Moving your organization into, and through, an uncertain future takes courage, confidence, and a lot of comfort with ambiguity, even in the best of times.

And then when the world is as uncertain as it has been for, oh, most of the last decade or so, the leadership challenges only expand.

If you’re a leader in these uncertain times, you may have these concerns:

“How do I know if we’re on the right path for us to succeed…or perhaps, even to survive?”

“How can I let the people I’m leading know which direction to move next…and how can I do that as rapidly and clearly as possible?”

Leading well in uncertain times works best if you can create just enough structure to reduce unnecessary uncertainty in your organization, and yet not so much that you lock your team into an inflexible, maladaptive position when the world they’re operating in changes quickly.

Set your team up to be able to turn the best intentions and limited resources into maximum results on behalf of your customers and your company…before your competition can.

Leadership in unpredictable circumstances requires the ability to read your environment well, especially the significant changes in it. And then you must have the ability to communicate that well, and to inspire appropriate action, as a result.

When you do, you give your company or team far more opportunity to respond well to changing circumstances, reducing the changes they’ll be blindsided by them.

Here are a few tips for creating the right team signals, and then using them well in the uncertain circumstances:

1. Figure out the relevant details you have to pay close attention to.

Not all information is valuable. Lots of it is just noise.

But some details are absolutely crucial to your success.

Unpredictability and uncertainty doesn’t have to hold you back.

Knowing what signs and signals you must pay close attention to can make or break you. It tells you where to direct your attention, action and resources, leading most likely to success.

It’s almost inevitable that there is something valuable you can monitor, measure, and track that will help you stay focused and moving ahead well, together.

2. Figure out the minimum daily, weekly, and monthly communication requirements for your team to function well in current and foreseeable circumstances.

At a minimum, who needs information, to do what, if you have can provide it to them?

When do they need the information?

How do they need to receive the information – what channels, and in what format – in order to be able to understand it, and act on it well, and in a timely fashion in these circumstances?

3. Use the same terminology…and make sure you are.

It’s easy to believe you’re communicating well with someone, only to find out that you’re talking about very different things even though you’re using the same terms.

Here’s one non-work example to illustrate the point:

What comes to mind when you think of the word, “vacation”? (Just for fun, and to make this a graphic example, describe it in enough detail that you wish you could take that vacation right now).

Now ask three other people the same thing, what they think of when they hear the word “vacation.”

The odds are, you’ll come up with four VERY different ideas of what a vacation is.

In normal, everyday discussions you have to get on the same page to make any conversational headway, especially if there is any kind of agreement you need to reach, as is the case on almost any team.

Clear communication, starting with common terminology, is all that much more important when information comes at a premium (if the information is available at all), attention is limited, fear is running high, and the risk of error is very high, as well.

4. Listen. Don’t just stop talking…really LISTEN.

You may think you’re listening when you’re not talking. Often, though, our thoughts and fears are chattering away rapidly, keeping us bound up in our own concerns, even as we seem to be listening.

Still those attention-blocking concerns of the past, present, future – and places you’d really rather be at the moment.

Make space for new information to come in.

5. Create the time and space for dialogue now and then, when you can.

Uncertain times call for stronger than average teamwork.  You can’t dictate teamwork, legislate it, expect it, or inspect it in. I was in several different circumstances recently when leaders took this approach – trying to dictate teamwork, without engaging the people whose best efforts their own success depended upon.

Ultimately you have to inspire teamwork, for followers have to trust their leaders, if they are to follow fully, and with best effort.

Create ways for dialogue to occur in the simplest, most user-friendly way possible.

This, alone, can go a long way to opening up channels for essential information to flow out, and back in…leading you and your team more surely to success, even in uncertain times.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Do you have decision phobia?

Some people do, and it can be very life- and progress-limiting.

Decision-phobes may not know why they’re fearful of committing to one course of action instead of leaving their options endlessly open.

Perhaps their fear is based on having made big mistakes in the past.

Or perhaps they felt that perfection was expected from them with each and every step they took. And as a result, they began to stay cemented in spot, rather than to take the risk of making one misstep, no matter how recoverable it was.

Decision-making doesn’t have to be scary.

If the decision is one that you’re familiar with and have made successfully before, or if the risks of making a mistake are low, the information gathering can be very quick.

