Everything you do has an impact of some sort…as will everything you choose not to do!
You only have to look around the world at our political leaders to see evidence of the impact of decisions on the population and our environment. I’ve seen an increase of criticism of our political leaders during this pandemic, which is not surprising when there is an increase of fear.
Whilst it’s very easy to criticise others for not thinking things through, making hasty decisions, focusing on themselves, not incorporating expert advice, defending their mistakes instead of learning from them and anything else we don’t like in our politicians…how often are we making those very same mistakes?
Fortunately, your decisions don’t impact the entire population but have the potential to be devastating to an individual in your team, your entire sales team and most certainly on the results you achieve.
How often do you reflect on the impact of your actions?
When your impact is good you can take credit for good decision making. It’s a different story when your action or lack of action has a negative impact…especially as the impact isn’t always obvious.
Sometimes it’s easy to observe because you get an immediate reaction. Sometimes the impact isn’t noticed till later. The toughest one…sometimes you never find out the impact you have created because the person or persons affected are no longer in the business.
How to assess?
To really get a handle on your impact you will need to measure all the results that occur in your team. Yes, every result…good and bad.
For each one ask yourself the following questions:
- What part did I play in co-creating this result?
- What were the specific actions I took?
- What actions should I have taken but avoided?
- What actions should I have taken if I’d have had greater situational awareness?
- What will I do differently going forward?
The more detail you go into the better. You really have to dig up all the dirt to get the best out of this exercise.
If you find you had no input in co-creating a good result then this could be a great example of your team doing the right things…celebrate 😊
If you had no input in co-creating a poor result then you might want to spend more time on questions 3, 4 and 5. This could be a sign of avoidance or abdication ☹
If you start blaming others, this is certainly a sign that you are in The Valley!
This takes time
You won’t be able to assess your impact immediately as you’ll have to measure the results over time but at some stage, you’ll notice that you are making better decisions that result in greater success for you and your team.
Until next time,
