Only 9 Minutes of Planning on Monday

from Recorded Books.com 6/15 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

The Audio book “Nine Minutes on Monday” by James Robbins, focuses on some simple, but important themes:
– Your success as a leader is ultimately dependent upon your ability to engage your people.
– You significantly engage people when you show people you care for them, help them gain a sense of personal mastery, provide recognition & help them have a sense of purpose in what they are doing.
– You strengthen this engagement by: 1) providing them with a sense of autonomy, personal growth & connection with others, 2) providing them with an environment where a sense of play and appropriate humor is permitted, & 3) demonstrating what is required through your own example.
– You set yourself up for success each week by taking a few minutes (ie, 9) every Monday morning to reflect on how you can help your team in each of these areas during the coming week.
To elaborate just a little on why these 9 areas need your attention, consider the following points made in the book:

1. Care: Your ability to lead & influence is directly related to how much trust your employees have in you.
2. Mastery: When you can provide moments of mastery for employees, you will see a dramatic surge in effort, persistence & motivation.
3. Recognition: When you recognize employees in a way that increases their perception of their value, you ignite fires of loyalty & increased effort.
4. Purpose: When you tap into purpose, members of your staff will engage emotionally with their work.
5. Autonomy: When employees feel a sense of autonomy, they work harder, persist longer in the face of obstacles, think more flexibly & creatively, when solving problems and enjoy their work more.
6. Growth: most Employees put a premium on growth; they know they must continually improve in today’s market.
7. Connection: Understanding social dynamics is essential for a manager. You need to create sticky teams and ensure team morale is maintained.
8. Play: Fun & laughter are important tools for inspiring higher levels of engagement & trust.
9. Model: The top leaders of the world know what to model and when – different times require different examples to be set.
10. Trust. As a Leader, you also need to understand that the currency you deal in is trust. Without trust, there is no influence and people’s performance will always fall short of their potential; with trust, you have leverage to move people to action. He goes on to describe three primary sources of trust: character, competence & caring. [Bonus]

The Power of Leadership. Many ideas are provided along the way to enrich your perspective about what leadership & management are all about and where & how you might focus your attention. For example, the Author makes the point that no-one has the potential to impact your direct reports as much as you do. This is the principle of weighted relationships and means that there is a type of invisible force in play that lends weight to your words and actions. It’s a power that shouldn’t be underestimated or lightly regarded.

Lessons. To highlight the points he makes throughout the book, James provides a number of lessons from history (ie, the cost of poor training of radar operators at Pearl Harbor), some classic research (ie, the Milgram experiment, Herzberg’s theory of motivation & Mihaly’s theory of flow) and a wealth of findings from various other research surveys.

A Peak experience. He also weaves through the book a number of tales from his mountaineering experiences; for example his attempt to climb Mt Sajama, the highest peak in Bolivia. The lessons presented are relevant to the topic and add a colourful dimension to the reader’s experience.

Step-by-Step. The Author presents “Nine Minutes on Monday” as a system to help you keep focus on the important priorities. It’s not intended as a radical all-at-once change; rather, an approach to transforming your leadership slowly by implementing small steps until the final picture is achieved.

Comments: Is there anything you can add to these principles?