Often in life it’s our behaviours (actions) that speak the loudest about our characters – not our words.
Many of us inherently know that in order for ourselves as individuals, the organisations that we belong to/ are involved with, and our country as a whole to enjoy greater prosperity and well-being it is necessary that we elevate our productivity. It is becoming increasingly accepted that improved “collaboration” is a key way to achieve greater productivity.
To understand the extent to which you are genuinely predisposed to collaborate with other people, try this exercise…
Q1. As a manager/ business owner/ other form of leader, when you engage with people who are in subordinate positions to your own, do you frame requests/ instructions/ guidance like this:
i. I’d really like to see if you could achieve producing both tool A and tool B by the end of today if at all possible; or like this
ii. Knowing what we’ve been able to achieve in the past where similar tools are concerned, I believe that it’s well within our reach to be able to produce both tool A and tool B by the end of the day. Who’s up for this challenge ?
Q2. As a business owner/ manager, when encouraging people in subordinate positions to perform at a particular rate in order to achieve certain outputs within a prescribed time-frame, do you frame your words of encouragement like this:
i. I know you can do it, it’s just a matter of finding your rhythm and focusing a bit more on the task in front of you. You’re doing really well overall. Or do you frame your encouraging words like this instead:
ii. We’ve got quite a volume of incoming components in front of us today, so we’re all going to have to play our “A Game” to achieve getting client XYZ’s order out on time. Knowing our capability for tough challenges I reckon we’ll nail it without too much struggle.
Q3. How often do you use these words in your everyday conversation with your colleagues ?
Leadership Word Set One –
- We
- We’re
- Us
- Together
- We’ll
- With
- Our
…versus these…
Leadership Word Set Two –
- I’ll
- I
- You
- You’ll
- Them
Which of the above word sets has the greatest positive effect on building favourable relationships with others, and causes colleagues to follow your lead with enthusiasm ?
Q4. As a leader, how often do you perform work alongside members of your team to boost their morale and demonstrate that you’re not an arms-length business owner/ manager ?
Revelation about your collaboration practices…
If you selected statement ii in relation to Question One, statement ii in relation to Question Two, Word Set One in relation to Question 3, and replied something like “often” or “routinely” or “frequently” to Question 4, then well done – you indeed understand how to engender a sense of working together to achieve common goals. You’re walking the talk ! You’re a collaborator !