Simple Leadership Techniques That Save You Time

Leaders are tired of simply being told to “do better” and instead they hunger for practical and simple guidance on how to do that. Learn some simple techniques for being a better leader and saving time in the process.

Today’s post is part two of a longer interview conducted by Wally Bock. (You can read Part 1 here). Today he interviews Mike Figliuolo about his new book Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Wally Bock: You talk about giving leaders some really simple strategies. Now, I ‘m a little new on your Lead Inside the Box method but I’ve heard in this particular song before. What’s an example of a really simple strategy?

Mike Figliuolo: One example of a simple strategy is we have one archetype called a Squeaky Wheel, which is where you’re investing a lot of leadership capital in them because they’re knocking on your door, asking you questions, and asking for decisions when these are all things they could do on their own. But they’re turning out high results.

Your goal there is to keep getting the same result but spend less time with them. We need to make him more self-sufficient. The strategy we recommend is what we call ‘weaning.’ You should wean them from the amount of support you give. We offer suggestions on how you wean them. Things like ‘Wally is my squeaky wheel and he comes to my office and asks me, ‘hey boss, what do you think?’

One of the simple techniques we advocate is ‘well what am I going to tell you to do Wally?’ Wally replies ‘You’re going to tell me to do this.’ You should then reply ‘Then go do that. You don’t need my guidance here.’

Simple techniques like that that help you understand not only do you need to wean that person from your support but also the simple techniques for doing that. The book is full of those types of simple approaches that are going to change behavior.

WB: I’m pretty sure that it is. I’ve seen the stuff that you write. I’d probably believe that part about ‘lots of practical parts.’

MF: Yeah, I’m a simple guy. I’m a very simple guy. If you can’t read it and go, ‘oh, I know how to go do this right now,’ then I’ve made it too complicated. I’m not into big massive theories. I prefer to make something practical.

WB: I think that’s a piece of it. Another piece that I like in the writing of yours that I’ve seen, and I presume it’s in the book, is that a lot of other stuff I read that’s for managers is not practical advice. It’s exhortation. It’s ‘be fair’, or ‘do the first thing first’ but it doesn’t tell you how to get that done. It sounds like you’re doing the ‘how to get that done’ part.

MF: Yeah, exactly. If I tell you, ‘hey, go be better,’ and I don’t tell you what better looks like in terms of behaviors and how to drive those behaviors, I’ve done you a disservice and you shouldn’t be reading the book. We make sure that the books, blog posts, and the training sessions we conduct – everything that we do – are designed to give you techniques that you can immediately apply.

Let me go back to my military days for a moment. I was a tank platoon leader. If they told me, ‘hey, go shoot bad guys and be more accurate,’ it’s like, awesome! I’d really like to do that but I have no idea how to do it. But when they say ‘you got to boresight your tank by punching in these numbers into the computer and then lining up this sight with that sight and here’s how you do it’ It’s like, ‘oh, I can go be a lot more accurate because now I know the techniques that I need to apply.’

What it all comes down to is thinking about how you’re spending your time and energy then considering the results of that investment. If you’re spending time that isn’t productive, you’re wasting it and frustrating your team in the process.  If people need your investment and you’re not giving it to them, you’re missing an opportunity to make a great investment.

WB: Other than the book is there anything else in terms of available resources, either paid or free, that people should know about?

MF: Yup. My first recommendation is our training at thoughtLEADERS. We run leadership development and training programs and we actually have a training course on the message that we espouse in the book. We offer those programs as keynote presentations too. We’re happy to come work with leadership teams and we also do executive coaching for those who want to apply these methods as well as other leadership strategies. That’s the paid side of things – the training we do.

As far as free resources, I always encourage folks to read our blog. We’ve been writing it for about, eight years now and we’ve got hundreds of articles on there. I write a bunch and I have a bunch of guest authors. There are some wonderful leadership resources there that are absolutely free.

WB: I’ll underline that because you’re on the little ‘must-read list’ of my RSS feed. You’re a pretty good company. Bob Sutton is up there with you with a few other folks that are pretty high caliber.

MF: Thanks, I appreciate it. I really do.

WB: Well, frankly I wouldn’t do the interview if I didn’t know your stuff. That’s not for blog post stuff but that’s true. If I hadn’t read the blog and seen good stuff, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So, you may take it as an endorsement.

MF: Thanks for the kind words and for your time Wally. I really appreciate it.

For an in-depth look at techniques for saving time as you lead all different types of team members, pick up a copy of the book (CLICK HERE to get your copy now) and check out the book’s website. We have a nifty assessment tool there where you can answer a few simple questions about your team members and get clear recommendations on how to lead them more effectively.

In addition to the book, classroom instruction and keynote presentations on the Lead Inside the Box method are available.  Please contact us to arrange for this course to be trained at your organization or to have us come deliver a keynote presentation on the topic at your next event.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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Photo: Untitled by eflon