Untapped Potential
/“What percentage of your personal potential are you currently delivering in your work?”
The question about personal potential is one I have asked hundreds of times to individuals and groups of managers. And in any group the average answer invariably comes out to about 65%. The range of course is often huge – from 20% to 100%, and we all interpret the question slightly differently, yet it’s as if we all instinctively know that there is ‘more to come’.
Now if I asked the question in terms of effort or work rate or hours worked, I know I would get answers of 100% and maybe more! Because we all know that we can’t work much harder or put many more hours in. Recent advances in technology have pushed management ‘productivity’ to new levels. We can all now work more hours per day on more things, and the latest daily ‘holy grail’ for managers is an empty Inbox. What insanity!
After we’ve all thrashed around a bit, I guess what we can all agree on is however much of our potential we are delivering, there is more to come. We all have a sense that we could be achieving more; giving more of ourselves and all the passion, enthusiasm and sheer depth of capability that we possess. The other thing we instinctively sense about our potential, is that we don’t need to tap into much more to give a step change – the sense that another 5% could transform our confidence, our skills, our performance, our achievements. We might be working as hard as we can, but we could probably all be working smarter. So what is stopping us?
When we are under pressure, the easy place to go to answer the question of what is stopping us deliver more of ourselves into our work, is to list the external factors that are holding us back. And these factors are of course very real on a day to day basis. However, when we get ourselves into a fixed belief that only when certain things happen outside of us will we be able to fulfil our potential, we have entered a dangerous zone.
If coaching is about growth, and if taking the risks is going to be worth it, just what could this ‘untapped potential’ in people look like?
We say that people are our biggest asset, and then we don’t invest the highest standards of leadership in them. So how do we bring out that extra 5% of people’s potential? Great question, and having the awareness to ask it of ourselves means that we are half way there!
9 times out of 10, when people come and ask us as their manager what they should do, they know the answer. They certainly know where to look for the answer, even if the solution is not obvious. How inefficient is that? Now I hear you saying that your people don’t just come and ask you. No they probably don’t – they are far too subtle for that, nevertheless they do know how to put you in a position where you will give them the answer.
So the real question is why do they come and ask?
Yes, you’ve guessed it – maybe it’s more to do with us than it is to do with them. The reality is that people come and ask because we reward that behaviour. It’s a habit they’ve learned. Maybe they are seeking reassurance, or maybe they’re fearful of getting it wrong, but why would that be the case? Unless of course their experience of us is that we can be predatory at times? Us? Surely not……
Our habits have created their habits. If we want them to develop new habits, we have to start with ourselves. Blaming them is easy and often quite enjoyable, but the answer is to look at the way we manage them. If we genuinely want our people using their initiative, thinking for themselves and solving their own problems then we need to change the way we manage them – we need to become genuine Coaches.
We must liberate ourselves from the belief that we know what is best for others; that we help people best by taking decisions for them, and that we care for them best by exercising responsibility on their behalf – paternalism may have noble motivations, but it creates dependent children not empowered adults.
Once we understand all this, we are freed from having to rely on our old habits, and we gain permission to behave as a Coach, however unskilled or clumsy we may be at it. The purpose of coaching is to realise people’s full potential whilst holding them accountable for results. The process of coaching is to help people to come to a position of total clarity and maximum commitment for what they need to do. The by-product of coaching is the transfer of your knowledge and experience in the process.
It may be daunting to think about starting to coach people. However if we think of coaching as simply a leadership intervention – a one off act that can make a real difference - we may just give it a try.
About the Author: Gareth Chick is a 40 year corporate veteran with a global profile. His career has included hugely successful spells as CFO, CEO and Chairman in both public and private sectors, including private equity. What makes Gareth's experience unique is that he combined those executive roles with a part time career as a leadership trainer, researching psychology, neuroscience and psychotherapy to create leadership development programmes used now by many major global corporations. In the last 15 years Gareth has trained over 5000 managers and served as Executive Coach to over 200 senior execs including FTSE100 CEOs and Fortune 500 VPs. As Founder of Collaborative Equity LLP, “promoting corporate cultures and sustainable business models of shared ownership, shared responsibility and shared rewards", Gareth acts as consultant to many global leaders, specialising in first time CEOs and Start Up founders. ↠ find out more at ceq.com
