Maximising your personal effectiveness

The last time I posted on LinkedIn, I closed with a view that to achieve world-class leadership, we all have to find a balance between our strengths and what needs to be done, to create your own unique leadership “brand”.  I thought it might be of interest if I expanded on that idea, not just in terms of leadership, but also in the wider business context.  I have used it myself, even if only informally, to try to balance and prioritise the various pulls on my time and I suspect everyone could do the same – I’d be interested in your comments?

Fundamentally, I would suggest there are four questions we should think about.

C What do you currently do? – Your role or job, and responsibilities it carries? 

G What are you good at?  Consider where your strengths lie.  What aspects of leadership?  Of technical expertise or of people development, for example?  Or Data analytics, technology, research?

E What do you actually enjoy doing?  What gets you out of bed in the morning?  What is your passion?

N And lastly, what needs to be done?  For example, what does your company employ you to do?  What does your team need?

Maximising your performance, what works for the company and what makes you tick is, to me, aligning these four areas.  A number of commentators use the description of a “sweet spot” to describe this concept.

I’ve played a lot of squash over the years (and not always well!) but I’m sure we’ve all experienced that feeling of the sweet spot - hitting the ball on the sweet spot maximises distance the ball travels with minimum effort.  And in my simple analogy, what we should all be trying to do is maximise our own business personal effectiveness by creating our own red dot or sweet spot.

When looking at the above model, the left hand situation is a real problem. In this situation a person is doing a job they are not good at, which they don’t enjoy and which is not required - hardly a recipe for job fulfilment or optimal performance!  The ideal, which I guess few of us ever truly achieve, is the right hand model where everything fits perfectly … sadly, I suspect, the reality for most of us falls somewhere between the two.

However, I would suggest we can all maximise our own personal sweet spot and make the most of what we have.  Sometimes we simply need to take a step back and examine what we’re doing, and if necessary take proactive steps to maximise the red dot.  Changing roles might be the extreme answer, but there are many simpler opportunities.

By considering a few simple questions, I think we can all improve our effectiveness and the pleasure we get from what we do and how we connect as leaders.

For example, can you delegate to someone who enjoys the activity more?  Your team should be formed of individuals who cover the broad remit of what needs to be done, who are passionate and good at different things.  Would another member of your team enjoy something you currently do more or do it better?

Have you questioned what really needs doing and whether it adds real value? Often things are done “because it’s always been done that way.” What would happen if you stopped doing something?  Or could it be automated?  The old business model is changing and it needs all of us to challenge the old ways of working to improve.

I believe probably the most important technique for maximising your sweet spot is to focus on your strengths.  All too often performance development objectives are based on improving weaknesses which inevitably leads to being average (or at best good) at many things, rather than great at one or a few – in simple terms we run the risk of creating an archetypal jack of all trades model.

You may have read some interesting research done by John Zenger and Joseph Folkman as part of their “Extraordinary Leader” programme.  Their data indicates pretty conclusively that truly outstanding leaders, rather than being simply good at many things, focus on being great at only a selected few.  Further, their research shows that having one outstanding strength means that small weaknesses are generally overlooked.  I’m sure you’ll all know at least one great leader with quirks, or traits or weaknesses, which are ignored, simply because they are “great”.? And, in a lot of cases, what inspires you to achieve more.

Let me give you a couple of examples of maximising effectiveness from my own personal situation.  As QBE Group CEO there are activities which are expected – around leading the business, Board and investor relations, regulatory and governance, business strategy and 101 other things I am asked to get involved in. This is what I am supposed to do.

When I think about my passion, why I get out of bed in the morning, it always comes back to our customers – understanding their business and their strategy, listening to their problems and opportunities, helping them succeed.  And luckily, I like to think that’s what I’m good at - with a background of running my own business, building long term client and broker relationships was critical to success, so that’s where I should focus my time.

Does QBE or every business need this skill? –  Absolutely, more than ever before.  Our customers are operating in a more complex and global environment.  The risks they face – from natural catastrophes,  to geo-political and increasingly cyber threats are an order of magnitude more complex than anything previous generations of leaders faced.  Conversely, we recognise our customers have greater choice, more yearning to better understand potential solutions and ultimately, more choice of business partner.  

Understanding this shift in power towards our customers led us to redevelop our vision “to be the insurer that builds the strongest partnerships with customers.” 

But we live in a joined up, always-on world.  Ours is a global organisation, with all the advantages of a “follow the sun” organisation like many others.  But there is one immutable challenge - there are still only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. If I want to help achieve our vision I need to build on my strength and determine where I need to prioritise my time and efforts as does everyone else I work with.

The way I have chosen to maximise my red dot is to recruit a team who are skilled and passionate about all of the activities we need to do.  Our Group Executive has been recruited as a rounded team with all of the skills needed to run, as a team, our organisation, each building their own “red dot”.  Of course there are still too many things that I have to do personally which are not my strength, but that’s life.

So, next time you find yourself wondering if you are making the most of what you have, take a step back and think about your red dot – for the good of your company, but more importantly for your own success.

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