Three Requests Most Leaders Forget:
• Ask for Forgiveness
• Promise Problems
• Ask for Help
Successful Family Business Leaders remember these three tools. Be open and ask your Team for forgiveness.
Some of the benefits include:
- Creating candor and a willingness to change the status quo and improve.
- It shows you are vulnerable, transparent.
Family business owners need to set the example. Everyone is watching you. You are setting the tone for your business. Everyone is observing you and following what you do. Ask yourself a question, what kind of organization you have when everyone in the organization is just like you? Always imagine you are watched even if no one is watching.
This week many will celebrate Yom Kippur. This day people of the Jewish faith ask for forgiveness from God. The day before Yom Kippur is Erev, Erev Yom Kippur. On this day you must ask forgiveness of people, friends, co-workers, family. You cannot ask forgiveness of God, if you have not asked forgiveness of man.
Small Business owners should promise problems. John Maxwell in his blog wrote,” Once you announce your campaign of change, be honest about the hardships ahead. If your staff doesn’t anticipate problems, they’re going to complain and you’ll lose support. “Remind people of the rewards of change, but don’t gloss over the difficulties,” he says. “The nature of change is that things get worse before they get better.” He also reminds family business owners to remember …” the 20-50-30 principle.
“As a rule of thumb, 20 percent of your people will support your efforts to initiate change, 50 percent will be undecided, and the remaining 30 percent will resist you,” he writes. He suggests not wasting your time trying to convert non-believers–it’ll only backfire and make them resist you even more. Instead, court the 50 percent who are undecided and use the 20 percent to help convince them that your effort to drive change is positive.”
Small to mid-cap firms, family owned or privately held firms leaders may be wise to ask for help. Often we think of ourselves as problem solvers, good leaders provide over sight, resources and others to help. Leaders know they are unfinished, they are meant to do better. That they must continue to learn, try and keep doing better.
Leaders can accomplish great things when they ask for help. They admit there is an issue, first step in solving any problem is admitting there is a problem, defining it.
Asking for help fulfills two of Owners responsibilities, saves problems and builds teams. Building the team is more important than which tool you use.The largest factor determining the effectiveness of root cause seems to be, according to the research, how effective the corrective action team works together. Critical areas seem to be a knowledgeable facilitator, how comfortable the team is challenging assumptions and critically evaluating the direction of the analysis.
Another important factor is including corrective team members from outside the area of focus. Someone not locked into a certain way of thinking can bring a fresh perspective to the root cause analysis, which in turns leads to thinking outside of established patterns. Besides the experience of the team, the type of problem or non-conformance should also play a role in selecting a tool for corrective action.
This week as many celebrate Yom Kippur as owners of Family Businesses we may want to remember to ask forgiveness, promise problems and ask for help in solving problems.
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