Bringing out the best in people
Whether we are a leader, a manager, a parent, or any other role where we are responsible for influencing others, we all have the challenge of trying to bring out the best in people. How do we do this though?
Clearly everyone is going to have their own unique approach but, at the same time, there must be some good practices that run true for everyone.
And clearly the person we are trying to bring the best out of is going to affect our approach too. How we handle the passionate but clueless person is going to be very different from how we handle the knowledgeable but apathetic person.
So, linked with this, I wanted to try and start a conversation today and invite as many of us as possible to share our stories of both success and failure in our efforts to bring out the best in people.
Feel free to use this as an opportunity to raise questions and struggles too. I certainly have a ton of questions and I have lots to learn. Hopefully this can be a mutually beneficial process for us all!
June 25th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I think some foundational principles are respect, value, purpose.
People need to be respected as individuals even if they have different ideas, backgrounds, beliefs than we do. This is something I extend to someone I want to influence. As a someone wanting to influence others, I can not effectively influence without respecting them. Influence without respect is dictatorial.
Respect moves to value. Value is only ‘valuable’ if it is perceived by the targeted individual. It doesn’t matter how much I value you. It is only tangible if you perceive or ‘feel’ valued by me. Perceived value is what will cause one to respond to the next challege.
Purpose gives an individual an internal motivation to rise to challenge. Purpose can be corporate or communal but if the individual doesn’t internalize the purpose it won’t likely move them to action. Helping people find purpose is a trial-and-error experiment of identifying what will cause them to feel purpose. I consider purpose to be an emotive response.
I’ll come back with success/failure stories after I think on that for a while.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am
They are some great thoughts, Steve. And all very true. That’s a very helpful framework too.
I think one of the balancing acts of bringing out the best in others is also making sure we stay on the side of influence and don’t slip over into manipulation. This can be a temptation when the influencing doesn’t seem to be having the effect we want it to!
It has to be about inspiring and equipping people to make great choices and not forcing people to do what we want them to do.