Rising Above the Haze of Misplaced Bias
People, Process, Product, and Performance – the often discussed four P’s of business that need to be monitored and improved to keep a business healthy. What doesn’t get a lot of attention are the changes one must go through as they rise in authority and play a different role in the advancement of the four P’s.
Typically someone is promoted because they perform well at a job, not necessarily for how they handled advancing the four P’s. As a company progresses, a clearer track develops for those who want to make a bigger impact with further responsibilities. With company growth, there are inherently more people to choose from for the next internal promotion. So how can someone separate themselves from the field and become the best candidate for advancement?
As you might have guessed, one’s authority should grow because they are able to make a bigger impact on the four P’s. Should a person who is not predisposed to improve their people be put in charge of more of them? Should a person be promoted to lead a process if they are not inclined to refine it? This simple scrutiny can quickly remove the shroud of a justifiable but incorrect decision. Developing people and processes will improve performance. People should be promoted because of their ability to do so.
I’ve kept paper mills in business with all I’ve written about mutual respect and recipient based communications. They play important roles in development. In selecting future leaders and managers we need to consider what are some situations we expect someone to face and do they have the respect for others and can they meet people where they are at. Invariably some of the most difficult challenges a manager will have are the pivots points they encounter when they realize the inadequacy of their old decisions or point of view. Things they so passionately defended now can seem so silly. Are they going to point fingers and keep on the same track they were? Are they going to become paralyzed when they see how wrong they were? I hope they choose the third option – the one where they use this fertilizer for self doubt to grow their perspective to become less critical of others.
But we do not need to crash into our own self-righteous judgment when the management spotlight is upon us. We can begin building the habit of taking an inquisitive approach to the items that we disagree with right now. We can focus some efforts on prevention rather than using so much energy in the reactive world of relief.
