Business Success - You're twice as smart as you think: Here's a meeting to prove it

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You're twice as smart as you think: Here's a meeting to prove it

Chris Lytle, CSP, Author of The Accidental Salesperson

Futurist Alvin Toffler has updated Sir Francis Bacon's famous quote. Toffler tells us, "Knowledge about knowledge is power." Unfortunately, your management style can cut you off from vital knowledge, severely limiting your power.

A GM or market manager must have a general knowledge about every phase of the operation. However, you can no longer be an expert on any phase. "Experts" are people who know more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing.

The subtitle of James Belasco and Ralph C. Stayer's book, The Flight of The Buffalo, contains a powerful clue to what it takes to succeed as a leader. "Learning to Soar--Letting Employees Lead." One of the hardest things for leaders to learn is that they don't have to dominate a meeting, even if they called it.

We know that leadership styles are infectious. Therefore, if you run your department-head meeting by doing most of the talking, your department heads will do likewise. You're the role model, so set a better tone.

"Good one-way communication in organizations is not possible. Good communication must be two-way," Russell L. Ackoff writes in Management in Small Doses.

Here is an eye-opening meeting that will provide you with lots of knowledge and therefore more power. Call a department-head meeting. Ask each department head to create a list of at least ten specific things that would help them or their people do their jobs better. Then post them on flipcharts.

The only rule is that they must talk about what they want instead of what they don't want. Consider leaving the room for fifteen minutes while they build their lists. Next, have the department heads tell you about each item on their list and why it's important.

Sit and listen. Take notes. Ask them to isolate their top three ideas. Ask, "What would be the consequences of doing that? What would be the costs?" Listen some more.

Finish off the meeting by creating action steps for implementing the ideas. One of the action steps may be a meeting with you.

Book a follow-up meeting to discuss which action steps they have taken and how they worked.

Finally, ask your department heads how it felt for them to run most of the meeting, to have someone listen to them and act on their ideas. When they tell you how much better this meeting was than the last few, urge them to run the same meeting with their subordinates. Explain that, just like them, their salespeople care about the company and would like a say in how it should be run. Explain that until they ask their team for input and listen to it, they are losing good ideas.

Once your department heads see you sharing control of your meetings, they might take your cue and share control in their meetings.

By sharing power and tapping into the knowledge of your subordinates, you can gain power. Since you can't be an expert at every phase of your operation, you must become an expert at letting others lead.

This news arrived on: 12/10/2008

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