If a decision has large, clear risks, all the preparatory phases will take more time and careful thought.

As you get ready to make a decision, there are ways you can further reduce the risks. Here are a few:

- Rehearse
- Look at the costs and benefits of all options and choose the best one
- Use scenario analysis
- Test your decision with experts you trust
- Create a decision diary for high-risk decisions

Here’s more detail about each of these options:

Rehearse

Imagine the outcomes.

Envision a successful outcome of the decision-making process that meets the requirements of the customers for the decision. If you need more information about this, learn more about creating decision-making frames.

Now imagine yourself being comfortable making the decision, and comfortable with the outcome of the decision.

When you imagine that, what does it tell you about the process, and the decision, itself?

Look at the costs and benefits of all options and choose the best one

List the various decisions you could make.

Now list the costs and benefits of each option. If a more analytical approach will increase your confidence in the decision, use weighted criteria. Evaluate how each possible decision meets each criterion, and see which option “wins,” when viewed analytically.

Use scenario analysis

Create scenarios of most likely circumstances. Then exaggerate these scenarios by imagining far better outcomes and far worse outcomes.

Now, fortified with the wide range of scenarios, consider which ones seem most likely.

Test each possible decision in these most likely scenarios.

See how that affects your decision, if it does.

Test your decision with experts you trust

One additional way to reduce the risk of the decision is to find experts you trust. Test your decision with them.

See if they advise you to consider something you had not seen, or to weight decisions in a different way than you anticipated.

Create a decision diary for high-risk decisions

Just by writing down your decision-making, you may make better decisions. It’s like writing down goals to increase your chances of reaching them. The simple act of writing tightens your focus, and can improve your logic and the completeness of your thinking.

Here’s a simple way to create a decision diary:
1. Write down the decision you have to make.
2. List the customers of the decision and what success would be like for them.
3. Record your assumptions.
4. List the decision you’ve made and what you expect to have happen.
5. Use this information if the decision needs refining, changing, or when you are improving your decision-making process.

If you found this post valuable, share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

High quality decision-making depends on good information, well-used.

Excellence in this stage of decision-making requires that information:
- Be cost-effective to obtain and evaluate
- Reduce the risk of the decision that is being made
- Be available at the right time and place for the decision to be made

The basic thing you’re doing when planning information gathering is to figure out what information you need, what information you have, and then figuring out how to fill in the gaps with the best information you can get in the time, and with resources you have available.

There are three key things to guard against in this process:

- Assuming you know more than you do about the situation you’re evaluating, including the risks involved in the decision you’re making
- Assuming the future will be like the past and present
- Investing lots of time and resources gathering much more information than you’ll ever need for this decision-making process

These are the basic steps involved in gathering good information to make decision-making easy…or easier:

1. Prepare.
2. Consider what information you need.
3. Clarify what information you already have.
4. Identify what information you still need.
5. Make a plan to get the information.
6. Get the information.

Here’s more information about each of these steps:

1. Prepare.

Review the decision you’re making, and the risks involved in each of the possible outcomes.

Consider what the cost is to you of the riskiest outcomes, no matter how well prepared you are for good decision results.

This will help you understand the possible cost of a bad outcome, and what the benefit of good risk-reducing information may be.

Also, list the assumptions you’re making. You may need to come back to them at some point in the decision-making process.

2. Consider what information you need.

Consider what information you want to make this decision with confidence.

Now consider what information you really need to make the decision. It may be more, or less than the information you planned to seek.

Plan to check some information that will challenge or verify the most critical assumptions you’re making. These assumptions, if incorrect, greatly increase the risk of the decision you’re making.

3. Clarify what information you already have.

In some cases, you may already have all the information you need. The information may already exist inside your company, but just not be widely used now.

Look at what you have now, and whether it is current or complete enough for the decision you’re making.

4. Identify what information you still need.

Look at the gap between the information you need, and what you have.

Figure out what how much time you have to get the information, and what resources you have to do so.

That’s important to know because there are usually more and less expensive ways – and more and less effective ways – to get the information you need, depending on the data sources you use.

Remember, also, that you may never have all the information you want, even when you have all the information you need.

5. Make a plan to get the information.

Choose the information source or sources that are most likely to get you the best information most quickly and cost-effectively.

