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specialists in enhancement and management of human performance |
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One of the major quests of businesses is to find managers and executives who are capable of pulling workers together and leading them in a common mission. Business schools, prep schools, law schools, medical schools... heck, charm schools are all trying to create the next batch of industry and profession leaders. A number of competencies and personality traits have been noted about various leaders. But every time a researcher or industry guru spawns a new "leader formula" there seems just about as many exceptions to the rule as exemplars of it. Is there any distinction that might hold for all or at least the vast majority of recognized leaders? Could there be one aspect that describes both Ghandi and Hitler, Churchill and Kennedy, Jobs and Ioccoca? Let me forward a suggestion that we look not at what leaders do in common to create change in their fields, but more at HOW they actually change the people around them. I believe all great leaders have at least one distinction in common. Great leaders have the ability to change people's beliefs. Specifically, they have the ability to change an individual's belief in what is possible. When you interact with a great leader, your definition of reality will be expanded. You will find your beliefs about limitations and boundaries becoming fluid. The reality of what you can do or what you can tolerate will shift, and the ultimate result of this belief shift can be good or ill. This distinction of leadership has no morality. It simply seems to be a common factor of every great leader I have ever studied. How is it that some people can change other people's beliefs with such seeming ease? I think they can because their view of what is possible in a given area of life is larger and therefore it can include smaller views of possibility. I don't think great leaders actually think about changing or contradicting other people's beliefs. Instead they work at expanding or reframing beliefs. Reframing is an interesting concept. I picked it up during my studies of Neuro-linguistic Programming. Reframing is simply placing an idea, memory or decision a person has in a different frame or context. In that new frame the idea, memory or decision takes on different meanings or emphasis. For example a dandelion in your lawn is a weed. In a desert, it's a flower. The last one on earth, it's sacred. But how can anything as solid as a person's belief in what is real be altered by reframe? First, let me ask you to consider the possibility that any belief is really a decision fallen out of consciousness. Perhaps the decision itself was made unconsciously or at such an early age or under such dire circumstances that you can no longer remember the situation when the decision was made. That is why it is so difficult to examine one's own beliefs. There is virtually nothing at the conscious level to examine. And a great part of the unconsciousness is the frame or context of the decision. So a reframe has the unique power to immediately shake a belief at its foundation. To attempt to challenge a belief with an opposing doctrine or a question simply tends to create resistance and retrenchment. But a reframe gets down and works in the basement. And some of the most successful reframes seem to deal with precise questioning, redefining time or a single word. Here are a couple of well-known examples. When John F. Kennedy announced to a very, very large audience that American would put a man on the moon in less than a decade, he immediately woke up a lot of scientists. Prior to that statement, the general unexamined belief of the space community was that a moon landing was a long way off. Kennedy's statement reframed the "long way off" precisely to less than ten years. At first all hell broke loose. Many engineers and physicists claimed "can't be done". But for the first time, people started asking, "Never? Why can't it be done?" The answer was we lacked the metallurgy, fuel and rocket sophistication. Well, when were we going to start working on those problems? With Kennedy's bold statement, the very people who were saying specifically why the landing was not possible became the key players in solving the problems, simply because they knew the most about the problems. That is their beliefs had been reframed into at once a larger statement and a tighter time frame. Another example a great reframe is reported to have occurred in a single sentence during a job interview. Steve Jobs moved John Scully from Coca-Cola to Apple with one question: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water?" That's an incredible redefinition of not only a senior executive's job, but also the world's largest selling soft drink. And it's amazingly precise. Great leaders seem to operate in different frames of reference. Therefore, reframing is almost automatic when they interact with others who then become their followers. Leaders do not so much try to override beliefs about possibility as they put them into a different context. And much of their language is reframing and repetition of the reframe. Hitler used it in reframing a nationality of people as the master race. Ghandi reframed resistance by simply redefining it without the concept of physical force, threat or retaliation. The British were pretty good at the empire game, but they could not deal with someone who declined to play on their field. So, is there a way to develop this leader distinction? I think there are steps any executive could begin to take. First, you might want to start practicing the art of reframing. Simply take any concept and put it in a different frame of reference and notice what happens. Also, you can begin questioning many of those "everybody knows that" statements in your business. Easy challenges to these statements are: Who told you that? What specifically does that mean to you? What would happen if we did? Or simply rephrase the universal quantifiers in belief statements with humorous exaggeration. Never? All? Every time? Or you could take a few moments with yourself in reframe. Try time. What would you do if you were to leave the pursuit of business forever just two years from now? or... How would you conduct business if you had to pay everyone an hourly wage with the standard regulations of overtime. or... When did you decide you had to do everything, at once, all the time? Last, and here may be the key to becoming a leader: What do you believe about beliefs? About possibility? Do you know that people can change their beliefs? Do you know there is always a larger, more precise context for your business, your family, and your destiny? If you don't, then when did you decide that? The answers to those questions may be your next executive edge. (NOTE: Allies Consulting offers a menu of programs that can help you increase your leadership skills, or those of your staff. They will meet or exceed your expectations: they are designed to deliver real results. They also leverage our other programs, magnifying your ROI!)
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