PART 2 – Did you focus enough on the heart, and tapping into emotional intelligence to review your strategy?

Last Ferocious Warmth musings I asked you to consider some strategic reset questions for a mid-year reflection on where you were heading.

These questions were to provoke debate, the sharing of different perspectives and the unearthing of some unknown or undiscussed insights into your path forward.

As quick as a flash when the Linkedin Newsletter went out, an old friend and wise, wise man Rod, came back to me with:

‘These are great tips and I certainly affirm them, yet I’d say one of the great unanswered questions is what is the cost of the impact of our goal? Are we thinking about the impact on people and the human costs in decision making?’

Quick as a flash I sent back (paraphrasing):

Yes, yes, yes, that is what part 2 next newsletter is all about!

Why? Because it can be easy to stay too cognitive when looking at your strategic goals. This is where we can typically head to first. While this is important, it can miss the human element of change and new directions. Bringing in our emotional intelligence skills of emotional awareness and management of others brings in the balance needed to understand our barriers, commitment and success.

Some of the questions posed in the last newsletter (you’ll find them further down this article) gave a good opportunity to head further into the space of understanding what was going on for people when being faced with change, new initiatives, new directions – if you were courageous about delving deeper. My encouragement to you is to not stay shallow, or too cognitive, move into the heart space of really understanding where people are.

Ferocious Warmth encourages us to be prepared to be vulnerable and explore areas of discomfort and to hear things we may not want to hear.

Here are some deeper dives that we should take when assessing where we are at:

The first two are Rod’s further suggestions:

How have our teams felt about the changes/direction we have taken positives/challenges/negatives?

What cost have the changes/ directions brought – are these acceptable costs?

Here’s where you could take the questions I posed in the last newsletter to a deeper level:

1) Are we still clear on our ‘why’ for each of our strategic goals? Do we know exactly why we are heading down this course?

Does everyone have this same clarity? Have we afforded everyone the space and time to discuss and raise their insights and perspectives? Have we considered them properly?

2) What are we expecting things to look like by the end of the year?

Are people closely involved in this work also on board with this? Have we had these clarifying discussions?

3) Where do we need to have some rigorous debate as to where a goal is heading or tracking? Are people feeling psychologically safe to raise issues and concerns?

How aligned are these goals to the values we stand by?

4) Are we measuring the right things? Are our actions taking us to the right endpoint?

This a perfect place to ask AND ACT on Rod’s questions above.

5) Are we nourishing our relationships? Are there any misunderstandings brewing that need to be discussed?

A question that already requires courage and vulnerability.

6) Are we resourcing this work appropriately? Time, budget, empathy and understanding, professional development?

Make sure you’ve hit the cognitive AND emotional insights here.

7) Are we being flexible in our plans, experimenting and analysing our impact? Are we open if our findings suggest we change course slightly?

Do we listen to other people’s ideas, concerns, barriers and enablers?

8) Where do people need more structure, or less to move the goal forward?

What do people need from us in general? Are we understanding their needs?

This is a great heart question. Empathy and non-judgement are the key ingredients here. How healthy is the professional culture? Is it giving us momentum, or are we stuck?

9) What are we doing to support the continued connection?

Have we celebrated what has been achieved so far? Have we acknowledged the shift, the challenges and the growth?

10) Do people feel valued and seen in the work they have been doing to achieve our goals?

To help you for this one, I ask you to connect feeling valued to a feeling of belonging.

My friend and colleague, executive coach Maree McPherson OAM posted some brilliant insights in her ‘Letters to Leaders’ newsletter a week ago about belonging:

‘When our need to belong is unmet, we leak energy and focus by obsessing on the unsafe environment and relations around us. There is no performance benefit in that.

When our need to belong in a team is met, our energy and focus pour into the team’s shared mission. We can lock into our role and the tasks we are being asked to deliver. We are comfortable being vulnerable in our quest to get better. We feel secure enough to help others and point out where we could be better as a team.’

Are people locked into their contribution to the mission and feel they belong to the team?

So how did you go? If you are investing the time to dig deep around your progress, did you visit both the head and the heart?

Love to hear how you went.