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How
culture can block your development
- Everyone
says it: ''My boss should be on this course.''
- It's
like going on a diet in a family of committed heavy eaters.
- But
if you wait until others change, you might never develop.
- Regardless
of how much others fail us, we can always ask ourselves: ''What can
I do differently anyway?''
- Focusing
on what others are not
doing is a dead end.
Example
1:
- Suppose
you want to empower your staff a lot more but your boss is a micro-manager,
insisting on your knowing details.
- How
can you manage your boss to keep yourself from looking over your team
members' shoulders?
- What
can you negotiate so you both meet your needs?
- Can
you arrange regular reporting dates and formats?
- Break
down your boss's generalized demand for instant data across
the board into priorities and timeframes for different issues.
- Find
out which things are most time sensitive and negotiate a way of helping
your boss get what he/she needs without you having to sacrifice your
empowerment plans.
Example
2:
- Your
competitive culture makes team work challenging and you want to foster
more team work across the organization.
- Instead
of a blanket attack on the culture, can you form a few key partnerships
with colleagues who see mutual benefits for doing so?
- It's
easy to fall into the trap of making blanket judgements instead of
focusing on what we can do to get around obstacles.
- If
your partnerships pay off, you will show leadership to others.
In general,
rather than see your culture as a problem, can you see it as a leadership
opportunity for you? Regardless of how your culture blocks your development,
see how you can work
with the culture so both you and it meet your needs - more productive
than fighting against it.
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