Increased clarity is the best option for improving profits, performance, and engagement. The reason more leaders aren’t pursuing greater clarity is they don’t recognize the lack of clarity that permeates their organizations and consumes their profit. A good part of that problem starts with the belief that they themselves are clearer than they really are. Where do you stand?
Of all the corporate certificates I’ve ever received, the one I’ve valued above all others is the one that reads “The Person Most Likely To Dispute Recognized Authorities.” I received this honor for my relentless questions about the evidence and conclusions presented from studies by PhDs representing venerable institutions such as Harvard and Stanford. Looking back, I suppose I was completely exasperating.
We have been trained from our earliest school days to produce the right answer. Math tests, spelling tests, grammar tests, science tests, foreign language tests – every test you have ever taken involved producing right answers. Far more often than not, those answers were black and white. You were either right or wrong. Maybe you got some extra points for effort, but wrong was still wrong.
Contrary to everything you’ve heard or experienced, debating pros and cons is not the way to make a decision! As with many practices—practices like SWOT and the pursuit of low-hanging fruit—just because it’s common doesn’t mean it is effective. So here is the problem.
I just did it myself. I jotted down my top priorities on one of the 5×7 pads I keep handy. My goal was to help me stay focused on the top few things I definitely wanted to finish today. Choosing those top few priorities is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong. But it was a mistake.
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed by the staff of Boston Voyager Magazine. The resulting story was published on May 15th, 2018; “Meet Ann Latham of Uncommon Clarity® in Southern NH“.
Before I started Uncommon Clarity in 2004, I read Alan Weiss’ book Getting Started in Consulting. Any independent professional, whether consultant, painter, lawyer, or something else is in the marketing business first and foremost. Hanging a shingle on the proverbial door might let you call yourself a consultant, but it doesn’t let you practice it.
The human experience is paved with failed promises, mistakes, omissions, bad luck, and scary new situations. The consequences range from immediate regret to crippling anxiety. The situations run the gamut from saying something stupid to your supervisor to being asked to speak to a large audience to discovering your new house is threatened by rising seas after signing the papers at closing.
If you are blind to improvement opportunities, you will never improve. How blind are you? Let’s look at the evidence. Here are 10 signs that you can’t see the enormous opportunity before you to improve productivity, profits, and engagement:
Agreement, as well as progress, starts with objectives. We will never agree on alternatives if we can’t agree on objectives. In other words, we will never agree on a route if we can’t agree on a destination! Thus, objectives are what we should be debating, not alternatives. Case in point: Gun control. The gun control debate is impossible largely because everyone is arguing about alternatives before agreeing on objectives. Here are just some of those alternatives: