Mr. Dawson, why don't we focus on people in the organization, and moving those people into the right roles in the organization based upon their respective skill sets? One of the things that we're really focused on here is making sure that we've got the right people, in the right role, at the right time in their career. But backing up, how do we identify who the right people are and the right roles for them? 

That's a great question, Nathan. And what we find typically is that organizations outgrow the role that you hired for. So if I own a small practice or a large business and I'm having success and growing, I tend to add more things on the plate of the people who work for me, hoping that they figure it out or they'll just do the work, even though it might not be in their core expertise or in their wheel house. 

And so being a responsible leader is always assessing where your team's at today, where they need to be in order to be more effective tomorrow, and what resources and tools that you're going to give them in order to ascend into that growth. And I think that one of the easiest ways we try to teach people to do that is through our three lids assessment-- belief, operational effectiveness, and leadership. 

If you go to each team member and just do an exercise. You sit down and you say, OK, write down Joe Smith. And say, OK, on a scale of 1 to 10, belief, how much does Joe Smith believe in what we're trying to do as an organization for our community, for our constituents, or for our peer group, or whatever it is you're trying to do. How much do they believe in our ability to actually do that? 

And write down, you know, scale of one to 10. I believe that they only believe, maybe, a five, because they don't seem to be putting a lot of energy into it, or they don't seem to be excited about it. And then you go and say, OK, what is their level of operational effectiveness, and what do they need to do to contribute to that? And you rank it on a scale of one to five, and then me, leadership-- how much energy, effort, and desire are they putting into their own personal growth in order to execute at a high level, be involved, and contribute from what they can contribute? And then you go to what I call we leadership in the leadership lid, which is how much are they helping others to try to attain their success? 

Now, here's the thing. If you say these people are a five or a four, and you don't believe that there is a high level of belief, then you have to ask yourself the question as a leader-- what picture have I painted? 

Right. 

Like, what have I given them in the way of a vision to get them excited about believing in what we do? The why? And what I find with most business owners and most managers is they talk about the what, and they spend a little bit to no energy talking about specifically the why. 

Right. 

So there's no emotional connection to the work that needs to be done. So what happens is you default into that operational effectiveness zone, and someone might be an eight or nine in operational effectiveness, and a low level of belief, and a low level of we leadership. In order to be highly effective, you have to have me leadership. You have to be willing to do the things that you need to do to push yourself to be highly effective. 

But that's potentially where it stops because the culture of the organization-- and this is what Seth Mattison talks a lot about with generations-- is the baby boomers, depending on what generation you are, we've had to fight for everything we have. And what we've been taught is when you're at the top of the pack, you try to hold what keeps your secret sauce, and you try to keep it to yourself because that's what your value is. 

Right. 

And you're just terrified emotionally that if someone comes up and does better than you that there won't be a need for you. So you have these cultural aspects that incorporate with the culture of your organization. If I'm a business owner, a practice owner, a manager, a vice president of a group or a team of people, it's my responsibility to say, this is our purpose. And this is what Jim Collins talks about in the hedgehog concept. 

When you align your highest level of purpose-- I call it intentionality-- with your highest level of impact and with a knowledge of what creates your highest financial impact for your organization. So you know what things you can do exceptionally well, and you don't try to do things you can't do well. And then you know what drives the economic levers of your business. That's the center of the hedgehog concept. If you're a practice business owner or manager, whatever, your passion may be specific to the reason that you found yourself in that role, or why you started your business. 

But the people who work for you may not have any alignment with that passion. So if you haven't found a way to bridge the objective to pursue your own passion, whatever that may be, with the objective of the individuals you're dependent upon to help you, that's where leverage comes from. And identifying what their passion is and drawing the parallel so they can share in the vision-- not necessarily the vision of your passion for what you want to do, but the vision for if they help you do it, what they can do to attain their passion. That is the secret sauce to aligning the interests of your people with the interests of the organization. Not trying to shove them into caring about what's important to you. 

No, but creating a tangible overlap of your passion, my passion, where do we meet in the middle, and where can we move forward together.

Links:

Seth Mattison on "Spotlight"