-sabotage:
Walking Away From a Problem
Some people become frustrated and give up instead of trying to determine what went wrong. This often means all the effort you put into a project is wasted. Look back on what happened. Did you put in the effort and follow the plan? Doubts about your ability could be a core reason you’re so willing to walk away instead of working on a solution.
Negative Self-Talk
One of the most common signs of self-sabotage is how you talk about yourself or the words you use when thinking about yourself. For example, statements such as “I don’t deserve this” or “I’m so stupid” often indicate a lack of faith and confidence.
Blaming Others
Quite commonly, people who self-sabotage blame others for what went wrong. It could be no one’s fault, but those who engage in this type of behavior often find someone to blame. Not being able to recognize your role in the situation and make healthier, better decisions in the future just repeats the pattern of poor outcomes.
Procrastination
Putting things off until the last minute is a type of self-sabotage. You might push a task or project to the side and look for other things that seem more important, or you may reach for anything as a distraction to avoid a difficult decision. Procrastination can be a sign of stress or worry, but it may also be a sign of doubting your ability or being unable to manage time wisely. Self-discipline isn’t an inborn trait; it’s a learned skill.
Boredom and Lack of Focus
In some situations, self-sabotage occurs for a very simple reason: You’re bored. You don’t like what you’re doing, it’s not intellectually or emotionally stimulating, and you can’t focus on it. It could be that you find someone on your team annoying. Maybe they’re pushing your buttons or not contributing, or maybe the task is just dull and boring. Regardless, not getting it done often means you’re self-sabotaging because you won’t finish the job or do it well.
How to Stop Self-Sabotaging
If you recognize any of these signs of self-sabotage, take a step back. You can fix this, and you can learn to master your ability to work through difficult situations to create a better outcome. Consider these strategies:
Stop Criticizing Yourself
Self-criticism doesn’t have an easy fix, but it’s critical to minimize it if you want to reach your long-term goals. Instead of saying or thinking negative things, spin them around into something good. You may want to say, “I am so bad at this.” Instead, say, “I don’t have the skills yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
Get More Confidence Through Education
In some cases, you’re unable to reach a goal because you lack the skills. Change that. Find a way to increase your skills, such as through a leadership course, or invest in a program that focuses on building confidence.
Master Procrastination-Busting Skills
It’s easier said than done, especially when your mind is going in numerous directions at one time. But stopping self-sabotage is all about becoming self-aware. When you notice yourself becoming distracted, stop, reflect, and get back on track. Use timers to help you zone in for a specific period to accomplish tasks. Stop thinking about what you have to do and force yourself to do it. It is possible to change your habits.
Build Confidence in Yourself
Imposter syndrome, as defined by Psychology Today, is often a form of self-sabotage. It’s the feeling that you can’t possibly do the job that only other people do, or that you’re a fake, a pretender. When you don’t feel the confidence to complete the project, manage the team, or run the business, ask yourself why. Do you need more training and development? Do you have evidence of past success that should spur confidence in your ability now? Remind yourself every day of what you’ve already accomplished.
Invest in Yourself to Overcome Limitations
Ask yourself this question and jot down the answer. “Do I self-sabotage?” If you’re setting yourself up for failure, identify the specific behaviors and change them for the better.
At The Eighth Mile, we offer solutions to help you reinvent yourself and achieve a better outcome. If you’re self-sabotaging, isn’t it about time to try something different? Reach out to us today and learn more about your best path forward.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Are-you-Self-Sabotaging.jpg5001100David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2023-03-13 11:07:222023-03-20 09:29:48Am I Self-Sabotaging? How To Tell and How To Stop
There is a difference between positive stress and toxic stress. Problem-solving and coping skills are examples of positive stress we can exercise for our benefit. However, long-term exposure to stress can have significant impacts on our health. In this presentation, Samantha Pickering moderates a discussion with Peter Keith on the science behind resilience in the workplace. He begins by decoding the four main chemicals that affect behavior and mood, which have an enormous impact on our workplace resilience. He continues to examine the subconscious speech patterns that are limiting our own experience, as well as the five areas that can serve as a source of resilience and strength when applied correctly.
By the end of the video, viewers should be able to make simple but positive changes as a precursor to leading their teams through times of uncertainty and managing ambiguity with decisiveness and clarity.
Presenters
Peter Keith Samantha Pickering
Length of Video
60 minutes
The Science of Workplace Resilence: Video Highlights
0:00 – Introductions
1:45 – Who Should Watch This Video
3:02 – What is Resilience?
4:07 – The Four Chemicals That Affect Behaviors and Mood (Using Language to Access the Positive Chemicals and Limit the Negative Ones)
10:00 – Self-Talk and The Subconscious Voice
14:45 – Resilience Reflective Questions
18:20 – “SAVES” Workplace Resilience Checks: Social Connections, Attitude, Values, Emotional Acceptance, Sense of Humor
56:55 – Storytime: “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten”
Company Overview
Eighth Mile Consulting is a leadership training and consulting agency focused on creating and supporting better leaders in all industries. If you are seeking to develop yourself professionally, we have created an online leadership course to help you become better, more resilient leaders for your team.
For more helpful videos to help you grow your people and your organization, subscribe to our YouTube channel.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/resilience.jpg6001200Samantha Pickeringhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngSamantha Pickering2022-12-21 13:39:352023-01-12 11:13:18Workplace Resilience After A Setback
Some time ago, I posted this on LinkedIn, on the topic of leadership.
In response, I got many references to a popular John Wooden quote challenging that claim:
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
I admit fully that John Wooden is a smarter guy than me, and this quote does raise an important distinction and connection. In essence, Wooden is saying that by consistently adhering to strong personal values (in other words, having a good character), a good professional reputation will follow. I don’t disagree with this equation. But when it comes to being a leader, which one is really more important?
What Does It Mean to Be a Leader?
Before we can start to answer that question, we need to understand what a leader really is.
“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.”
In other words, leadership stems not from authority or power, but from having the ability to guide and rally others. A leader leads people, regardless of whether they are “direct reports.” True leadership, it seems, speaks more to the service of others instead of a reliance on formal structures and authorities.
If we agree that a leader influences others, regardless of their formal role, then surely a leader’s professional reputation is an incredibly important indicator of how they are doing. You might even say that one’s reputation is a social litmus test.
Does this leader communicate effectively?
Are they able to align people around a shared intent?
Are they clear on their expectations and reasoning?
I am fortunate to have worked alongside some of the most amazing and influential leaders in the world, all of whom have had excellent professional reputations. Even when they had to make unpopular decisions, the respect people had for them never wavered. Because they were consistent and authentic, their followers trusted them no matter what. Leaders like that are an incredibly valuable resource, particularly in complex environments characterized by uncertainty and confusion. Even if all they do is make tough calls, they still manage to leave nothing but positivity in their wake.
It is important to know that it was other people who took the leader’s message to different forums. These people are known as “evangelists.” They go out of their way to tout the leader’s message and character, simply because they believe in it that much. The power of good character and social influence can spawn these ultra-loyal followers whose support can bolster the leader’s professional reputation.
A Good Leader, Objectively Speaking
On the flip side, we have those who develop professional reputations that are not aligned with their intent or values.
Say an individual joined an organization with one approach in mind, only to find that the organization’s culture or goals are completely at odds with that mindset. Because of this disconnect, the individual may develop a poor reputation that is not a true depiction of their character. Viewing the situation subjectively, without fully understanding the context, they may very well look like a “bad” leader.
If we look at the situation objectively, we see that both sides–the leader and the organization–played a part in lowering this person’s social influence and professional reputation. However, the leader must be the one to decide where to go from here. If they are truly of good character, they should be able to apply what they learned from this misstep and identify a better position for themselves in the future. If they do that successfully, they will repair their professional reputation in no time.
The Matter of Legacy
Like many of us, one of my personal life goals is to leave a positive legacy as a “good person.” That legacy will be measured not in dollars and cents, but in the number of people that surround my deathbed, watching over me with love and support. It is in the positive message I hope to leave behind.
A person’s legacy is a form of reputation. It is what remains alive when we have left. So, while a good character may be the font from which a good reputation springs, reputation is what lingers long after we are gone.
In Conclusion
It is my firm belief that the best leaders commit themselves to the pursuit of truth in every respect. That includes the truth about themselves, their performance, their teams, and their impacts.
As leaders, we cannot be so quick to discount the importance of one’s professional reputation. It tells you how your message impacts others and where you need to improve as a leader.
At Eighth Mile Consulting, we aim to help those interested in genuine self-improvement grow into better leaders. We offer individualized coaching as well as an online leadership course that informs on everything from motivating team members to improving your decision-making.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/character-vs-rep.jpg6001200David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2022-12-06 12:22:512023-01-12 11:23:37Character vs. Professional Reputation: What Matters More To A Leader?
During my time with the Australian Army, I learned a lot about strategy and tactics with regard to resource management.
History has shown that the outcome of almost every major military effort comes down to differences in strategic approach. Essentially, one approach works, and one fails. After I left the service and became a management consultant, I found this to be relatively similar in the corporate world. While organizations can co-exist in the same industry, their actions still affect one another, especially if they are locked in a contest for market share. In that contest, as in military action, one strategy will succeed, and one will not. Yet even with that knowledge, many company leaders refuse to change their strategy, often to their own detriment.
Conversely, those organizations that are willing to entertain new approaches often end up leaving their competitors in the dust. Regardless of size or industry, companies that seem to glide toward their goals are able to answer one fundamental question:
How do we best allocate our resources to achieve our goals?
When it comes to resource management, you can apply many different military methodologies to a corporate and commercial context.
Attrition Resource Management
Attrition warfare involves wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse. The World Wars were prime examples. During these campaigns, one side would bring as much force to bear on the enemy as possible until they fell apart.
Attrition warfare unequivocally favors the more significant force and requires less imagination and agility than other strategies. The resource cost is immense, but if conducted in the right context, it can result in decisive victories where the enemy is incapacitated in one fell swoop. However, if a decisive victory is not achieved, wars of attrition can drag on for years as each side becomes more entrenched and, therefore, more difficult to dislodge.
In the corporate context, examples of attrition warfare tactics as they related to resource management might include:
Paying for premium ad space that may be unreachable for competitors (such as a Super Bowl commercial)
Sponsoring major industry events
Taking legal actions against competitors (such as copyright or trademark infringement lawsuits)
Poaching high-end staff with the promise of better pay and benefits
Attrition as a practical commercial strategy is only practical for those with a large number of resources on hand. Corporations that already control a massive share of the market will do the best with attrition resource management as there is no practical way for smaller organizations to compete with them.
Maneuver Resource Management
Maneuver warfare is a strategy aimed at unbalancing or unhinging the enemy. It identifies the root purpose of the enemy campaign (such as taking control of a certain landmark) and finds different ways to do the same thing. Essentially, it targets an enemy’s “center of gravity,” or the ineffable “something” that gives them the will or the ability to fight.
Throughout the course of history, militaries have used maneuver warfare through the following avenues:
Physical Dislocation: Removing the key assets or logistics that enable the enemy to operate.
Temporal Dislocation: Moving faster when achieving important terrain, milestones, or assets.
Moral Dislocation: Attacking the enemy’s will to fight. This often includes a significant effort to get into the minds of the key decision-makers and shape their decisions.
These methods can run simultaneously, and all of them emphasize the elements of surprise and speed.
For resource management, maneuver warfare shines brightest in organizations that are adept in prioritization and channeling their efforts towards the outcomes that will have maximum impact for minimum input. These organizations know their strengths and weaknesses inside and out and magnify their results exponentially by focusing their precious resources on two or three outcomes instead of a dozen.
Maneuver warfare for resource management not only allows medium-sized organizations to start capturing market share from bigger competitors, but it also ensures a more tailored market share.
Guerrilla Resource Management
The concept of guerrilla-style tactics was heavily publicized by Sun Tzu, who suggested in The Art of War that a small force could win against a much larger competitor if it made use of every available resource with the utmost haste.
Guerrilla warfare is based on the idea that smaller teams can create significant issues for their enemies providing they stay under the detection threshold. They almost always have few to no resources, and therefore rely heavily on unorthodox methods (such as ambushes, raids, or sabotage) and a loyal support network.
In the corporate or commercial context, smaller, more agile organizations can achieve proportionately huge impacts if they are agile, dynamic, and able to rally passionate support for their cause. It also means that smaller boutique agencies can provide highly tailored services to those with simpler, more focused needs.
In many ways, this approach to resource management has been one of the founding successes of The Eighth Mile Consulting. We endeavor to support areas of the market that remain undetected by the larger players in the industry. With support from partner organizations, we can seize opportunities quickly, provide valuable services, and maintain our support network.
In Conclusion
This might seem counter-intuitive given what’s been discussed thus far, but these resource management strategies do not have to be adopted in an overtly aggressive manner. They may be more useful at guiding your team’s operations than they are at destroying your competitors.
In addition to a competitive edge, consider what a resource management strategy can help you achieve:
Prioritizing your efforts toward specific outcomes
Focusing the scope of operations on what will be the most impactful
Highlighting strengths and weaknesses
Identifying paths of least resistance in the marketplace and promoting early action
Incentivizing creating thinking instead of reinventing the wheel
As you can see, the real enemy is not your competitors, but the conditions in which you operate. Through proper and appropriate resource management, you arm yourself with the weapons you need to reinvent, endure, and ultimately succeed.
