We hate to keep giving those of you who are already members of our community a recap but we’ve had a lot of people joining our online coaching community in recent weeks and we want them to be able to successfully follow the process in this series. As you will recall, in our December 9th post we gave you an overview of The Engagement Spiral© that we created to help leaders in organizations, communities, and even families create engagement and alignment behind goals and initiatives. We know that in life and work, you are either spiraling upward or downward and we have seen that effective engagement accelerates upward spirals.
On December 16th we talked about the first step of The Engagement Spiral© – Tell Them They Matter, on December 23rd the second – Teach People How to Provide Input and on December 30th we talked about how to implement the third step – Take Input to the Relevant Decision-Makers.
Today we want to talk about Step 4 of The Engagement Spiral©, Use the Input and Perspective They Provide. Like Step 3, this sounds pretty straightforward. “Ok, they told us what they think, good enough.” Over the years, we have seen many a leadership team briefly scan the input from their staff and then simply move forward as they had originally planned. In some rare instances the input did, in fact, support them going forward as planned but in most efforts, this is not the case.
To really use the input and perspective of your staff, team, or even your kids, you need to pause and reflect on what you have learned from their input. You need to thoughtfully consider what it suggests about how you move forward, and what aspects of your plan need to be modified to increase success (as well as to communicate the value of the input). True engagement requires that you use their input to make a decision that is more representative of the whole organization (or family) and not just those at the top.
Spend some time this week thinking about times that you have sought input from others. Did you really listen? Did you make an effort to see the bigger picture from their perspective? Did you let them influence you? Creating engagement requires expanding and challenging assumptions, both yours and theirs.