I wanted to reflect back upon is that the discussion that myself and Irina had.
Actually, was one that was probably quite different really to the other podcast episodes that we've had...
Click here to Listen to Irina’s Interview.
The key difference really here was that as Irina settled into the actual interview, I think she became more confident and she became more the real Irina.
As she became more of that, actually she was more prepared to be the strong voice that she is.
And I think that was refreshing in terms of actually when you are having discussions with people and you know it's going to be publicized and people are going to be listening.
I think it's really easy just to agree for the sake of agreement and maybe in the early stages of that interview, maybe that's what Irina did.
But certainly, as we reached towards the end, Irina was actually very forthright in terms of actively disagreeing with me and I thought that was wonderful and amazing.
I think it opened the fact of one, she was prepared to be the leader that she is. It was great for you guys in terms of the listeners, just to be able to look in and go, “Actually, there isn't just one right way.”
Irena at any point wasn't saying,
But “Actually Ian, this is what I believe to be.”
But also, then I can go but Irina, this is what I believe to be right. And I think this is the great thing about business and about life and about leadership and about being successful is...
there's more than one right way.
Right?
There are clearly some defined wrong ways, like
You can have an ideal customer, which possibly alienates the non-ideal, but you can't alienate all of them.
You must treat people with respect.
There's some key concept within not being wrong, but in terms of being right, there's multiple ways of doing it.
I mean I had a key point about liberating structures and all that sort of stuff.
I think sadly, we probably still live in a culture or a time where female leaders, female people with a voice are probably still relatively in the minority.
I think that's relatively sad.
I think there's some great differences between how a male mind works and how a female mind works.
And I think the fact that we're taking a lot of our leadership, certainly historically from the male influence, it's probably missing out on a lot of areas.
In my opinion, I think females probably tend to be more socially aware and more emotionally connected.
And I think in terms of somebody who's there to lead people, it probably brings far more value in that respect.
So I think the fact that Irina is prepared to stand up and she's not doing in a confrontational way to go in
“I don't agree.”
“You are wrong. “
She's just going, “Hang on, I see what you are saying. But actually, I think like this and there's some real great value in terms of that exchange.”
So, what can we take from that and what can we learn?
And I think it's when you are looking to grow and develop and move forward, I think it's really easy when you are having collaboration with maybe other business owners that maybe you are masterminding with or maybe that you've got your team when you are having conversations and everything about with them about growth and development or maybe even your senior leadership team.
When you're looking at the next stages or maybe you've got business partners and you're looking at where the business is going.
Agreement is great, and maybe that's what you need to.
You need to finalize and finish on is some area of agreement of how you're going to move forward, but actually some element of disagreement and having different views and different angles is going to bring out the best ways to move forward in terms of Business.
When we are creating plans and strategies of how we're moving forward towards our long-term targets, most of those discussions we are looking for the people that have views necessarily that disagree.
Many a times actually, is this meant that we've not gone down a bit of a rabbit hole or a bit of a problem area because it's all very well when somebody comes up and you go, “Great” right?
What we should do? We should launch new product or new service X and straight away everyone's like, “Yeah, this is amazing!”, right?
But actually, that presence of mind of somebody who maybe has got that niggling down and goes,
“I don't really know where this is coming from, but I'm concerned about this or I think maybe it should be like this instead.”
I think it just causes everybody maybe to just stop in their tracks, and this is where maybe if you are the leader and that's what you are getting back, don't shoot that down.
Encourage that if it's done with love and care, because actually we want to move in the right direction.
View it that way.
Explore that and go, “Okay, tell me more. Yeah, I'm intrigued. I want to know because actually it's a whole lot easier if we figure this out right here in this room in this discussion and decide whether this is or is not a great way to go.”
Then actually what we do is you stay quiet; you don't voice your opinion.
In 6 months' time we learned that this wasn't the right way to go and that we've now got problems and challenges off the back of it.
And actually, you've got one person probably sitting there thinking, “I saw this happening.”
Or they even worse, maybe they chirp up and they go, “I thought this was going to happen.”
And maybe that's not worse.
Maybe that is great if that's a starting point and they go, “I saw this was going to happen”, then actually you can go, “Great. Why didn't you say, how do we make this an environment that we do say?”
And maybe that's a great starting point for your business. Now, maybe it's a great idea to go and get into a bit of a quick meeting and discussion and just go,
“Can we just look at all the problems and challenges that we've currently got within the business where we're frustrated and then just go being open and honest and being clear that you're not going to get shot down for this?”
Who here had a feeling when we started on this little journey of this area that where there's a problem?
Who had a feeling that the current problems and pain points that we're experiencing was a possibility?
The inquisitiveness that it deserves and the respect that should be there and then make it safe for that person and for other people to raise such things in the future.
Because actually, if you can stop chasing after things that don't work or you can make tweaks to something that you are going to be doing that mean that you don't feel all these major pain points, you're going to make progress far quick.
I think if I go back to some of the early stages in terms of my leadership, that I think that was very much the case.
We didn't do that. We just came up with a new idea. We'd try it.
And we'd go, “Oh, that failed.”
But everybody was on when we went, “Right. Great. We're going to launch this service or we're going to do this instead.”
People were like, “Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Let's do it.”
Over a period of time, we're much more. We sort of go, “Right, this is the idea that's come forward now tell me everything of why we should not do it because I want to know”.
Like if I'm the person who's come up with this idea and I'm putting the idea forward; I'm putting the idea forward because I think it's a good idea. That means I've probably been one sided in terms of what I've thought.
I now need that checkpoint to go,
“Hang on, Ian. Hitting yourself that this was a great idea because our minds are great at doing that. So then let's have a sense check”
and I want to hear all these things that go,
“Yeah, but that could go wrong.”
or
“but what if we change this and that would stop that happening?
And that person goes, “Yeah, okay. I can see how that could work.”
Eventually what we come is a great idea that we can launch forward.
Or I can't defend it and go, “Oh yeah, that is a concern. Okay, so maybe that's the reason why I shouldn't do. Have we got any other reasons why we shouldn't do it?”
And we keep going and then we go, “Okay, right. Great. If we've got all these reasons why we shouldn't do it, what are the reasons why we should?”
And we just try and get that balanced argument and look at both sides of the fence. And I think that being able to be stand up, be heard, be counted, have a voice, not necessarily always just be in agreement.
I just feel like you're going to move forward a whole lot faster and quicker with less pain and less challenges than if you act and you think later.
Thanks so much and hopefully you can take that thought away from you and it helped.
Just leverage and, and move yourself forward.