At The Eighth Mile, our organizational values and ethos are clear:
Service: Client-tailored training
Initiative: Find the needs and fill them
Integrity: Deliver on every promise
Accountability: Personal investment in every outcome
Manage and lead your team to victory through our 8-week online leadership courses or private consulting for unique business strategies. Get in touch with our team to discuss your company’s needs.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/war.jpg6001200Evan Parkerhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngEvan Parker2022-11-30 09:50:492023-01-12 11:28:24Preparing for War: Resource Management in the Modern Marketplace
A company today must think fast, pivot, and always be on its proverbial toes. With so much change happening all around the world, talent retention and leadership cultivation are ongoing challenges. Without continued dedication to leadership training, a business’s short- and long-term success could hang in the balance. That’s not to say a company’s success is more important than the personal successes of its leaders. In fact, it’s only with great leaders that a business sees success, leaving many organizations wondering about online leadership training benefits.
At The Eighth Mile, we enjoy partnering with businesses to cultivate positive outcomes and successful leaders. Organizations reach out to us to ask about the differences between traditional classrooms and online leadership training and what makes us different. We’ve found, even prior to the events of the past few years, that online leadership training benefits are virtually equal to those of traditional classroom learning —and then some.
Why Should You Choose Online Leadership Training?
If you’ve ever sat through a business meeting in person versus over Zoom or another platform, you can understand a few of the differences between classroom-based leadership courses and online leadership training benefits. There’s a definite difference between uninspired, text-based PowerPoints disguised as a “class” — whether traditional or online — and a specialized course developed according to real-world lessons learned over the course of a lifetime in the military and business. The latter training allows for hyper-personalization, attendance on your own time, and exciting coaching sessions, both individual and group.
We developed our coaching sessions and coursework through years of hands-on experience in the military and through years of lessons learned in and outside of boardrooms and businesses. As such, we know that it’s all about engagement. Without it, and without the online leadership training benefits we’re about to discuss, developing strong, empathic, accountable, and self-aware leaders would be impossible.
9 of the Most Important Online Leadership Training Benefits
Aside from some of the more obvious online leadership training benefits, such as saving on fuel, arranging your schedule as you need to, and not missing workdays, an online leadership training course also provides these lesser-known but ultimately more important benefits for employees, administrators, HR staff, and the company as a whole.
1. Support to Find Success
With a busy lifestyle, you may neglect the things you want for yourself in favor of others, even if one of your goals is professional success. Online leadership training imparts the motivation and confidence you need to overcome obstacles and distractions to achieve those goals.
2. Time to Listen to Yourself
Introspection is a gift, and it is the online leadership training benefit that reveals your weaknesses and strengths in a familiar environment so you can learn to trust yourself and your gut feelings.
3. Learn to Influence Others
Leaders must exude a careful mix of confidence, conviction, and humbleness. In doing so, you can influence and motivate the rest of your team to follow your lead. Really, a great leader helps the whole team become leaders by listening and trusting, which helps build everyone’s confidence.
4. Connect With Other Leadership Professionals
In an online leadership training course, you’ll learn the history of leadership, how ideas and methods evolve, and how those ideas and methods create successful leaders. Leadership is a bit like medicine in that respect — it’s an ongoing practice and it is fluid. You become part of a leadership network that stands together, grows together, and continues learning together from your combined experiences.
5. Gain a Better Understanding Of Your Business
HR professionals can especially benefit from online leadership training. When you’re the one responsible for hiring the right people, it’s important to understand the business and how it works. It isn’t enough to know Human Resources’ language — the HR team should be contributing members to the company’s mission and overall vision. If not, it’s unlikely that upper management will take you seriously because these are necessary aspects of fulfilling your duties, such as workforce planning.
6. Promote and Nurture Teamwork
The best leaders know how to build teams of individuals happy to collaborate. While you are engaged in your training to better yourself as a leader, you also have the opportunity to step away from the team and delegate. As stated previously, good leaders create other good leaders. Now’s your chance to see how you’ve done up to this point.
7. Clear Your Vision
Leaders who have no problem looking at a project and seeing exactly how it works out have clear sight — they’re considered visionaries, especially when presented with a rudimentary idea. Leadership training cultivates your vision. When you can “see” how to make something happen, you can also help others see it too, and motivate them to follow you.
8. Be Kind to Your Budget
Learning & Development is a department most of today’s companies couldn’t live without. As technology and business approaches shift, upper management has to stay on top of these changes by continuing to upskill. As such, one of the greatest online leadership training benefits for your company is the cost — it’s thousands less than a traditional college or university course. You can upskill an entire department in an online course for what it would cost to send just one student to a university.
9. Learn to Fail Better
One of your lessons in a leadership course is how to avoid making mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean that at course completion you’ll never make a mistake again. What it does mean is you’ll know what to watch out for, how to spot a potentially damaging error before it happens and prevent the worst of the mistakes. As you learn how to do this for yourself, you’ll also learn how to help your team apply the same rationale.
Mistakes are human nature and bound to occur from time to time — the greatest leader won’t seek blame but rather a resolution. And after you fail (because again, you likely will), you’ll now have the tools to get back up, which may be the biggest benefit of online leadership training there is.
How The Eighth Mile Consulting Can Help
If you want to know more about online leadership training benefits, and the leadership style, level of accountability, and overall resiliency we strive to cultivate in businesses of all sizes, let us know. Our 8-week online leadership training course can help you develop strong leaders in your organization or become one yourself. Contact us to learn how we can help your organization improve and help your team unite and confidently embrace the challenges ahead.
There is a common misconception that boundaries are only used by manipulators as a mechanism of coercive control. In reality, they are the tool by which we protect our interpersonal relationships, teams, and projects.
I have heard many definitions of culture over the years. The most pragmatic definition I have stumbled across is,
Our culture is comprised of the behaviours we reward and punish.
– Gustavo Razetti.
If you want to understand why people commit to seemingly unusual individual or collective behaviors – chase the reward system. If that fails to provide a rationale – chase their fears. In order to navigate this challenging task, we need a framework to anchor from.
This is where boundaries become highly relevant. They provide a framework by which people can divine ‘the rules of the game.’
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FEAR & UNCERTAINTY
Ask anyone to play a competitive game and they will become anxious when the rules of the game have not been adequately explained prior. It is not uncommon to promote a fear response due to situational uncertainty.
