the reluctant executive

1. What keeps people from succeeding?

The inability to succeed often comes about from not having defined what success means to a person. In addition, often people have not defined what the implications, both positive and negative, will be for them succeeding. A final reason why people don’t succeed is that they often don’t take the time to clarify their goals and how those goals will positively impact their lives. Most probably, 95% of all executives in business do not make a specific designation of what their goals and a time line for achieving them. It is not enough to identify these goals mentally, but to write them down and to view them on a regular basis.

2. Self-limiting definitions

People often have definitions of themselves in various categories of their lives, including their role as an executive in their career. Particularly, these include limitations as defined by one’s impression of how far they are capable of achieving. That is to say, they do not have a clear understanding of their ability to achieve beyond their pre-conceived notions. Often one has pre-dispositions to their limitations, as to their potential for achievement in a variety of areas. Work is the greatest example, because it poses so many challenges with regard to time, intellectual energy and accomplishment. All of these areas can be challenged and expanded upon to expand the boundaries of what you believe and expect you are capable of. This is, in no way, a guarantee of success but, rather, a guarantee of not automatically failing.

3. Focusing on the problem

The problem in the performance aspect of all jobs is always “you.” Problems are solutions that no longer work. The definition is craziness is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result. This is an area where we can borrow from the notions of solution-focused therapy to create successive approximations toward success.

4. The act of continuing to do what hasn’t worked before

This replicates a failure cycle. Although failure is not desirable for an executive, often a constrict of failing is more familiar and comfortable, as it represents well worn ground. Often we are more comfortable with things that we are familiar with than the idea of succeeding in a new way. The stress and strain that is necessary to try new things often prompts executives to resort to tried and failed methods, rather than taking a risk with a fresh approach. The resistance to taking a fresh approach is often accelerated by the fact that individuals feeling that they need to make a change often do so thinking that the change has to be grand. The reality is that small, successive changes over a great period of time can produce the necessary outcome, as well. In fact, this creation of a small series of changes produces a spreading effect, which creates an overall momentum towards larger cultural change.

5. Staying in the box

People stay in boxes because they’re safe. Executives stay in boxes because they’re safe. A box is contained, closed unit, where all of the nasty elements from the outside can’t get at you but, at the same time, you cannot leave the box to pull in ideas, inputs and energies from the outside world. It is a solution, but you pay a price by limiting yourself to possible new realities. On the executive level, “breaking the box” is an often-repeated phrase. It is so critical; however, to recognize that breaking the box in any business and industry involves the willingness to pull resources from previously un-thought-of areas. For instance, do not limit yourself to your own field or industry. Be willing to look at how other industries and businesses solve problems of a similar nature, even if the product or service is not even close.

6. Breaking out of the box

The willingness to take a risk, with input from other previously ignored sources, is what breaking out of the box is all about. Breaking out of the box is also about discomfort. One has to be willing to tolerate discomfort on the longer path toward mastery. Without the willingness and, in fact, insistence on some degree of discomfort, success is not possible. Most people, let alone business executives, never consider the possibility of achieving their fullest potential. It’s too scary to think about how unlimited our potential actually is. For, to do so, one has to confront one’s own self-limiting definitions. Again, this can be very disconcerting. If one wants to recognize their fullest potential, they have to be willing to acknowledge their fullest potential for failure, along with the fears that they may feel with regard to not meeting their potential. It’s easier to not ask the question as to what your potential is, and therefore not fail, than to set your potential expectations high and risk failure. This safety zone is where most executives are often stuck. They’re successful to a point of comfort, but no further. This will be discussed further when we look at the Success Thermostat.

7. What defines success?

This is a critical question in what we call values-based goal setting. In our complex society and ever rapidly changing business world, it is not enough to define success an increase in the bottom line. Although every corporation is in business to make a profit and to increase that profit at a reasonable rate, those same corporations are made up of individual people who have to define what success (on a personal basis) means to them, in addition to the success of the corporation as a whole. You need to take the time to sit down and ask yourself, “What does it mean to be successful to me?” in all areas of your life, not only financially. Often this is critical, because if one succeeds on a financial level at a great personal sacrifice with regard to one’s marriage or children, then the success of the corporation may be negatively impacted by that individual’s failure. In other words lifestyle and values-based goal setting has to be integrated at all levels of a corporation to assure a reasonable quality of life that is congruent to the overall goals of the corporation.

