DRIVING RESULTS WITH OTHERS:
A POCKET GUIDE FOR LEARNING ON THE JOB
This little pocket guide was developed by observing and synthesizing common questions from my clients as they encountered obstacles familiar to all of us—the manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an un-collaborative colleague, negativity, criticism, or people that are just hard to work with.
Senior technology leaders need to constantly be driving change and confronting challenges to manage growth—all while maturing their teams. Supervisors and mechanics on naval shipyards need to innovate and customize tools in real time to deliver naval war ships on time and under budget. Everyone must navigate for buy-in or approval in dense, interconnected systems.
As a former manager myself, I have lived through many of these scenarios and can empathize with how hard it is to be on the hook for achieving results, while also learning how to lead people. And, I’ve made mistakes. Seeing challenge without also seeing opportunity didn’t serve me because it took away from my performance rather than enhanced it.
Everyone—from the CEO to the intern—learns on the job. It's one thing thinking through an effective process, but once people get involved and the pressures of deadlines and budgets are included, those processes aren’t actually felt. Effectiveness is an individual skill, first. Across every sector and every level of leadership, there is a common need to effectively work with others.
To perform well while under pressure, we need train our minds to work more effectively. Making the right decisions, whether that is hashing out how artificial intelligence will evolve or ensuring naval ships are ready on time takes practice. I hope these very universal questions and practical answers provide the simple reminders we all need for how to get started with your own mind-training practice.
You might experience others as challenging, when:
Experiencing challenge can mean many things to many people—it's what is challenging to you. Maybe it's a...
manager who keeps moving the goal posts
un-collaborative colleague
negative friend
critical family member
someone who is just hard to get along with
How do we get along with them?
Practicing empathy, curiosity, and patience slows the conversation down. Slowing a conversation is likely to increase possibilities and alternatives. Slowing down decreases reactivity. When we are less reactive, we don’t experience other as difficult or as challenging as we might when we are irked by something they said. We are capable of thinking more creatively about what might be happening. Perhaps the…
manager received new directives and needs to adjust, requiring everyone else to adjust
un-collaborative friend has a competing commitment requiring a strategy alignment
negative friend has low confidence about their abilities or is afraid of making mistakes
critical family member regrets their past actions or errors in judgment, and is struggling to forgive themselves
person who is hard to get along with struggles with themselves, too, habitually blaming others for their sense of powerlessness
The real answer is, you never know. But your judgement of them is rarely the whole story.
Benefits of learning to drive results with others:
This guide will help you to:
understand what makes people tick and how best to manage your own experience with them
learn ways to confidently maintain your boundaries others and resist the urge to attack back
develop strategies to calmly navigate emotionally charged situations
deal with all kinds of people, in a variety of situations
know when to choose your battles, and when to walk away
When confronted by challenge or change, our immediate response is to react. Our first thoughts during our reactions are never our fault. The thoughts racing through our minds are part of our wiring and ways of coping.
Sometime soon, maybe even today, you'll meet someone who disrupts your plans and unsettles your emotions. When this happens, consider the ideas laid out here as potential instructions for learning how to drive results through others more effectively. Managing the minor inconveniences and major stumbling blocks of daily life with less conflict is something we must learn, and practice.
This little guide enables you with all the tools and tactics you need to make your interactions less stressful and more effective.