This fear response triggers one’s “fight, flight or freeze” response, causing an involuntary physiological response called the ‘Amygdala Hijack‘. The response reprioritizes the brain’s allocation of cognitive resources. It does this by redirecting precious cognitive processing power (usually utilized for creativity, complex problem solving, and prioritization) and replacing it with decisive sub-conscious-led action.
Simply put, when people experience uncertainty, it promotes stress. As leaders, we must be acutely aware of this physiological response.
But what is a reasonable remedy for uncertainty? The answer: Structure
Where we cannot predict the future, we can build systems to combat it. Where we cannot mould our environment, we can develop an approach to navigate it.
Boundaries, acting as ‘the rules of the game’, provide some semblance of certainty inside changing or tumultuous environments/situations. In this way, they re-unlock people’s creativity and autonomy.
In discussing boundaries, we will cover three different aspects:
Personal Boundaries
Team Boundaries
Project Boundaries
PERSONAL BOUNDARIES
One of the most common terms cited during divorce cases is ‘resentment.’
Resentment forms when people feel:
Their expectations are not being met
Important discussions are not being had (this can link to a lack of assertiveness)
Regretful about past actions
An uncomfortable question that follows such breakdowns is, ‘did you explicitly communicate your boundaries to your partner?’
A commonly repeated response, ‘it was obvious, they should have known…’
If life has taught me anything at all, it is: ‘nothing is obvious.’
Relationship Survivability
John Gottman (one of the world’s premiere relationship psychologists) developed numerous mechanisms for determining predictions for relationship survivability. One of the most effective means was measuring positive vs negative interactions (averaged out over time).
Not surprisingly, too much negativity resulted in marriage breakdown (Ratio of 1:1, Negative: Positive). People have a natural negative bias which prompts them to remember the negative before identifying the positive. A 1:1 ratio, despite being balanced on the surface, was not good enough to save relationships, ultimately leading to a ‘fail’ prediction with around 90% accuracy.
As we might expect, sliding down the scale (more positive vs negative), we see increased survivability rates, with the optimal number landing on 5:1 (Positive: Negative).
But what is not commonly represented in discussions of Gottman’s work is what happens next…
If we slide further down the scale (Positive: Negative), the survivability likelihood begins to decrease.
“Not only does excessive negativity (a ratio under 5:1) threaten to undermine the marriage, excessive positivity does too. The disintegration of the relationship also begins to occur when the positive to negative remark ratio exceeds 11:1.” (Loer, 2008)
Why, you may ask? Because after a point, the avoidance becomes just as damaging. Nothing gets fixed. Personal boundaries are getting trodden on as daily occurrences, and the novelty wears off.
Ultimately, being too critical is signing the same failed contract as being avoidant.
This means we need to be able to communicate our boundaries and expectations so that others might abide by the mutually agreed rules of the game. This is, of course, working on the assumption that we genuinely want the relationship to survive.
Want to achieve your full potential?
Reinvent Yourself Today!
TEAM BOUNDARIES
Successful teams are glued together by their culture.
Our ‘culture is comprised of the behaviours we reward and punish. But how do we know what to reward or punish if we haven’t articulated the rules? It is impossible to do consistently.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
– Peter Druker
Setting Boundaries – Within the Military
There is a common romantic misconception about the military. That there were no personal or team boundaries, and we all just lived in some utopian shared community with shared possessions and time. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
In practical terms, it manifested in rules such as:
Do not rummage through other people’s equipment when they are not there
Do not comment about people’s families, finance, or religion unless they have invited you to do so
Do not volunteer people’s personal time without talking to them first
The rules were protected by the other members of the team and it scaled across multiple teams as well. For example, when a new mission was being formulated, and multiple organizations were being crammed into the same place, it became the mission of leaders to convene and coordinate the boundaries that would ensure mutual coexistence. New rules were set and enforced and were contextually specific to each scenario.
The more complex things got and the fewer personal freedoms we had, the more the boundaries became relevant. The importance of boundaries grew proportionately with the increased value of personal freedoms.
The same applies outside of the military in corporate or commercial settings.
People’s individual boundaries are nested within a team setting. What one person does affects people around them. No rules result in chaos.
As leaders, this is a unique opportunity to lean in and demonstrate our value. We can assist in the development of practical means of coexisting. But to do so, require forethought and communication. Boundaries must be explored and defined.
PROJECT BOUNDARIES
Project management is an interesting beast both from a planning and implementation perspective. How do we ensure the best outcome while giving our people the best opportunities for growth and development?
When people set boundaries with you, it’s their attempt to continue a relationship with you. It’s not an attempt to hurt you.
– Elizabeth Earnshaw
The temptation exists to bury our people and teams in endless tasks while conveniently removing their ability to make decisions at the lowest level. The ‘do anything to ensure project success’ narrative is convenient, seductive, persuasive, and even manipulative. Leaders and managers run the risk of micromanagement.
It does not provide the required boundaries to achieve project success adequately. Or where it does manage a successful outcome, it lacks the resolution to achieve higher levels of performance by integrating a ‘boundaries instead of tasks’ methodology whereby we consider guiding borders in:
Physical – Where to/not to operate
Temporal (Time) – Deadlines
Logistical – Resources available/not available
Legal – Governance and compliance
Moral and Ethical – Behaviours accepted/not accepted
Stakeholder – Who can/cannot be communicated with
Roles and responsibilities – The role’s effect and requirements
Including such boundaries reduces endless task lists while promoting proactive decision-making and acceptance of risk at the lower levels. The flow on consequences includes increased momentum, early identification of risk and opportunity, reduced single points of failure and expedited decision-making cycles.
CONCLUSION
The establishment of boundaries or ‘The Rules of the Game’ govern how organisations and teams do what they do without constraining people to individual tasks. It is the difference between an average team and the next level – high performance.
Boundaries will set you free
– Common military mantra
If you want micromanagement, information silos, protracted decision-making, and a cumbersome organization which is slow to adapt to an ever-changing and dynamic environment – focus on tasks.
If you want proactive decision makers, increased influence, and teams capable of operating autonomously – focus on boundaries.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/boundaries.jpg5001100David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2022-10-18 14:44:192023-02-08 16:03:59Boundaries – 'Rules Of The Game'
When I was a young boy I made a monumental mistake.
My rebellious friends and I had managed to swipe a big box of matches. We headed down to the makeshift BMX ramps in the nearby pine forest that surrounded our suburb. It wasn’t long before we figured out that, with a simple hold and flick, we could shoot matches at each other.
Who would have thought that hundreds of flaming matches in combination with a dry and arid Australian bushland would be a recipe for disaster?
It didn’t take long before we started a small brush fire. We tried to stop the spreading flames by taking off our T-shirts and smothering the flames. With a little bit of luck and some lateral wind, we won the battle and went home.
