Are you trying to create positive change in your organization, family or community? Do you want to help your team excel while working together to achieve challenging goals? Do you want to inspire family members to develop more positive behaviors and habits? Do you want to be a positive influence in your community? If you answer was ‘yes’ to any of those questions, your number one priority today should be to get a little better at bringing out the best in everyone.
Whether you’re attempting to help one person do something different or transform an entire organization, your success or failure will be based on your ability to draw out the best in your co-workers, clients, family members and friends.
Work and life are team sports that require leaders at every level to inspire individuals and groups to consistently perform at their best. Nothing you’ll ever do as a leader will be more important or meaningful than helping talented people excel while working as a team to accomplish a worthy goal.
The leaders of today and tomorrow have to be able to help their high, middle and low performers get better.
Bringing out the best in everyone is not hard to do, but it does require you to change your approach with some people. If you’re ready to try something new, here is one small thing you can do that will have a big impact on your efforts to inspire others to do their best.
Take a moment now and think about one person you want to help get from where they are to where they want or need to be. Reflect on what this individual has done well in the past and write it down. Your goal should be to discover the root cause of their success and capture your insights in a journal. For the next 30 days, make a commitment to continue to look for the good in this person. At the end of each week, ask this person what they thought they did well and then share your positive feedback. (See The Power Of Positive Feedback for more details on this idea.)
As human beings, we are constantly looking for evidence to support our opinions. When we’re dealing with other people in our personal and professional lives, the tendency is to concentrate on their mistakes. Negative behaviors are much easier to spot and too often they take up most of our time and energy. However, just because we have several examples of where someone has disappointed us or failed to live up to their potential doesn’t mean they’ve not done something well.
If you look for the good in your co-workers, clients, family members and friends, you’ll find it. What you choose to focus on expands. At times it may be difficult to see, but it’s there. You just have to be committed to discovering it.
Making the effort to draw out the best in others may not change the world, but your leadership can change the world of your co-workers, clients, family members and friends in a very positive way. I also know your efforts to bring out the best in them will bring out the best in you.
Let’s Get Better. Together! Bill Durkin
