The Slight Edge Approach to Effective Team Leadership

This is a written Transcription for the Leadership Hustle episode about The Slight Edge Approach to Effective Team Leadership, from Season 1 Episode 23.

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Andrea Frederickson: Let's face it, most of us work way too hard. Yet how many of us are using the slight edge to get the results we want? In today's episode, we're going to discuss how to work smarter and not quite so hard. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. This is a topic that has gotten so much emphasis or so much attention lately, at least in conversations that I'm having with leaders, leaders of leaders, senior executives. You know, what are you noticing?

Michelle Hill: Um, yes. That people I'm not for sure what I'm noticing yet. We're in the afternoon, but it feels like morning, I don't know. Um, it feels like there's a lot of repetitive things. You know, we. You mentioned the slight edge, which, you know, it's looking at. Are we creating the right habits to help us be successful? And, you know, we we establish habits throughout our day, you know, weeks, months, you know, before we know it, something we started doing now becomes a habit and we don't even realize it. And sometimes that habits taken us down the wrong path, not the positive path. So you know, that reflection on what are the things that I do, how do I get work done, and where do we have inefficiencies like, you know, right. Because that's the problem. It's if we go into communication, it's like how we communicate. We have to put it in three places so everyone gets it or it's.

Andrea Frederickson: Yes, so, so part of the reason that we were we wanted to have a conversation about this topic is that one, there's a lot of companies that are, um, doing trying to do more, trying to get the results, but they're doing it with either less people because either they can't find them or they're having to reduce force or, you know, some other issue is happening because maybe they're growing so fast, but they're just trying to get so much done in these in the same amount of hours or even, you know, trying to extend their hours. And this isn't a new phenomenon. It kind of comes and goes and it goes, you know, peaks and valleys. But it seems as though this topic is really, really prevalent right now because we've become a society where we're reacting to everything and we're we're much, much less intentional. And so when we're reacting to everybody else, we're not really trying to organize or take control of the things that move the needle. So when we use the terms high payoff activity, it's not whether it's a priority or not. In many cases it is a priority, but a high payoff activity is one of those things that literally moves the needle, makes a difference in the results or toward the results that you're trying to get. And every company that we work with is trying to get, you know, financial results. But they want to be, you know, a an employer of choice. They want to have raving fans for customers. They want to meet the expectations that their customers have. Right. And they want the people that are working with them to know how to do the things that they need to do. So it's not like anybody has a different goal than anybody else does know a lot of similar goals. There's a lot of similar goals. How they go about it might be different, right?

Michelle Hill: Correct, correct. And the lack of clarity, though, in those high payoff activities, I think is oftentimes that driver people get. So it's what's on my checklist I have to get done per se versus what are those things that are really important that's going to help the organization as a whole.

Andrea Frederickson: Right. Well, and even is what is on my checklist, it's I have to respond. I have to respond, I have to respond. So I'm responding to whatever communication tool that that is in front of me at the time. But it really isn't identifying, you know, what are the things the planning, the coaching, the keeping people in the loop, the organizing, the preparing, the training people. Those are high payoff activities for every leader. There may be a couple of others that are in a nuance, whether it's, you know, making contacts, you know, creating relationships outside the company. Those are other high payoff activities for for some leaders. But for the most, it is those things that I mentioned. And yet. We don't spend the majority of our time doing those things. We tend to do things that are urgent and important. So we become firefighters in what's going on. So there's a concept called the slight edge. You want to give the audience a little bit more information about like what that slight edge is in our in our definition.

Michelle Hill: Well yeah. When you think about the slight edge, it really is a simple definition. It's it's reflecting on the habits we have that how we get our work done, the things that we do every day. And are we doing it kind of. It goes in two directions. It goes are do we believe and are we doing the things that we need to do to help us be successful, moving us in that direction? Right? Or are do we have habits that maybe are swaying us in the other direction? And a lot of times those habits are blind spots. So we have good intentions. We just don't realize we're we're going down the wrong path. Right? So it's really, really tuning into oneself and recognizing what are those one priorities. And two, what are the things that I'm doing every day that's helping me get there? But also, what am I doing every that's in my way? It's a roadblock because we've got to stop those things and create new habits and start the ones that are going to help us be more productive. But it's very intentional. And these the slight edge concept, it's about little things. People are always looking for the silver bullet. Everything in life, people are looking for a silver bullet. When it comes to working in a business and managing people, there is no silver bullet, right? It's all the day to day little things that we do that help people be successful. And um, that's not going to be something that's really quick. It's it's little things.

Andrea Frederickson: Little things. You know, the idea, you know, that in a sales arena, it's pretty easy for people to recognize a slight edge as one more phone call, setting up one more meeting, you know, one, you know, it's the numbers kind of thing, right? In the day to day leadership kinds of activities, slight edge behavior is. Having a face to face conversation versus an email? Yes. Making sure that you are connecting with the all the people that you work with directly on a weekly basis, or maybe sometimes more frequently, and making sure that they have what they need. That we're removing roadblocks, that they're getting answers to questions that they need in a timely fashion. Those are the slight edge kinds of behaviors. And yet when we when we talk to leaders and we talk to executives. You know, they find themselves telling us, I spend more time answering emails and in dam meetings than I spend, you know, in really coaching and developing people and coaching one on ones, coaching one on ones. You know, we had a previous episode, I was just listening to it this morning, and we were talking about the idea that, you know, we have having too many people that that report directly to us can be a problem because we're not spending time in those high payoff activities, helping them have those conversations, making sure that we're removing roadblocks, how do we challenge them in the areas that really do make a difference for them and or the company versus. We're busy. We're busy answering emails. We're busy sitting in meetings. We're busy doing all these other things. And none of those things are high payoff. And so. In order for us to reduce how hard we work. I think one of the things that we need to stop and think about is taking a moment and recognizing, how are we spending our time. We've mentioned if once if we've mentioned 100 times on this podcast, do a time study and not just a time study on, oh, I'm answering emails or oh, I'm sitting in meetings, but what are you doing in those environments? Correct.