Hours passed uneventfully. Then there came a knock at the door. One of my friends stood on the stoop next to his dad. My heart practically stopped.
My friend’s dad filled my dad in on what had happened. With every word that passed, my father’s rage grew as fast as that brushfire. After they had left, he turned to me and said one simple and entirely unexpected thing:
“Where was your self-discipline?”
Now, courtesy of one of the most disciplined men I know, I pose that same question to you.
Where is Our Self-Discipline?
Society has evolved rapidly, with the last ten years alone spawning huge innovations in technology, population expansion, globalization, and leadership. And yet in other, more subtle ways, we have regressed. It has become more acceptable to withdraw from accountability. Truth has slowly been replaced with whatever makes us comfortable. We’ve stopped telling people what they need to hear in favor of what will make them happy. We make excuses for people’s bad behavior in order to avoid difficult conversations. As a result, many people feel disconnected, even irrelevant, from those around them.
Our minds are often geared to resist change, whether out of laziness, risk avoidance, or fear. To combat this resistance requires finding a purpose, such as serving others. But without the will to act, people remain in a state of limbo. They have a lot of ideas but rarely have the calloused knuckles of a person who does the work to make them a reality. To borrow a phrase, they are all talk and no action.
The Art of Doing What’s Necessary–Whether You Want to Or Not
If we do not discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.
-William Feather
During my military career, I met some of the most disciplined people in the world. They would stop at nothing to achieve the goals required for their individual and team success. If they were scared, they bit their lip and did it anyway. If they were underperforming, they trained harder. If they were hurt, they found another way to contribute. If they did not figure out how to improve their own self-discipline, you can bet their superiors would do it for them.
In civilian life, you don’t have a commanding officer or a unit of other soldiers that will hold you accountable. If you do not follow through on the tasks you set for yourself, it will be your own loss. Therefore, you have to be responsible for how you improve your self-discipline on your own.
How to Improve Your Self-Discipline in Three (Not So Easy) Steps
Perform An Honest Self-Evaluation
If you struggle with how to improve your self-discipline, start by asking yourself the following questions:
Do you only do things when influenced by others?
Do you understand your purpose? Does it influence your daily activities and behaviors?
Do you routinely blame external influences or people for your failures?
Do you judge other people on their lack of performance? Do you judge your own lack of performance on the same scale?
Are you unhealthy in body and mind?
Are you lazy?
If you can’t answer any of these questions, or if the answer you give is unfavorable, then you need to examine further:
Why are you in this unfavorable circumstance? More specifically, what was your role in the events that brought you to this point?
Do you have the ability and the interest in taking the necessary steps to change it?
It’s not easy, but if you’re really struggling, this is how to jumpstart your improved self-discipline.
Get Used to Accountability
Think about the New Year’s resolution you made. Did you follow through on your goal or not? If not, did you take responsibility for that decision?
It is not someone else’s responsibility to fix your job, your finances, your relationships, or your life. If you want to improve your self-discipline, you must own your behavior, your attitude, and your results. When you make a mistake or do something wrong, you must accept responsibility without making excuses or redirecting the blame.
Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Regardless of what we might want, life is never going to be easy. Our existence plays out in an environment full of chaos, uncertainty, and friction. By placing our fate in the hands of that environment, we surrender control of our own futures.
Most people avoid discomfort like the plague. But if you’re looking for how to improve self-discipline, it’s time to start seeking it out. The more uncomfortable, the better. Eventually, you will have spent so much time feeling uncomfortable that it will become familiar. Then you will be able to make choices that can significantly improve your life and circumstances, no matter how untenable they once seemed.
This doesn’t mean you have to jump into a snake pit, proverbial or otherwise. Instead, commit to doing something small that you’ve been avoiding (a phone call, an errand, etc) and get it done. Tomorrow, do something slightly bigger, and so on. This is how you improve self-discipline–by forcing yourself to confront the most tedious or unpleasant items on your to-do list and finish them. You have a lot more control over yourself and your future than you think.
In Conclusion
If you’re seriously looking for how to improve your self-discipline, start by accepting accountability for your actions. Identify behaviors that are counter-productive and stop them. Surround yourself with people that are also on a journey of betterment, but don’t rely on them to do the work for you.
If you want to commit to sustained, long-term success, I say:
Ad Meliora – Onwards to better things.
As a place to start, you might consider enrolling in the 8-week online leadership training course from The Eighth Mile Consulting. Your self-disciple will be tested with four self-paced modules, plus regular interactive virtual workshops and individualized coaching to keep you accountable. Check out the course description or contact us for more information.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.png00David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2022-10-13 08:41:522022-11-10 08:54:19Accountability Is Disappearing From The Workplace. How Can You Improve?
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that the articles here tend to focus on leadership, group dynamics, projects, resilience, and communication. This article is different. Instead of focusing on the team dynamic, we will shift our attention to the individual–specifically, to those who feel as if life is holding their heads underwater.
Recently there has been an incredible influx of people seeking our help and assistance in the form of individual coaching. In most cases, they have been triggered by a LinkedIn post, podcast, or article that has pointed out a deficit or dissatisfaction they have. The most common complaints we receive involve at least one of the following:
A lack of direction
An inability to maintain meaningful relationships
Frustration in determining what one’s priorities consist of
A subtle but consistent straying from one’s values
Resilience refocusing
In nearly all cases, the individual believes they have exhausted their own ability to fix their problems. They are seeking an objective, external force to act as a circuit breaker for their dysfunctional thought processes. Thus, they turn to the concept of individual coaching.
But that move might be premature. In almost all instances, the person has been operating within a suite of assumptions and beliefs that are not serving them (or the people around them) well. Adjusting some of those thought processes first will lay the groundwork to make any future individual coaching even more fruitful.
Before You Begin Individual Coaching
Prior to enrolling in customized or individual coaching sessions, there are three concepts you should get comfortable with first. For some of you, these three ideas might be all you need to get yourself on the right track. For others, the structured guidance of individual coaching might still be needed.
1) Be of Service
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
– Mahatma Ghandi
You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: Life is not all about you.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that frowns upon criticism, promotes a scarcity mentality, and accepts ‘the blame game’ and fingerpointing instead of demanding accountability. What this amounts to is disconnection on a major scale. So many people are without direction because all their energy is invested in service of themselves.
If you want direction, the easiest place to start is by finding a worthy cause. If you want to cut off the internal rehashing of your own problems, invest that precious time towards solving someone else’s. They might even return the favor one day, which could provide that outsider’s perspective you’re looking for.
2) Own Your Decisions. ALL of Them.
Life is the sum of all your choices.
– Albert Camus
Every situation demands choice, and each choice will result in a different outcome. In some cases, our choices might include a decisive action (take a new job or not, stay in a team or not, go left or right).
