A New Type Of Strategy For Succeeding Post Pandemic Requires Right Brain Thinking

Business owners are experiencing challenges like never before in history. Recruiting good talent, holding on to them and getting engagement from teams is the hot topic since the pandemic.

There are a lot of theories rolling around out there, many assumptions being made and downright blaming. The real problem hasn't been pinpointed until recently. Gallup did the homework, the research to uncover what is driving all of this struggle in the business sector.

In 2022 Gallup uncovered a paradox in one of their studies. They found that recognition and praise increases engagement of team members. Meaning an increase in retention and positive regard for the organization. The paradox is that only 19% of leaders polled had included forms of praise and recognition as part of their strategic initiative.

Isn't this representative of what happens?... and it isn't intentional or mean spirited. It is just a lack of awareness of HOW to lead or in Blaine Bartlett's words,  co-create coordinated movement within the ranks.

You see, humans love left brain strategies when it comes to goal setting. We will hit "X" by doing this and doing that. It is all a mathematical equation of things to do. All left brain work. The left side of the human brain is linear and logical. It is great at calculations and formulas. It is so easy to make hitting goals all about the "doing."

However, in today's business landscape, it is not a left brain solution. We are having to go creatively multi-dimensional. Meaning to strategize from a perspective of right brain co-creating coordinated movement. The old paradigm of command and control no longer works, well maybe in the military and that is only because your next move can literally mean life or death. Today's focus is on developing strategies that cause your people to engage not only each other, but your clients and potential clients as well.

The problem is there is no one solution that motivates all humans. However, there is the one need that humans have in common and that is to feel heard and cared about. Only one in four employees globally feels as if their opinion matters. Wow. What might become possible if the leaders listened and acknowledged what they heard?

As a veteran, I know that the higher level ranks relied upon the information we were sending to them so they could strategize the next move. If they just developed a strategy and commanded that we follow it no matter what we were seeing on the front, that would have been insane and deadly. Course corrections have to be made along the way, new ways of engaging implemented, and a lot of thinking outside the box sometimes. Sometimes autonomous thinking had to be engaged due to sudden shifts.

How much autonomy do your people feel? They are on your front lines everyday seeing the needs (and those vary) of your customers. Do you trust them and do they know you trust them? Do they trust that you will let them accel and take care of the customer to the best of their ability? Your team members are seeing the needs of your customers and that can mean huge opportunities for growth.

Getting clear on the strategies that co-create coordinated movement within your organization will take you to the goals and vision you have set with far more peace and ease than the left brain strategies we have been setting for over one hundred years. Humans have evolved. Business has evolved. The world of psychology brings information that business owners need to grow and thrive.

Developing a strategic cultural framework helps you see the systems and processes necessary to support growth in the coming years. Actually implementing said strategy invites you the leader, to step up your game as a human. This is the exciting part because when business leaders step up their game in a way that truly causes people to trust and WANT to engage, transformation begins to spread.

Leadership isn't just communication strategies, number strategies or systems and processes. TRUE leadership requires all of that AND a willingness to sharpen the edge in ways not approached before.

By the way, trust is the number one reason people follow and people purchase. Do you trust you? Do your people trust you? If you haven't taken a look at what is happening in your own company lately and make the assumption that the answers are, "YES!" I invite you to look deeper. You may be quite surprised at how you are holding your company back from it's true potential.

If you are ready to build a three to five year strategy that includes the cultural framework to get there easily...I invite you to look at the upcoming Culture and Communication workshop on January 25 & 26. You can join us virtually or live on site.

Learn more here...