Leading By Persuading People They Don't Have To ... They GET TO
Leaders who can persuade people to understand that instead of having to accomplish tasks, they actually GET to accomplish those tasks are leaders who generally achieve great results. The author describes the difference between "having to" and "getting to" and provides a practical process to make it happen consistently.
By Brent Filson - 2006
Physicists theorize that the universe is composed of only 20 percent
visible matter and 80 percent dark matter. Dark matter refers to
hypothetical matter particles, of unknown composition, that do not emit
or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be detected directly,
but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on
visible matter such as stars and galaxies.
When I read about dark matter, I thought about the organizations I've
encountered in my last 21 years of bringing my leadership methodologies
to thousands of leaders worldwide. I've found that most leaders focus
on 20 percent surface issues, such as sales and marketing undertakings,
logistical dynamics, organizational strategy and tactics, financial
activities, human resource efforts, and the like.
The leaders neglect the deepest and most important realm of all, the
realm which determines to a large extent the success or failure of the
organization. That's the 80 percent representing human relationships.
After all, organizations don't succeed or fail but the people of those
organizations, people's whose activities are a manifestation of their
relationships with one another. And because of the neglect,
organizations don't achieve the results they are capable of.
Mind you, they don't ignore the 80 percent completely. They give a
kind of passing recognition to it. For instance, they often bring in
motivational speakers to pump up employees. But that misses the point.
The point is that to truly come to grips with the motivational
dimensions of the 80 percent, organizations need to focus on
implementing motivation comprehensively and systematically. Which goes
beyond simply getting people motivated. After all, people who are just
motivated are useless to an organization. The useful people are those
who are motivated to take right action for right results.
This means driving motivational imperatives into the very DNA of the
organization's culture. That activity has challenged leaders from time
in memorial. Libraries of books have been written on the subject, and I
won't rehash what's already out there. Let me cut through it all with
this simple imperative: cultivate an organization in which people are
defined not by what they have to do but what they get to do.
That is all you really know about great relationships and all you need to know.
This shift from relating to people so they have to do things to
relating to people so they get to do them can be one of the most
profound shifts any organization undergoes.
Yet few leaders are aware of the shift or how to go about making it
happen -- especially in a comprehensive, systematic way.
The analogy with the universe stops here. We don't know what dark
matter and dark energy is. However, everyone knows this 80 percent
because everyone lives this 80 percent every day. What people don't
know is how to harness it to get results.
There's only one way to make it happen consistently. Have the people
in the organization give Leadership Talks -- lots of them.
In many books and hundreds of articles, I have described the Leadership
Talk. It's been working for many hundreds of leaders in top companies
worldwide for the past 21 years.
Essentially the Leadership Talk is all about not simply communicating
information, the way speeches and presentations do, but establishing
deep, human, emotional connections with the people – then translating
those connections into have the people take action that gets great
results.
Only Leadership Talks can move your relationship with them from
ordering them to do a job to having them want to do the job. That
"want to" -- that getting to do things rather than having to do things
-- is the crux of delving into the 80 percent realm, which is the very
heart of your job and ultimately career success.
2006© The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – Celebrating 25 years of helping leaders of top companies worldwide achieve outstanding results every day. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get his FREE report "7 Steps To Leadership Mastery"