In other cases, though we might not have control over the action, we can still choose to reframe how we view it.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
– Viktor Frankl
The moment we feel we are without choices is the moment we become truly powerless. But that’s the thing: no matter what the situation, we are never without a choice. You always have with you the tools that need to claim your power.
Ironically, this can be a somewhat scary proposition. It means that you are where you are because of your previous choices, and where you go depends on what choices you make from here. If you have power over every choice, whether active or reactive, then you, and you alone, bear the responsibility for their results.
3) Prepare to Sacrifice
The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.
– William Arthur Ward
If you want to effect significant change in your life, you need to be willing to invest significantly in the outcome. Whether that is time, money, energy, or vulnerability, this investment will take commitment.
Do not be lazy when it comes time to do the hard work. To make your self-improvement a priority, you will likely have to move other things down the to-do list. You might also have to endure some unpleasant things, such as:
Physically or emotionally stressful circumstances
Removing toxic people from your life
Learning new skills
Spending money on personal development (such as individual coaching)
Disappointing people if you determine certain projects are no longer in line with your priorities
Committing to late nights and early mornings
Being honest with others so that they might help you out of your rut
Whatever is needed or required for you to refocus your life, you are the one behind the wheel. Will you take the smooth, easy road, or will you venture into untraveled terrain? In other words, what comforts are you willing to give up in order to get where you want to go?
Next Steps: Individual Coaching with The Eighth Mile
The areas of service, choice, and sacrifice can and should be custom-fitted to each person’s circumstances. However, based on our experience at The Eighth Mile, adopting a mentality geared toward service and accountability is a proven step in the right direction.
If you feel you still need assistance in the form of individual coaching, please reach out to us and we will be happy to discuss your circumstances further. Other areas that often require attention include:
Letting go of resentment
Priority and goal-setting
Building rapport with others
Communicating with empathy
Leadership skills
If you want a training experience that mirrors the classroom but can still be conducted on your own schedule, then you may benefit from our 8-week online leadership training course, which includes several individual coaching sessions in addition to training modules and virtual workshops.
Whatever path you take from here, remember that no matter what the situation, you are never powerless. Whether through action or reaction, the choice is always yours to make.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Tree-Road.jpg4231083David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2022-09-28 14:31:122022-11-10 08:55:463 Things Anyone Considering Individual Coaching Should Do First
I recently posted a number of content pieces that explained ‘The Principles Of War’, a set of broad and overarching guidelines that acted as a filtering system for the operational and strategic efforts we conducted within the Military. In response to these posts many asked me to collate the information in a central source so that they might apply more reasonably to their businesses and teams.
There is no point in providing a set of principles, guidelines or considerations unless we build a context behind them that establishes relevance. This is my shot at doing that for the Principles of War in a corporate context.
The Principles of War are a set of guiding principles that act as considerations for military planning and strategy. It has become apparent that there is some utility in using them in the corporate environment. In this article, we look at the analysis and interpretation of the principles with that concept in mind.
Simply put, the principles exist to help frame ‘how’ to think and not ‘what’ to think. This means that we are free to explore whatever is needed to solve the problem. However, we must be careful to balance our priorities and resources to enable the best possible outcome.
These are the principles in order but not in importance. Each plan or initiative will see a different prioritisation of each of these principles in order to achieve a different effects or outcome.
The selection and maintenance of the aim
Concentration of force
Cooperation
Economy of effort
Security
Offensive action
Surprise
Flexibility
Sustainment
Maintenance of morale
The situation will see each principle being utilised differently and should be weighted depending on the circumstances, what needs to be achieved and the priorities set out by the planner. As an example, when developing a concept for client focused service (aim) we may need to bring in another organisation to cover an identified need (cooperation) which we could only build ourselves at a much higher cost (economy of effort). This joint venture may necessitate an exchange of restricted information (security) to ensure the team is established, trust is built, and we can be demonstrating our ability to adjust to our client’s needs (flexibility/aim).
For this scenario, the client focused service has primacy. It may look something like this.
Note – ‘the doctrine’ comments are excerpts from Land Warfare Doctrine 1 – The Fundamentals of Land Power 2014 – The Principles of War
THE SELECTION AND MAINTENANCE OF THE AIM
The doctrine – Once the aim has been decided, all effort must continually be directed towards its attainment so long as this is possible, and every plan or action must be tested by its bearing on the aim.
“ Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future ” – Walt Disney
In broad terms, it means to keep the object/ end in mind at every level of the operation. The creation of the aim (end state/ outcome) takes time, energy, and some serious thought. This is true for military and corporate action.
When selecting and maintaining the aim:
Ensure it aligns with your values
Communicate it simply and effectively to those involved
Reinforce the aim at all levels
Resist the urge to ad hoc stray from the aim
Maintain open lines of communication with key stakeholders
Test any changes against its impact on the overall aim
Bring subject matter experts in for objectivity
Know where you are heading before you start. It allows you and your team to align to a common outcome and make decisions as well as maintain momentum in your absence. From CEO to a jobseeker, selecting and maintaining your aim provides the purpose to make sound decisions.
CONCENTRATION OF FORCE
The doctrine – Concentration of force is the ability to apply decisive military force at the right place, at the right time and in such a way as to achieve a decisive result.
“ The talent of the strategist is to identify the decisive point and to concentrate everything on it, removing forces from secondary fronts and ignoring lesser objectives. ” – Carl von Clausewitz
To be successful we need to be able to concentrate our capabilities, at the appropriate time and place, to achieve success. This means knowing what we have, what it can do and where it is going to have the most impact. Then doing it. This principle is about be deliberate and even more so, decisive.
In a corporate context this would mean:
Having the funding to support a new project or capitalise on an opportunity
Aligning staff, capital and messaging at a key point to achieve and outcome
Defining areas that are irrelevant for expenditure
Having a surge capability to reinforce success
Knowing the strategy and communicating key locations and times for action
Making decisions within the time to be effective
Building alignment, momentum and energy to decisive points in the plan
We cannot spend everything on anything. Prioritise those actions that will have the highest impact and align to the strategy. Then build up the required resources, staff and capital to seize an opportunity. This is a deliberate and defined process.
COOPERATION
The doctrine – Cooperation within joint combined arms interagency teams, allies and coalition partners is vital for success. Only in this way can the resources and energies of each be harnessed so as to achieve success.
” It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. ” – Charles Darwin
Vital to success is the ability to bring together multiple agencies to achieve an overall effect. What this means in a practical sense is to build teams that cover each other’s gaps. We cannot know or be great at everything, so we join forces with others to create something better than our own individual capability.
