Jun 09
26
Model limit-busting in your own life. If you want your team members to raise their own performance expectations, you must be able to show them you are willing to take risks and challenge performance limits in your own life.
To model limit-busting for your team, do the following:
1. Set challenging goals for your performance. During the next month, create a wall chart for tracking your personal performance in a selected area and include on the chart a clearly delineated performance goal. Share your goal with your team, and be honest in conveying your progress toward the goal. If you find that to reach your goal you have to put in additional effort or modify your procedures, share this with your team. When your team sees that you are testing your own limits, it will be more willing to follow suit.
2. Use the language of success. I’ve found that the language you use shapes your personal perception of the world. If you use words that convey powerlessness and hopelessness, you weaken yourself. On the other hand, language can be used to empower yourself and strengthen your team.
3. Volunteer to temporarily perform the jobs of your team members. This technique provides a number of benefits.
First, it shows employees that you are trying to see through their eyes the problems and difficulties they encounter on a daily basis.
Second, if you aren’t well acquainted with the jobs they perform, this approach shows that you are willing to shift, when needed, from the role of skilled expert to novice. It shows your team that you are willing to deal with the uncertainty of working outside your comfort zone.