Michelle Hill: Well, and what are you doing all all the time. All the time. It's capturing the big picture.mge

Andrea Frederickson: Right. And so if you do that time study, look at the things that are you spending more time in urgent and important meaning. You have to firefight, you're reacting, you're running, you're frantically doing things with your hair on fire, right? Or are you doing things that are getting you into a proactive mode? How much time are you spending in the proactive, preparing, preventing kind of environment? Correct. Right. So if you were to give us anything else to help spend more time, you know, working smarter, not harder, what other advice would you give our audience besides working on it? Um, important but not urgent activities, making sure that we're spending our time on those specific areas. Doing a time study to see what you can adjust. What other advice are you giving people?

Michelle Hill: Well, kind of going back to that time study. Oftentimes as people get promoted in organizations, they bring with them a lot of their responsibilities they had previously. So that time study is really helpful. So again, leaning back on it, doing a time study after you get into that new role, once you're in that new role, start doing that time study to evaluate, okay, what did I bring with me? I haven't let go of right. And then who do I need to develop and delegate this to and then get in. And one of the things I should be doing and start getting into some of those habits, but then doing another time study six, eight months later, it's it's something that we should have on some sort of frequency just because we get into the groove of doing work, and we don't realize that we're doing certain things that are not as productive as we as we should be.

Andrea Frederickson: Humans are geared toward creating the stability, habitual kinds of things, because most of those times, most of the time, that is efficient, right? Because you don't have to think much about it. But the times where we have to when we stop and think, it's like, now why am I doing it now? I'm just doing it out of rote. Yeah, right. It's like taking the same route one place to another versus like what happens if you do it a little different because there's another better, faster way to do something. And so I really do agree with with that.

Michelle Hill: You know, second though feedback tell me more. Ask ask for feedback. So whether it's your peers or your employees but it's asking them for. So it's well we could actually say asking them for feedback or advice. So if you were me in this new role or if you were me, whatever this may be, what advice would you give me on what I could be better at? What advice can you give me on how you might go about doing this? What feedback can you give me? What are those things that I'm doing or the team is doing that impacts your department in a positive way? And what are the things that our team is doing that impacts your department in a negative way, that maybe it's not helpful, it creates more work, whatever that may be. Right? Because that also helps us identify other habits we have. And how do we make improvements? How do we create some efficiencies. So but I like the concept. I believe it was Adam Grant. I was just reading not too long ago. He flips it because for many years have taken the whole concept of feedback. Ask for feedback, right? And the more often we're asking for it, it makes the conversations flow a lot easier. Um, I'm pretty sure it's Adam Grant. He hate to say that and be wrong, but. But he had a, um, I believe had mentioned advice. Instead of asking for feedback, ask for advice, because again, that feedback is like the four letter word that people just like, ah, fear and every other word. And if we can keep people calm, we want them to feel safe. We want them to be honest and tell us when are we a huge pain in their you know what, right? And so advice ask for advice.

Andrea Frederickson: I've also heard that the phrase you know, what is the impact of finding out what the impact you or they are having on the other person. So it's the impact. It's you know, people really don't want feedback, but they want to know what the impact is and they can adjust, you know, their behavior accordingly. Yeah.

Michelle Hill: Does their impact does the impact align with their intentions. Right. If they don't ask it, they don't realize that maybe it's off.

Andrea Frederickson: Right. So so in this episode we're talking about, you know, we work really, really all of us are working really, really hard. And yet I still question whether we're working smart versus hard. And are we working on the right things because all of us are busy and and with all of that busyness, are we doing the things that are one most important? But also, are we doing the things that give us energy? And if we're not doing the things that give us energy, we don't or we don't get a chance to do some of the things that give us energy, we're depleting and we're draining the energy. And so it makes everything. Thing else, that we do that much harder.

Michelle Hill: And when our energy is drained, we can almost be like that vampire with the people around us. We can. We create the environment. And right if we're. We're drained. We're going to start sometimes draining other people.

Andrea Frederickson: Right? Because we're not being efficient about how we do what we do.

Michelle Hill: We're just our attitude, our how. I mean, how we're delivering and carrying ourself can become a negative if we're not careful. Right.

Andrea Frederickson: So again, this episode is really about taking a step back and saying, am I spending the time on high payoff activities? Am I using my time most efficiently? But also, am I concentrating on things and finding out what are the things that I'm doing that give me energy that don't deplete other people from energy as well? But are we finding out that maybe we're doing things in a way that is, um, you know, having a negative impact on others? And we think, oh, our intentions are good, but it's actually having a negative effect. So concentrate on the slight edge. The slight edge are those 1 or 2 little things can have a huge impact on not only your energy, but your ability to get the results that you're really looking for. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Leadership Hustle, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss another.