What cooperation looks like:
Admitting that you are not strong in an area
Aligning with a team that is
Leaving your ego at the door and being prepared to be led depending on the priority
Acknowledging a greater purpose
Sharing information freely and in a timely fashion
Synchronising the efforts in space, time, and priority to create the best impact
Putting the team needs first
Protecting each other and representing them in areas where they don’t represent themselves
Combining efforts takes a great deal of trust, authenticity, and respect. It may be for a short period or an enduring strategic partnership. The vulnerabilities of your joined team must be protected at all costs.
ECONOMY OF EFFORT
The doctrine – Economy of effort is the prudent allocation and application of resources to achieve the desired results.
“ The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. ” – Bill Gates
Economy of effort. This principle deals with ‘playing smart’ and making the full use of available resources. It is in this space that we create a balance in priorities and what we can realistically achieve and sustain. Appropriate allocation must be nested with the strategy as they are finite. Priority allocation must go to the main effort that and supporting efforts will be created to enable it.
In a corporate setting this might look like:
Priority resourcing to finding new opportunities
Supporting effort in retaining and consolidated current projects
Reserve resources segregated for identified contingencies
A changing environment requires adaptability and if the main effort/ supporting efforts evolve then the priority of resourcing will change. At all times maintaining your economy of effort must be nested with the other principles like sustainment. Appropriate allocation of effort can mean the difference between success and failure.
SECURITY
The doctrine – Security is concerned with measures taken by a command to protect itself from espionage, sabotage, subversion, observation, or surprise. It is of basic concern during any campaign or operation. Security is required to operate effectively with minimal interference from the enemy.
“ Protection and security are only valuable if they do not cramp life excessively. ” – Carl Jung
To be able to continue to operate and/ or obtain opportunities we must first ensure that our own capabilities are as secure as required by the strategy. Now in times of need, sacrificing security for speed may be that strategy but it must be a planned, deliberate, and precise decision. Offensive strategies can also be a method of security as we stay mobile, maintain momentum and aren’t targetable.
In a corporate context, this could mean:
Securing your information, strategies and plans from your competitors
Ensuring you have consolidated resources to mitigate uncertainties
Future proof your employee relevance by developing them
Maintain quick and deliberate decision-making cycles to stay ahead of the competition
Securing financial viability by maintaining cashflow
Diversifying to create redundancy to secure operational viability
Mitigating priority risks to reduce critical events
Security of our businesses in physical, financial, strategic, operational and resource-based decisions is important to enable us to operate effectively with minimal disturbance. This principle allows us to analyse risk and mitigate it before crisis occurs.
OFFENSIVE ACTION
The doctrine – Military forces take offensive action to gain and retain the initiative. This has often taken the form of building momentum and fueling it to snowball the opposition. In most circumstances, such action is essential to the achievement of victory.
“ A little deed done very well is better than a mighty plan kept on paper, undone. Wishes don’t change the world; it’s actions that do this business! ” – Israelmore Ayivor
We need an offensive action (read, a bias for action in this case) to either regain or maintain initiative, or in a corporate context; maintain your competitive advantage, be first to market, launch on a project or create and seize opportunities. This action must be deliberate and decisive and must be driven towards achieving the established aim.
To effectively implement offensive actions, we should:
Empower people who have a bias for action (as long the strategy supports it)
Consolidate and make use of adequate resources
Ensure the action is sustainable to the end
Be linked to other key stakeholders to support
Use an element of surprise
Make effective use of available resources
Be deliberate and decisive
Be oriented towards the overarching aim or strategy
Be balanced with security of our own capabilities
In a military context this may necessitate combat however, it can also be the use of information actions and achieving influence as well. Overall, it is important to understand the importance of having a bias for action as it creates momentum, speed in decision making and advantage over your competitors. This bias will ultimately allow you to create opportunities not just be reactive to them.
SURPRISE
The doctrine – Surprise can produce results out of all proportion to the effort expended and is closely related to security.
“ In conflict, straightforward actions generally lead to engagement, surprising actions generally lead to victory ” – Sun Tzu
In a military term this might require deception or simply being able to disperse and concentrate rapidly, concealing your activity, appearing weak when you are strong etc. The idea is to be where you are unexpected or where you are expected at a time when you are not, in forces that weren’t planned for. In a corporate context, this may mean the release of a new strategy, software, market entry, product release in a time and manner that is not expected so that your competitors can’t mimic or get the inside track.
To achieve successful surprise:
Be where you are not expected to be
Appear vulnerable when you are in fact strong
Appear strong when you are weak
Approach markets from different methods
Create strong allies who enable you to scale and disperse rapidly
Know your environment in detail
Understand the importance of timing
Have a strategy and a plan
Show the minimum amount of activity in an area people are expecting so that they don’t know what your actual aim is. It is called a feint.
Be adaptable and ready to respond to your changing environment
This list is ultimately endless but, in a nutshell, utilising surprise not only keeps you and your team excited about new plans, it also enables you to capitalise on opportunities before others know you are even looking at them.
FLEXIBILITY
The doctrine – Flexibility is the capacity to adapt plans to take account of unforeseen circumstances to ensure success in the face of friction, unexpected resistance, or setbacks, or to capitalise on unexpected opportunities.
“ It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. ” – Charles Darwin
This is your ability to adapt to an ever-changing environment (your AQ). I would also include your resilience to setbacks, ability to deal with friction, chaos and complexity and to make decisions in uncertainty. The aim of flexibility is to maintain dynamic decision making across multiple lines of operation and still be synchronised.
To build flexibility:
Identify and communicate the overall aim
Understand your environment
Build a redundancy or reserve of resources
Empower decision making at the lowest level
Simplify communication
Provide realistic and relevant boundaries
Create an environment of innovation
Absorb risk, friction and anxiety for your team
Giving your team and organisation the confidence and capability to accept risk and seize opportunities is a deliberate process. As leaders we have a responsibility to create the environment and set the conditions for success. Build and train your teams to be able to understand intent and feel confident to take risks knowing that you have their backs. Ultimately, gaps and opportunities will be found by them. If they feel confident and capable, you will be able to pivot early and often.
SUSTAINMENT
The doctrine – Sustainment refers to the support arrangements necessary to implement strategies and operational plans.
“ You won’t find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics ” – General Dwight. D. Eisenhower
The new executive with the grand ideas will often forget about the sustainability of a project or strategy. Logistics and sustainability don’t just happen and can underpin an entire campaign.
Deliberate planning of time and resources for both offensive and defensive strategies should be a priority if you want an enduring impact. The sustainability or logistical elements of are also those things that are easily targetable by a competitor who can bring more support to the game.
