Leadership Viewpoint

Determination is a trait that makes us crazy when we deal with it in others; yet every successful person has a healthy dose of it! Think about a determined child – how do they behave? Repeatedly going after the one thing that they are not supposed to have? Relentlessly asking for the toy that’s too expensive? Mercilessly poking their sibling until they get a rise out of him or her? In our efforts to encourage children to behave in socially acceptable ways, we sometimes go too far. Some kids wind up caving in completely and applying that learned behavior to all aspects of their life. Of course, that is rarely what the parents had intended. Different children respond differently to similar parental feedback, so one child may become passive, while his or her sibling may actually become even more determined.

Our workforce is comprised of these children, albeit a few years later, and whatever conditioning their parents did is ours to contend with, or reap the benefits of, today. Can we change their level of determination at this stage of life? The answer, of course, is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The odds of influencing a largely passive adult and turning him or her into an assertive, determined performer are slim. It is rare to see wholesale changes in people. More realistically, we can expect to see refinements in the behavior patterns that are typically exhibited. Think back to a parent conditioning a child. The key to altering behavior then was consistent feedback. Guess what? It still is!

This means that far more than annual reviews is needed. First, we need to hire people with the basic attributes the position demands. Then, to successfully mold our team, we need to provide each person with consistent feedback about our expectations, their current behavior and the gaps as we see them. Just as important, we must also consistently tell them where they excel, to reinforce their positive behavior. Just as it was with children, individuals will respond differently to feedback, so we must alter our feedback accordingly. It is, perhaps, the most important work that any leader does. After all, if we take care of and groom our people, they will take care of the business.

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