Create a clear and effective plan to get the information. As with any good plan, if you’ll be dividing the information-gathering tasks among several people, make clear assignments, set clear expectations about the work that will be provided, when it is needed, and in what format.

If you’re not the person who will be using the information to make the final decision, decide how you’ll get the information to the decision-makers in a format that they can use, when they need it.

6. Get the information.

Be prepared to change your approach, getting more or less information, depending on what the results show, as the information comes in.

If you found this post valuable, share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Which answer makes the following statement true for you?

Decision-making is easy:

- Often.
- Always.
- Almost never.

If you find decision-making an ordeal – and many people do – you can make it far easier with a good decision-making process.

A good decision-making process starts by creating a good decision frame.

Creating a good decision frame is almost like describing the missing piece that you’re looking for as you try to solve a jigsaw puzzle.

When you create an effective decision frame, a good decision can almost seem to fall out of the process automatically.

That’s because it will seem familiar, somehow, when you’ve carefully considered what the ideal solution is, what the priorities and options are, and when you’ve done your research to know the costs and benefits of each possibility.

Well-framed and researched, a good decision will become clear, almost naturally.

These are some of the things to consider as you create your decision frame:

- Know what problem you’re solving when you make this decision
- Understand who the decision customers are
- Understand what decision criteria and priorities will be used to make the decision
- Be clear about what’s in and what’s out as this decision is being made
- Understand who will make the decision and how they’ll make it

To frame the decision, answer these questions:

1. What’s the problem you’re solving, specifically?

Be clear about what problem you’re solving with this decision.

Without a well-defined problem statement, or a clear goal, you can go off-track right from the beginning of the decision-making process.

Know what you’re aiming for.

2. Who are the customers of this decision? Do they see the problem the same way?

Many people can be involved in making a decision, but not everyone has to live with the outcome of the decision.

The primary decision customers are the people who are most directly affected by the results of the decision, whatever they are. with these customers want an ideal decision

3. What do these customers want in an ideal decision?

Customers’ needs and wants may be two different things.

What do the decision customers want in the decision that’s made and implemented?

What do they need?

If you don’t know, ask them, or ask a representative sample of people who will be affected by the results.

Understand their priorities, as well.

What is most important to them in the decision and its outcome? What can they live without, if they must?

4. What’s in and what’s out as you make this decision?

When you’re making a decision to take a certain course of action or commit resources in some way, you’re also deciding not to do something else.

And sometimes the real problem with decision-making is not that it’s hard to say “yes” to one course of action, but rather, that it’s harder to say “no” to another one.

Know what you’re choosing not to do when you’re making this decision.

If you’re planning a vacation, for example, and have children who will be on the trip with you, you may put a higher priority on a well-planned series of activities that will keep them busy and happy than you do on luxury accommodations you might choose if you were planning a romantic trip for two.

Consider, also, any constraints you have for the decision that’s being made.

For example, are there cost restrictions or deadlines by which the decision must be made and all actions fully implemented?

Be clear about all the requirements for the decision and a good outcome.

5. Who will make the decision, and how will it be made?

Know how the decision will be made, and who will make it.

For example, will a committee be making the decision and each person in the group has one vote?

Will a committee be advising a final decision-maker?

Is a person making this decision by him or herself?

Understand what a win is to each person involved in making the final decision. Understand what failure is to each person, as well.

If you found this post valuable, share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

What can consume hours of time, oceans of creative and productive energy, and still produce nothing useful?

Worrying.

Maybe you don’t waste your time in worry, but many people do.

Some are pretty experienced, and dedicated worriers – professionals, almost.

It’s easy, mid-worry-stream, to think that you’re doing something useful for someone, or some situation, somewhere.

My younger sister once said to me when I was in college and getting little sleep, “If you don’t quit staying up so late, Mom and I will quit worrying about you!”

She’d seen her worrying as a sisterly service she was doing for me.

It wasn’t making any difference, of course.

Worry isn’t work.

Here’s how work is defined in physics: work = force x distance.

Worrying doesn’t change things unless it is a force that moves people across some distance, to change, to become different in a positive way.

Here are a few things you can do to turn worry into productive results:

1. Understand your own motivation for worrying.

What are you trying to accomplish through your worrying?

