Who might know?

 Somewhere, every “leader” has been taught that he/she must “leave their mark” on the organization they lead. In the first place, the organization doesn’t care about you. Sorry. Someone had to tell you. You do NOT lead an organization. If you lead at all, you lead the people who do the work for the organization. 

 

If you’re going to “leave your mark,” it will be on the PEOPLE you lead. One effective way to leave a GOOD mark is to stop reinventing the wheel. Hence, the question, “Who might know?” 

 

I served the same organization for fifty years. I considered making it a career, but, naaawwww…. In all those years, seldom did the person in charge, especially a new “leader,” ask those of us who had been around a while whether we’d ever considered doing it or even had done it before. “It” being the “grand new” idea the new leader was considering implementing. It’s almost amazing how many grand new ideas we’d tried before. Some worked. Some didn’t. But who knows? Back to my question, “Who might know?” 

 

Effectiveness comes when the Leader does the research to find out who might have been around when it was tried before and the results of doing it that way. Were there special causes that led to that outcome? Is there a better way to do a similar thing? Could advances in technology and the smarter employees affect the outcome in a more positive way? Do you see how all of those other powerful questions were generated by the first one, “Who might know?” 

 

My friend, Simon Sinek, says that people just want to be valued and valuable. That question does both. When a Leader asks around about who might know more and better than he or she does, it implies that those who have been there and have a lot of experience, the corporate knowledge, are valued. Those people will become more and more valuable as they realize they’re valued and trusted then, subsequently, they’ll provide more input as to how to succeed. Instead of reinventing the wheel…again…ask, “Who might know?” 

 

Back in my day, leaders were admonished to look around when assuming charge of a new organization. See how things are going before interjecting how you’ll “fix” everything. The world has sped up so much now that leaders want to, maybe think they need to, change everything as quickly as possible. But are those changes effective? Will they make us better? Change is different. Progress is better. Who might know? A powerful question that might lead to greater effectiveness. 

 

Until next time, 

 

Be GREAT! 

 

You ARE!