CEOs around the world turn to Dr. Tommy Weir for trusted leadership advice on how to become the best they can be and how their organisations can achieve rapid growth. His books include: Leadership Dubai Style: the habits to achieve remarkable success, 10 tips for Leading in the Middle East, which was voted the #2 best book of 2014 by the Wall Street Journal’s Readers Poll, Going Global, The CEO Shift as well as The Cheeseburger Theory and other leadership observations.
Since founding the Emerging Markets Leadership Center (EMLC), Dr. Weir has helped over 3,000 executives from more than 80 nationalities achieve peak performance
In one of his recent blogs, Dr Weir discusses management’s tendency to focus on what is wrong with an idea as opposed to seeking an idea that is going to make the company perform even better and deliver greater results.
[no_blockquote text=”Why is it so easy to say what’s wrong with an idea? Listening to the managers philosophize about why their plans couldn’t work made me wonder, “If they spent the same amount of time talking about how it could happen instead of how it couldn’t, how much more would they accomplish?”. There’s a litany of reasons why people focus on why something won’t work or what could go wrong, ranging from fear of ability to deliver, not knowing what to do, avoidance of further accountability or simply not wanting to do more.” show_border=”yes” show_quote_icon=”yes”]
Dr Weir goes on to say that this results in a lack of action, change in behaviour and therefore a stagnation in the movement of the company. It is ultimately a total waste of time, energy and resources.
Instead, Dr Tommy Weir argues, ‘you should be asking, “How can this work?” That question forces you to face, and deal with, the fact that something can go wrong or not happen, but crucially, it keeps you focused on the goal: a solution.
Solution-oriented leaders focus their teams rather than allowing them to control the direction. Remember: where you look, they’ll go…
Even the most seasoned leaders can get distracted by what’s happening around them and what their teams are saying. But, you need to stay focused if you want your team to be focused too.
When your team tries to place obstacles in the way of an idea, redirect them to the right path and ask, “Given that reality (assuming it is), how are we going to accomplish our goal?”’
A recent interview with leadership coach Tommy Weir:
To read the blog in full, click here
Or to read Tommy Weir’s speaker profile, click here