Starting idea: Core skills make effectiveness easier

Author: Dave Crisp

23 Jan

The goal of this blog is to illustrate just one simple observation with examples and wide-ranging references: that to be effective at leadership or "people skills and strategies" (including formal human resources and business strategies) requires practice with just five key concepts that become five dependable core habits (or as we often call good habits: skills).

To avoid suspense, here they are:
1. be positive (building confidence shouldn’t be hard, but takes many people a lot of practice),
2. be honest (the greatest failing of many otherwise excellent leaders, especially isolated CEOs!),
3. choose a strategic direction (by asking yourself how 1 and 2 combine logically at the same time
to form a direction to take you from where you are now [your reality] to your goal),
4. build habits/skills slowly and steadily through practice so you progress based on this direction
5. keep these in sight and in balance, aligned with other your other strategies… until two things
happen – you build momentum and these become automatic, almost unconscious habits.

Each of these five habits can be developed by anyone. Everyone can lead, lead life successfully and use these positive skills to achieve more than they ever dreamed both at work and in the rest of their lives. If we can show people how, they can change the world for the better at every level.

I learned this over seven interesting careers and jobs in different industries, all involving helping people develop skills, usually the skills to manage, lead or deal with other people. Throughout the 14 years I headed Human Resources for a national retail chain with 70,000 people, developing nearly 4500 managers and executives, I found myself explaining these skills over and over. Over time you find simpler ways to see them and explain them. This is it. Now I pass them on to audiences of all sorts through my public speaking, coaching and strategy consulting business.

When you need to make moment-to-moment decisions dealing with people, as leaders always must, you need a manageable mental picture of what to do.

Once these five skills become automated as habit they can be applied virtually without hesitation in almost every single situation you encounter.

Through trial and error, I saw how I could develop confidence and show others how to as well – confidence that anything is achievable, given a reasonable amount of time. Anything any person can do is something any one of us could do with enough time – and it’s usually far less time than we ever imagine!

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