by We all do it. We all do things we know are not in our best interest. What we eat, how much we exercise, how we spend our down time, how we prioritize our family/work, whether we do the work or avoid the work, and so on.
Situationally, we all live with this chasm between knowing what needs to be done and doing it. We make excuses, we rationalize, we just decide for whatever reason we don’t want to do it. However, there are some situations that demand the chasm be bridged IF we are to achieve the success we desire.
The most difficult thing to accomplish in business, in sport, in any profession is consistency at a high level. The more people involved, the more difficult the challenge. Success depends on a strong, supportive culture, for this is what it takes to find and keep great people. Without them, consistency at a high level will not happen.
An organization that is filled with passionate, engaged, empowered, competent, connected team members, being led by the same is rare. It doesn’t have to be. Achieving consistency at a high level begins with the quality of the organization’s leadership. Great leaders attract and keep the best of the best. They inculcate a culture of respect, of fairness, of opportunity and of accountability. Compensation plays a role but is not what matters most. What matters most is that the leadership, and so the organization, provides the opportunity to maximize one’s potential. It takes a culture that treats each team member as they would want to be treated, is consistently fair, is imbued with trust and relishes the sharing of knowledge and the growth of each for consistency at a high level to be realized.
If the leader does not have control of their personal Noise, is not aware of how their Noise affects them and others, then the organization will fall short and never come close to achieving consistent, high-level performance.
As a leader, being honest with oneself about our specific, even idiosyncratic, challenges is the only path to becoming a great leader. We must know them, acknowledge them and then address them — for us and for those around us. We all know leaders who, despite not addressing their personal Noise, still accomplish much. They may even be heralded as mavens, as “great.” However, as good as the results may be, they would have been better, as would the life of that leader, had their personal Noise been reined in.
The better we become as a leader, the better the people we attract and keep, and the better our organization performs. There is always room to improve as a leader, this includes managing our personal Noise. A leader that abides by this, attracts and keeps team members who do the same. This moves the organization closer and closer, to achieving consistency at a high level.
Stopping the Noise and Being Our Best, being the best leader we can be, today, serves us and those around us. If we become a little better today, and do the same tomorrow, in time we find we have made a significant difference in ourselves, in the quality of people we work with and in our individual and collective results.
Managing our personal Noise provides us the opportunity to achieve what too few organizations do — Consistency at a high level. We must know ours and then learn to mitigate it if we are to Be Our Best.
This is a better way to live a life, and the path to a better, stronger organization.
More to come.
Great advice Eric! Thanks for sharing!