Understanding and embracing complexity
April 2nd, 2007
So often, we are encouraged to overlook a critical reality: that people are complex individuals. No one title or “personality type” is sufficient enough to truly describe someone. The more a leader can recognize and work with complexity, the more good ideas tend to emerge from people (many of which you never would have thought of), including more solutions to sometime complex problems.
Stephen Covey stated in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that we must be efficient with projects, but effective with people. That is, the most “efficient” ways to do things with others (for example, a quick email to someone telling them what to do) are often not the most effective ways to get things done with others (it may take a longer phone call to truly and consistently get the results you are looking for from someone). Recognizing and appreciating your own complexity and the complexity of others is a huge step toward achieving effectiveness with others. Its been our experience that the more we appreciate (or, in Carl Rogers’ terms, the more we “receive” others in their totality) the more loyalty you get back (along with what my colleague Brian Mistler calls “discretionary effort” from individuals).
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Article Filed under: I. WATER (Team/Group Excellence)
1 Comment Add your own
1. Jonathan Branch | December 5th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I had a teacher and we would talk about rich people and highly affective people sometimes in the class. There was an idea that I will never forget. People in the class would say that these highly affective people worked hard to get to where they are today. My teacher would say, ” I don’t feel that way. These people worked SMART, they did not work HARD. And if they did it could have been done much more easily.” This shows that being smart is not only being efficient in projects, but surrounding yourself with a learning oriented environment, and other highly effective people. Reaching this state of wealth (well-being) is best and reached with the least amount of headache by working smart!
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