8. Tapping into creativity.

Creativity is the ability to entertain all potential solutions, regardless of how outrageous they may seem and irrespective of how realistic they are to achieve.
Creativity is being able to ask yourself the impossible question, and be willing to take the impossible answer.
Creativity is risk taking. It’s the willingness to put oneself on the line and think differently, even if the outcome is not known. In business, the highest achievers, the groundbreakers, are those who dare ask a question that no one asked before, or who is willing to take the risk in integrating two previously separate facets of a business or industry. A recent example of this is Bill Gate’s hunch that the integration of television and the computer is a good bet. So, based on that bet, Microsoft Corporation buys WebTV. He’s not the only one, of course, who thinks this now, but he was one of the first who was willing to put himself on the line at a time when the certainty of this integration was less than clear. Of course, two years later, it seems the fait de complis that this will certainly occur, and most industry analysts would support this, as does the stock market.
Creativity is being able to apply answers from divergent aspects of one’s own knowledge base and experience, to draw upon information that may seem completely irrelevant to the task at hand. It may involve the utilization of areas that do not seem to be directly relevant. In a medical field, for instance, the ability to think critically, as well as analytically, has to be juxtaposed with the ability to humanistic and philosophical perspective on all the work that you do. These may seem as diametrically opposed traits, however, the integration of these dialectical aspects of one’s knowledge base are critical in producing a quality healer. The same is true for business. This is why, in management today; it is not uncommon to seek individuals who have a diverse educational background in the application of management and executive principles.
Creativity is putting oneself on the line and being willing to ignore the little voice inside of you that says, “It will never work,” or “No one will like it.”

9. Solution-focused problem solving

Often in business, we focus on problems. As I previously noted, problems are simply solutions that no longer work. By taking a solution-focused orientation to problem solving, one ignores the problem and focuses on potential solutions that may be available. The method to access these solutions is by looking a solutions in other areas of your business or personal life, where you’ve solved the problem, and then borrowing those skills that may seem initially divergent, and then applying them to this new situation. In other words, it’s borrowing skills that are utilized in a familiar way in a novel opportunity. Solution-focused problem solving is borrowing successes where you have them and building on them in new ways. You’ve heard the often-stated axiom that “problems are actually opportunities.” This is only half the truth. Problems are, indeed, opportunities, but what they are the opportunities for is the willingness to look at successes in one’s life (even on the smallest level), to build on those in new and creative ways. By creating the context of inclusion of all possible solutions, and by longer using the word “but” anymore, one uses the word “and” to support the possibility of new realities emerging. When one uses the word “but,” they automatically negate and separate potential information and data. When one does this, one automatically limits the possibility of new and creative solutions.

10. Visualization

This is directly relevant to goal setting. It is important that, when one sets goals, one is actually able to visualize what that goal will look like upon completion. Take the time to actually rehearse it in your mind, and get a clear picture of what your project, or your product, or your department, or your stock performance will look like one, three, five years down the road. Think about what it will physically look like in your office. Think about what the numbers will look like. Think about the reactions of the people around you. Imagine the implications in your personal life with regard to potential increases in salary, or changes in your family or your personal life. Take the time to absorb yourself in the potential reality through visualization and rehearsing in your mind this reality. Create the reality in a future tense and then you’ve created the context for it to occur. By creating the context for change to occur, you’ve started the change process. I’ll give you an example of this. In my training as a psychologist, I often provide personal counseling services. The research in counseling is very interesting. One of the things they found out early on is that, when doing research on the efficacy of treatment, they found that, when comparing individuals that had no counseling versus some counseling, there was a clear improvement. But, what they also find that was quite surprising, is that individuals who called up for an appointment, but who were put on a waiting list, also improved somewhat significantly, although not as significantly as those receiving the counseling services. How do you explain this? Well, they had the expectancy of change. There was an installation of hope and a context for a shift to occur in their life that allowed natural changes to occur in their behaviors and actions, thus resulting in an overall improvement in the quality of their lives. This is what we’re talking about in business. By creating the context for the possibility of change, you automatically start that process in motion. Have you ever noticed that, when you have a personal savings goal to buy something, you accomplish that goal more readily than when you save with no particular goal at all.

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