Is it to entertain yourself, perhaps through the steady updates in a local drama that keeps everyone wrapped up in details of a story you share?

Is it to distract yourself from something you should be doing, instead, but are afraid of?

Consider what else you might be doing with the time you are wrapped up in the lives of those around you. Consider, also, what part of your own life isn’t not getting full attention because you are distracted in this pursuit.

Are you afraid to say what you really think?

If so, muster up your courage and figure out what your truth is. Then figure out how to tell it to the people who you think need the information in a way so that they can hear you, and feel your concern.

And then it is up to them to use the information, save it for a later time, or reject it as not being right for their lives. And you might not like it, but they do have that right – to make their own choice about how they will live their own lives.

Then, let your advice and worry go. Know that the people you are trying to help via your advice and concern will choose and take their own actions. That’s how they’ll become strong. That’s how they’ll learn and grow.

And you want that for them, don’t you?

2. Know what the real problem is, and what evidence you have to know that it is real.

State what you think the real problem is.

Now, consider what evidence you have to know that the problem you describe, of the magnitude you describe it, is actually happening?

If you don’t know, or can’t find evidence of a problem, there may not be one at all.

Then, go back to considering what this worry might be distracting you from…or trying to.

That’s where your problem-solving attention might best be invested…in the problem you don’t want to think about, at all.

3. Know why you believe the bad news scenario is most likely.

If you have a real problem, and have evidence of it, why do you think that dire circumstances will be the result of the issue?

Good outcomes could also occur.

Think through what the chances are that your worries will come true, and why you believe it.

4. Think back to your most productive worrying time, and what the outcome was.

Sometimes worry is productive in that it gets us to consider alternatives we hadn’t thought of before. Or it may make us aware of a risk we had, blithely, brushed off as not likely at all.

Worry gets us to focus and consider possibilities we might not want to think about, at all.

5. Take the persistence and creativity you’re investing in worry, and turn it into something productive.

Direct that effort to doing something tangible about the problem.

Take your concerns, if they prove to be valid, and turn them into a plan of action to take the cause of the problem away.

Then, take the actions you planned, using your resolve to make the problem go away.

Your worry may, in fact, lead to a change that might not have happened any other way.

6. Get more exercise.

Treat yourself to some endorphins.

These are the hormones your body releases when you’ve had a vigorous run, walk, swim, bike ride, or other physical release.

7. Get more sleep.

Good sleep refreshes and rests your mind and body.

And it gives you the reserves to provide a good, calm, long-term assessment of the situation, providing a perspective on problems that might loom when you’re tired, and tempers are likely to be shorter.

8. Find a diversion that’ll keep you from going into worry so deep.

Make yourself so busy you aren’t available for worry duty.

Well, not so much, anyway.

Take your own big goals and break them down into very tangible small-term milestones.

Work on those.

9. Make something.

When you produce something tangible, it can go a long way to make you feel good about yourself, your abilities, and what you can do.

Besides, it gives you something you control. And that helps siphon off worry energy, too.

You may not be able to control the big thing you’re worrying about, but when you make something, you often get an increased sense of control about your portion of the world.

10. Find someone else who has been through this thing you’re worrying about. Talk to them.

They’ll give you some perspective.

They’ll probably tell you that if the problem actually happens, you, or the people you’re worrying about, will live through the experience, and you’ll be stronger in the end.

And that it may not happen…so the worrying didn’t help.

11. Set a daily worry budget, and when the time is up for the day, change the subject.

You think I’m kidding.

If your daily budget covers one hour of worrying, set your timer when worry time arrives.

Worry big for that hour.

And when that hour is up, change the subject. Don’t talk about the thing you’re worried about. Don’t text about it, think about it, imagine it.

Move on.

You can pick up it up again during worry time tomorrow.

If you found this post valuable, share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Think of the worst meeting you were ever involved in, whatever your role was. (Don’t worry…we won’t stay in this memory for long).

Now, think of the best meeting you ever attended, or were a part of.

Why did one meeting work so well, and the other one flop?

The odds are very high that the good meeting had a good leader. In addition, it’s likely a lot of careful planning was involved.

Beyond that, though, the group involved in the good meeting probably used simple ground rules to guide their work together.