To be sustainable we must:
Accurately plan the requirements of our missions
Have a redundancy
Identify the needs and requirements of our teams
Be prepared to do more with less (should not be the ‘go to’ move)
Be creative and use initiative
Allocate resources to those areas with the greatest impact
Prioritise resources (especially time and energy)
Have a strategy and a plan
Sustainability of our initiatives is the life blood of enduring impact. In change management, fatigue and obstruction are the result. In projects, loss of capability occurs or a failure to meet scope.
Be clinical and decisive in your application of resources.
MAINTENANCE OF MORALE
The doctrine – Morale is an essential element of combat power. High morale engenders courage, energy, cohesion, endurance, steadfastness, determination and a bold, offensive spirit.
“ An army’s effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined. ” – Napoleon Bonaparte
For those that know and understand the power of good morale, it is understood that this can be the power that turns the tide and make the unachievable…achievable.
Teams with high morale based on being highly trained, determined people with a shared value set, cohesion and trust will outperform even the best ‘qualified’ teams (on paper) with low morale. This is the secret force multiplier that changes the game.
Morale is built on:
Trust
Shared experience
Open communication
Success (short/long term) and performance
Influential leadership (at all levels)
A shared purpose and identity
Commitment and conviction to succeed
A genuine and authentic care for each other and the team
Culture and a feeling of belonging
A willingness to put the team above yourself
If you have worked in a team with high morale, you will understand the power and addictive nature of it. You feel indestructible and associate the impossible as the possible. However, it takes work and commitment to being a part of something bigger than yourself.
SUMMARY
The principles of war have been developed over the years as a set of factors and considerations for successful planning and implementation of strategy.
Depending on the environment, the adversary, experience, available time and any other amount of identifiable conditions will determine what weight is applied to each principle. We cannot achieve every principle perfectly every time. Sometimes we may have to sacrifice one to achieve another as a priority of circumstance. That means that careful consideration and analysis must be applied to each strategy and plan. The consideration itself will lead to a better plan than had it not been done at all.
Ultimately, having a set of principles that can help aid in planning and decision making helps you to create better outcomes. The principles of war are one such set.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-principles-of-war-1.jpeg302536Jonathan Clarkhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngJonathan Clark2020-10-28 14:43:522020-10-28 17:03:40The Principles of War - A Corporate Translation
One of the most distinctive memories from my early days within the Army was one of my respected Sergeants suddenly and abruptly correcting one of my trainee peers.
My mate had mentioned the unmentionable…
We were discussing what we should do if we encounter an enemy that was larger or more dangerous than we had originally predicted, and someone mentioned the word ‘retreat’. The response from my sergeant was immediate, ‘Australians DO NOT retreat!’. He went on to explain that we might withdraw in the interest of finding a terrain that was more conducive and favourable for us, but we do not retreat.
This is a statement that has stuck with me since that time. It speaks of the importance of always moving forward and regaining the initiative. Of remaining focused and deliberate in everything we do. It accepts that at times we might have to take a step back, but this should only be done to regain our footing in which to be able to take more steps moving forward. Over the years this phrase has spread its utility into most aspects of my life such as:
But here is the catch, it is predisposed on an assumption that we know what direction we should be heading. What point is there moving forward if it is entirely the wrong direction?
This is why having a strategy is so incredibly important. A strategy is a framework which sanity tests our decisions in short time, in order to allow us to stay focused on heading in the right cardinal direction. I have seen so many people get this wrong at their detriment.
We need to ask ourselves does our strategy (personal or professional):
Detail what we are seeking to achieve (Mission)?
Explain what it looks like when we achieve it (Vision)?
Include a sequence of how we might actually transit there (Goals, pillars, objectives, measures of success)?
Contain an acknowledgement of what we are willing to invest (or give up) in order to achieve it (resource allocations)?
It is an area that is too often paid lip service, but it is this defining feature that separates good teams from the absolute best.
A strategy allows a team to make quicker decisions, allocate precious resources towards those efforts with the highest impact and effect, as well ignore those shiny distractions which enticingly seduce people off of the centre line of their success.
Stopping the rot
‘Moving forward’ all the time is extremely difficult. It requires consistency, dedication and focus. Traits that can be increasingly hard to come by these days.
Our world is full of ever-increasing distractions and information that act as ‘white noise’ to our concentration. This white noise can incrementally increase for some people to the point where it becomes debilitating to their decision-making abilities. Some teams can become so confused by the pressures associated with these distractions that they reactively overcompensate by creating more and more high priorities. Leaders become withdrawn as the idea of moving forward appears less and less tenable.
For these teams, a ‘circuit breaker’ is required. Something that can stop the spiralling confusion and provide some level of clarity. This often requires a combination of the following:
Strong leaders & managers with clear roles and responsibilities. Kotter once described the distinction between Leadership and Management, explaining that leaders coordinate ‘change’ and managers coordinate ‘complexity’. I particularly like this description as it is a simple reference for teams to make in order to refocus and distribute their team’s efforts. It is a common observation that the teams that are drowning have not clearly identified the distinction in roles and responsibilities between key roles. Everyone is trying to do everything, and no one is doing it well.
Objectivity. Sometimes people are so saturated in their problems that they cannot see the overall context. They are literally living minute by minute and the idea of popping their head about the parapet in order to refocus their direction is unimaginable. This is where objectivity is so key. A third set of eyes, from someone who is not so absorbed in the problem, can be invaluable in asking the right questions and assisting in resetting the focus.
Horsepower. Some teams are under-resourced and under-supported – plain and simple. These teams have often been heading in the right direction but just do not have the horsepower or workforce to get their project over the line. They have been doing ‘more with less’ for so long that they have reached culmination, and they just need reinforcement. Jonathan Clark once said to me, ‘sometimes you don’t need more people standing around the hole telling you how to dig better, you just need them to jump in and help dig’.
Prioritisation. It is common to see teams that have a massive list of ‘what to do’ they have forgotten to detail what they ‘do not need to do’. The list of what is not required is often more important than what need to do. It stops people being lured down the enticing trip falls we eluded to earlier…
Some of the readers might resonate with some of these observations. If you have, I would love to hear your comments, case studies, and ideas.
The Eighth Mile Consulting team has founded a reputation for helping teams navigate through this confusion. There is an amazing feeling of elation as a team steps over the line of success when things months prior looked dire and unachievable.
For those slugging their way through problems at this very time, remember:
We don’t retreat, we withdraw to more favourable conditions
We ensure the actions we are doing are working to an overarching strategy or design.
https://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/british-library-8US1_1QMHi0-unsplash-scaled.jpg25601984David Nealhttps://learning.eighthmile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8th-mile-logo-white-ID-0e8d1f36-8698-4694-c814-e4bb5fc4fdc9-2.pngDavid Neal2020-08-03 20:05:212020-08-07 14:05:57We Do Not Retreat
