A Novel Approach to Navigating Sticky Wickets: Manage Your Success Drivers

John is a previous client who sporadically contacts me to help him through what he calls “sticky wickets” which are basically problems he’s tried to solve himself without success.?

This is the essence of a call I recently got from John.?

“I need your help again.? My boss is launching a new operations strategy that makes no sense to me.? I can’t see how it can ever be effective.? I’ve talked to him about my concerns, and he acknowledges they may be legitimate.? But he’s still moving forward.? How do I justify to myself agreeing to go along with this strategy?? I want to be seen as a dedicated member of the team, but I just can’t get past the idea that this new strategy flies in the face of what I believe should be done.? I just don’t think it’s going to work.? What advice do you have for me?”

Before I share the strategy John and I developed together, here’s a little more information about him that is important.? I’ve found that coaching clients is not “one size fits all”, but rather needs to be customized to leverage their unique neuropsychological makeup that forms their personality. ?One important aspect of a client’s neuropsychology that I always consider are what I call their Success Drivers.

Success Drivers are the beliefs we each have about how we need “to be” to obtain success and acceptance. ?Success Drivers represent our strengths, but they are more than that.? They are the artifacts of messages we received as a child from our parents or other adults important to us.? They are the messages about how we needed “to be” to obtain success and be accepted as a child.

Those early messages get woven into our developing personality where they eventually form into our strengths for achieving success and become an imperative for how we want others to view us as adults.? They leverage the brain’s wiring that guides our actions to seek the two core needs of achievement and affiliation.??

And because these messages are woven into our neuropsychology at a young age, they are extremely resilient to change, easily overdone, and very potent.? We all have these Success Drivers, but very few people are aware of them, and even fewer know how to leverage them. Each of us has a unique blend that helps make up our personality, which we bring into everything we do and every decision we make.?

Here are John’s top Success Drivers:

• John grew up with two college professors as parents.? The messages he got from growing up in that environment shaped him to value being smart by applying a logical and methodical approach to solving problems.? “Be smart” in this manner is one of his Success Drivers.
• John’s childhood environment also instilled the importance of having correct answers for “how things should be done”.? Having all the right answers was instilled in him as a path to success.? “Be right” in this manner is another of his Success Drivers.
• John’s environment as a child was filled with stimulation and constant learning.? This shaped him into being a self-improvement junkie.? He’s always working to learn more about himself and his industry.? “Be Better” in this manner is another of his Success Drivers.?

Be smart, be right, and be better were beliefs that drove John’s actions to get him where he is today.? They are his strengths and they contributed greatly to him becoming a successful businessman who knows his industry and loves his work.?

But these Success Drivers have a sinister side.? When overdone, they can backfire, especially when conflict develops in using them to influence another person, as John was attempting to do with his boss.?

• His “be smart” can be perceived by others as “I’m smarter than you” - Arrogant.
• His “be right” can be perceived by others as “I’m right, you’re wrong” - Egotistical
• His “be better” can be perceived by others as “I’m better than you” - Superior.

Being perceived as arrogant, egotistical, and superior is not a great way to influence anyone.? Especially your boss.?

My guidance to John was based on knowing his Success Drivers.? We began by considering how his professor parents might approach his problem as scientists.? As John talked through the idea of being a scientist doing an experiment on his boss’s strategy, his mindset about the strategy shifted.?? He decided he should actively engage in implementing the strategy to gather data and assess outcomes.

This strategy allowed him to temporarily step back from his Success Driver of “be right” and utilize his Success Drivers of “be smart” and “be better” to determine what the data revealed.? No matter the outcome of his experiment, he wins by collecting data that helps him “be better”, “be smart”, and determine what “be right” really is, or is not, in this situation.?

This approach leveraged John’s Success Drivers in a way that aligned with his boss’s new operational strategy, while allowing him to stay true to his own values and beliefs and operate as a dedicated team member.?

You can use the same approach to solve a persistent challenge you have that you can’t seem to shake - your “sticky wicket”.? It’s a simple, but not necessarily easy, three-step process.?

First: identify your own top three or four Success Drivers.? They are the artifacts of messages you got as a child from your parents, or other adults important to you, that got woven into your developing personality.? You’ll recognize them by answering these questions:

• What were the messages you received as a child about how you needed "to be" to obtain approval and success?
• Which of those messages did you turn into strengths you most commonly use today to obtain success?
• Which of those messages represent how you want others to view you today in order to attain their approval?

Second: Now, ask yourself how those Success Drivers can become liabilities if overdone.? Recognizing that any Success Driver, overdone, becomes a liability is an important step to managing that liability.? Label what the overdone Success Driver might look like to others.? This will help you identify how it might be sabotaging your efforts to solve your sticky wicket.?

Third: Reflect on how you can shift the application of that Success Driver to a more adaptive approach.? In other words, what shift in thinking and action can you make to better leverage that Success Driver?? For example, John shifted his Success Drivers of “be smart” and “be better” to create an approach to his challenge that aligned with his boss and still supported his own success, rather than sabotage it.

If you would like to read more on this topic, Chapter Three of my book provides additional help in identifying them in yourself, along with a list of the most common Success Drivers I’ve heard from my clients.? It also includes more strategies for overcoming them to advance your leadership and success.? Get the book on Amazon:?

Ignite Your Leadership: The Power Of Neuropsychology To Optimize Team Performance

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