If that sounds a bit too bureaucratic to you, consider how kids create a game at a playground. It might be a pick-up basketball game where they’re setting the boundaries and rules of play. It might be a new game they invent.

Either way, one of the early steps in getting the game underway is to set some basic rules, boundaries, and other guidelines.

Why is setting the rules and boundaries important early in the process of getting the play underway? It helps them to:
- Make the game clear
- Focus on playing the game, not continually inventing or refining it
- Make the game fair
- Increase the chances that the game will be enjoyable
- Make the game as much fun as possible

Ground rules don’t have to be complicated.

In fact, it’s far better if they’re not.

You want rules that are clear, simple, easy to understand and teach, easy to enforce.

Ground rules also set up expectations of the way you will behave together, and how you will treat each other. And they provide a solid foundation or “home base” you can return to if the group gets lost in a heated debate.

If you need a set of ground rules you can adapt to create your own, try this set. I’ve used variations of these ground rules with more than 100 teams, and they’ve served each group well:

– Be prompt. Stay focused.

– Be an active listener and participant. Ask clarifying questions to understand others’ points of view. Be clear about your own point of view.

– Act with mutual respect.

– Emphasize inquiry and advocacy.  Inquiry: exploration of an issue, reserving judgment about the outcome. Advocacy: pushing or selling one’s position.

– Stay engaged. Stay with the team and the work until there is an outcome all parties can take credit for designing. Be flexible to accommodate information you receive in the dialogue process.

– Take personal responsibility for results.

– Turn cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices off while the group is meeting.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

When we’re around excellence, it helps bring out our own best performance.

Think back. Surely there are times in your life when this has been true for you, too.

It’s why there’s value in watching great sports performances, seeing excellent theater and movies, reading great fiction, going to art museums, enjoying wonderful food, and surrounding yourself even briefly in the beauty of nature.

There’s lots more excellence you can choose to immerse yourself in, too.

I recall one particular experience  during a summer when my husband and I played tennis almost every weekend when summer with friends from the company where he worked.

Hoping to get in just enough improvement to make the next weekend’s tennis matches easier and more fun, Gary and I went out to practice one day after work at a nearby park.

On this particular evening, the courts were all busy so as we waited for our turn. As we did, we watched one couple play. It was great fun  to see, for they played with great ease and excellence.

When they left, and we started to play on the court where they’d performed for many of us who were watching that day, our game seemed to be almost magically elevated in many ways.

It was as if the excellence they’d brought had been left on that court, and we were the beneficiaries of the momentary circumstance.

Eventually, their excellence seeped away from that spot and, well, our normal game returned.

But for that brief time, playing excellent tennis was fun.

And it showed us that we might someday reach an elevated state of play with consistency if we kept practicing, with consistency.

You can elevate your own game, whatever it is, if you steep yourself in excellence of any kind.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. It inspires you.

Excellence of any type is spirit-lifting.

Whether at the Olympics, the exhibit of a great artist, or at a major awards program  recognizing top performance in any field, looking at, and up to excellence can have the same effect. It raises your sense of what is possible when positive intention, the force of will, abilities, practice and preparation – and a bit of luck, too – are combined to meet challenges and create new opportunities.

That inspiring effect occurs whether the people who produced the great result were expected to, or theirs was in overcoming-all-odds story.

2. It teaches, or reinforces the excellence mindset in you.

Sometimes the best thing about being around others’ excellence is being steeped in the excellence mindset.

Top performance takes dedication, focus, and sometimes getting out of your own way to create or release excellent results.

Knowing what someone who produced greatness thought and felt, how they prepared  for it, and how they overcame their own nervousness or stage fright, if it was part of the experience, can be enlightening.

3. It gives you new ideas for yourself.

Excellence in other realms can increase your creativity, and spark new ideas for a project, goal, or challenge you’re working on.

And being around others’ excellence reminds you of the power of persistence.

There’s a lot to be said for not giving up when your courage is waning and encouragement from others is sparse.

Your will to succeed in a realm that is important to you, and the path to that achievement can be strengthened by being immersed in excellence of any type.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

You may think you’re ready for change – until you get up to the starting line and the action is about to start.

And when you do – much like standing at the starting line of an important race – that’s no time to find out you’re unprepared, or that you really don’t want to make the change, at all.

Change isn’t easy, no matter what type of change you’re making (or being asked to make), and no matter who else is involved.

