Improve Your Team by Leading Inside the Box

The phrase “think outside the box” makes me physically ill.  It’s trite and isn’t at all applicable.  But inside the box?  That’s where great leaders go to get more out of their teams.  You can too with a simple assessment tool that provides insights as to how to most effectively lead the unique members of your team.

Preface: I’m an idiot.  My friend and fellow thoughtLEADERS instructor Victor Prince hoodwinked me into co-authoring a new book: Lead Inside the Box – How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results.  It comes out in July (but is available for pre-order! CLICK HERE to reserve your copy).  The premise is you need to evaluate the amount of output you get from a team member and compare that to the amount of time and energy you have to invest in them to get it.  We call that second piece “leadership capital.”

The result of those comparisons is the Leadership Matrix (or “the box” for short).  Within that matrix, we define behavioral archetypes from Slackers to Rising Stars and everything in between.  The real insight lies in practical advice on how to lead those folks to improve their performance.  By understanding the behaviors your team members will demonstrate and how you invest (or don’t invest) your time and effort into them, you’ll get a clearer picture of the 8 archetypical behaviors that can show up in the box.  With that understanding, you can begin leading differently which will improve your performance.  Those archetypes are as follows:

Exemplars can be categorized based upon their career aspirations. Some Exemplars want their great performance to provide them a stepping stone to larger roles and responsibilities. These are the “Rising Stars.” Other Exemplars are content remaining in their current roles. They’re experts and they’re satisfied with delivering outstanding results without much interference from their boss. These individuals are the “Domain Masters.”

Detractors are defined by the root cause of their performance issues. Some don’t have the skills they need to do their job. These individuals are the “Square Pegs.” We call Detractors who have the skills to do the job but they lack the will to do it the “Slackers.”

High Cost Producers break into subtypes based on the kinds of costs they incur. Some get results but at the high cost of damaging team morale and destroying the goodwill you and your team have accrued with others. These individuals are the “Steamrollers.” High Cost Producers who get results but require an inordinate amount of hand-holding from their leader to get them done are the “Squeaky Wheels.”

Passenger subtypes are determined by the kind of output they produce. Some only work to get their paycheck. They expend the bare minimum amount of effort required to keep getting paid. These are the behaviors of your “Stowaways.” Other Passengers exert a great deal of energy but they focus on tasks they want to do, not tasks you need them to do. We refer to Passengers behaving this way as “Joyriders.”

To make it easy for you to evaluate your team, we built an easy (and slick!) assessment online.  You can use it to categorize your team member’s behavior and get practical advice on how to lead them.  CLICK HERE to take the assessment.  Let us know what you think of the method – we’d love to get your feedback!

We’re excited to bring this new book to market.  Reserve your copy now so our publisher (Career Press) knows how many to print in the first run and you’ll get it shipped to you as soon as it’s available!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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