But change usually works out far better if you’re ready for it – and all the twists and turns it can bring.

And it works best, too, if you seek it, rather than if change finds you.

Still better is the change you yearn for.

And best of all is if you’re driven enough to accomplish the change that you can move over, around, or through any barriers that crop up and stand in the way of where you are now, and the success you’re trying to create in the change process.

Change, of course, comes in many forms.

We all know from experience, and from the economic changes of the last few years which have not left many people untouched, in some way, that not all change is change we welcome.

Here are just a few of the types of major change that you may face at some time, and ways that you can adapt to them:

1. Change can be thrust upon us by life circumstances.

A lot of the process of change in these life-thrust-upon-us change circumstances requires acceptance, resilience, adaptability. Sometimes figuring out ways to “make do” for a while is required, too.

These are not experiences that dreams are made of. They are, however, sometimes the stuff that heroic stories are made of.

And like it or not, these experiences can be some of the ones that toughen us up most and make us strong, ready for even greater challenges of other types, later in life.

2. Great change may happen serendipitously.

For example, let’s say you have an interesting opportunity, and decide to take it. An interesting experience occurs, as a result.

You notice that you liked the experience, and decide to repeat the experience or experiment.

An interesting path starts to unfold.

Through these types of gradual change experiences, career interests or passions are sometimes discovered, new skills are developed, opportunities emerge, and rewarding relationships often emerge, too.

3. Change that you yearn for is the change that dreams are often made of.

If these changes are really big ones, they often take hard work and careful planning, and coordination with other people.

These changes are often driven by a very powerful and compelling vision you hold of the outcome you seek.

Whatever the change you face, to the degree you can be, it’s best if you’re ready for the race and challenge of change.

But that’s not possible in every case.

And no matter what happens, or why change occurs, you can’t anticipate and plan for all twists and turns, opportunities, challenges, and differences ahead that will emerge, no matter what type of change has come by.

Change doesn’t have to buckle you to your knees, nor does it have to overwhelm you, even if it is the type you didn’t seek.

Change is a fact of life. Being change-ready and change-responsive – if it’s not yet one of your strengths – is a change you’d best make, and keep.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

“Leave me alone! I don’t want to change!”

“Just let me get through this pile in front of me. The future will come – however it does – without my help today.”

You’ve probably felt this way – most of us have – at some point in our work or life about taking the time and making the effort to build a better future when faced by the problems of today.

Future-building brings many possibilities, but it also brings with it problems. And a major barrier to progress is always finding the time and energy to even try to think far beyond the pressures of the present day.

Thinking strategically takes a different kind of attention and energy than does getting products out the door and on their way to customers. It also takes very different perspectives and skills than does solving problems caused by decisions made and actions taken in the past, which may have caused problems which are just showing up, and must be solved at the moment.

Here are just five of possible barriers to building a better future through effective strategic planning, whatever organization you’re working with, or within.

See if any of these issues seem familiar to you.

1. You can’t see the future from here.

If this is a barrier for you, you’re filled to the brim, and beyond, with a sense that you can’t see what’s ahead, much less think about it strategically.

And you certainly don’t have the capacity at the moment to consider criteria for a successful outcome, envision alternate scenarios and chose priorities, or plan an optimal course of action, complete with accountabilities and due dates.

2. There are too many choices.

You may be feeling this if:

a) criteria for creating a desired future circumstance are not clearly defined yet

b) priorities are not apparent, at the moment

c) there’s not yet enough information about what’s going on, and what may happen in the future with the primary forces of change likely to affect your company’s fortunes in the future.

Whatever the case, having many options feels more like a burden than an opportunity in this situation.

And believe it or not, in this circumstance you may need more information, or you need to have the information presented in a way that makes it far more useful for planning and action-taking purposes.

3. Strategy is a dirty word.

Some people love setting strategy.

Others are far less enthralled with the “opportunity” that strategy-setting can present.

If you’re charged with getting things done and out the door, on their way to customers on a daily basis, you may feel that the full-time strategists in your company are never around to see how their plans actually work out, once implemented.

And you may wonder what your role is in this exercise of future-building. More than that, perhaps you’ve never really been involved in it, and you’re not confident of your abilities to do strategic planning effectively…but you don’t want to admit it.

4. Tomorrow has very little to do with today.

If this is the main problem you see with long-term planning, at least right now, this may be how you really feel:

“Help me see how the work of today relates to the work of tomorrow.”

“Make the strategy-setting and action-planning process tangible, achievable (and bonus-able), and help me feel a sense of achievement as we do the actual strategic planning work.”

“Make me feel a sense of accomplishment in the process, and the planning outcomes.”

“Make this part of my job – and teach me how to do it well – far more than you have today.”

5. There’s no guarantee about the future. We’re just guessing, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ll guess wrong.

The frustration here may be that the future doesn’t seem tangible, and the planning scenarios don’t seem realistic.

Perhaps prior strategic planning efforts have not been well-planned, well-managed, or effective.

In that case, the ease and eagerness with which people proceed is surely going to be mixed, at best.

And this, ultimately, is what you’re probably thinking if you’re not enthusiastic about being involved in what can be a significant future-building opportunity:

“Take the barriers out of my way if you want me to help you prepare for the future, today.”

Generosity is good.

Generally.

Sometimes you can be generous in ways that, ultimately, aren’t really helpful or desired.

And you can be generous in ways that, unwittingly, handicap the person you’re trying to help.

Generosity CAN sometimes hurt more than it helps.

“Helicopter” parents do this when they oversee or manage their children’s lives too tightly, leaving them little room to learn how to make good decisions, to be resilient, and learn from mistakes, to test and discover who they really are and who they want to become.

Similarly, micromanagers can have the same long-term effect on employees whom they over-supervise and can, ultimately, stifle.

Such managers may think they’re helping employees when they:
- Oversee employees’ work closely
- “Correct” work that’s not done exactly how the manager would do the work him/herself, even if it is within customers’ guidelines and quality standards
- Guess or assume what customers want, rather than to verify or correct

Real generosity – that with a long-term view – can show up in actions such as:
- Clarifying who your customers are and what they want
- Using customers’ priorities to guide decision-making
- Defining and refining work processes
- Communicating clearly
- Following up to ensure that actions being taken will meet customers objectives and company promises to them…or will manage the gap in performance to goals until it can be closed
- Teaching employees how to do all these things, themselves

Perhaps the reason that “helicopter” parents and microscopically managing managers aren’t generous from the perspective of others’ long-term development is that:
- They fear not being needed
- They miss doing the work themselves
- They feel more comfortable when work is done the way they want it done, despite what customers want
- They want accolades and approval (and their bonuses, yes) gained by producing immediate results more than they want accolades and approval for long-term team development and employee growth…and the increased results that come with it

If you recognize yourself as (like it or not) a micro manager, here are ways you can learn to be more generous in ways that develop employees for long-term improvement and results, along with meeting short-range goals, too.

1. Be clear about your objectives, as a manager and “people developer.”

2. Be clear about your objectives for employees. Talk with employees so standards and goals are clearly known.

3. Teach employees how to monitor and correct their own performance, using measures and performance-to-standard or performance-to-goal feedback mechanisms.

4. Follow good follow-up practices.

5. Notice when you’re most likely to dive into the tight oversight mode, or to start to swoop and redo work that’s perfectly fine from a customers’ perspective. Catch yourself and your behavior before the pattern goes too far.

6. Pre-plan actions you can take to divert yourself from your normal swoop-and-redo mode.

7. Understand when employees are just doing something differently than you might choose to do, but are meeting customers’ requirements.

In these cases, you’re often far better off letting them learn from the experience of making decisions, giving their approach or idea a try, and learning from the results.

8. Recognize your own progress and development as you learn to let go – and often, in the process, get better overall results from the people in your company or group.

Consider, also, the many ways you can be generous.

These are ways you can help the people you’re guiding to learn more and grow in confidence, technical and people skills, and produce increasingly improved results.

Consider this list of possibilities. How can you be more generous with:

- Time?
- Attention?
- Money?
- Teaching or mentoring?
- High quality listening?
- Praise?
- Advice?
- Demonstrating use of your own talents?
- Enthusiasm?
- Honesty?
- Being present, and sometimes silently, as an employee learns to assess his or her own work and customer satisfaction results accurately?

Learn to be generous in all the ways that really count…now, and for the long-range, too.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.