Some of us who were raised under the Christianity dogma could easily relate to the meaning of the word trinity. As the story goes —for those who’re not aware of—, the holy Trinity is the foundation of our faith to a single Lord, however such unique and holy presence is acquiesced by three divine personas interrelated each other as the Holy Father, the Holy Son and the Holy Spirit.
To me, beyond any religion or belief someone may profess, this concept has to do with the fact that great things in life are achieved from a perspective of team approach, not individually neither in isolation.
No one is self-sufficient, as humans we’re fragile beings who have always been in the need to flock together for survival.
By getting together and living in community, individual weakness turns into group strength. Each individual is called to play a certain role that is particularly in line to a common purpose. Successful groups then might come through further steps like the Systemic approach where each individual is interrelated to each other, so there’s interdependency for the system to function flawlessly and to finally reach its primary purpose: the continuous and sustained success of the system.
So let me utilize the concept of the Trinity to reflect and dive into something that to me it’s certainly one of the biggest challenges for anyone who’s walking the path with the shoes of Management’s Leadership:
—What’s needed to reach and sustain the bottom line as a Manager on a daily basis?—
When you weigh under your shoulders key functions and big responsibilities such as managing processes, resources and mostly people,
my approach for The Trinity’s Principle of the Effective Management will eventually make an impact in your role as a Manager, as long as you deeply internalize and plainly stick to its three core elements.
But before getting ahead, along your career you might relate to people who’s grinding day to day into managing others, but sadly it’s like something vital is missing because in the end, there’s a negative balance between value added and meaning going through those who’re demanding results and mostly, management.
On the other hand, if you’re still an amateur in management matters, like newly promoted to a major role of responsibility where you are accountable for results through other’s performance so you mostly have expectations like growing into the corporate ladder or gradually grow as an entrepreneur by cherishing your own business. But you may have not a clue on how to proceed accordingly…
The Trinity’s Principle of Effective Management:
—Highly effective management is achieved when you are able to provide Direction on the path that is traced to sustained success, through the creation of Strategies that serve as a baseline for the execution of an Operation that is reliable, because it is a win-win for everyone—.
In any case my reflection is, there’s just a few people who master these three approaches for effective management:
- The first approach: Providing Direction
- The second approach: Creating a Strategy
- The third approach: Executing the Operation
PART I). Providing Direction
—Sublimity is comparable to a place where very few have access, it is where true success in life is achieved: those who manage to visualize and clearly define core principles and values, they finally find the purpose of one’s existence—
Have you worked with someone who’s able to visualize current challenges
first from a general overview (like a 10 thousand feet high view) and then they gradually make an approach to the most critical details as in a zoomed view? If that’s true for you in any case, most probably you’ve witnessed this rare skill that very few master, that of providing effective direction to others.
To better illustrate what I’ve just pointed out, let me reflect about what happens in a Symphonic Orchestra.
The Director’s main role is to lead the musical formation of about 80 well skilled artists. He’s the one who keeps flowing the pace between any of the instruments, but at the same time ruling the intensity and the interactions of the instruments in the musical works so that the performance sounds coherent while imprinting his own mark to the master piece.
In a total of around 80 musicians, the Director is for instance the most experienced one regarding wide range knowledge, which means he’s not necessarily specialized in a particular instrument, however he’s plenty of knowledge about the Musical master piece in regards of the overall interpretation, the author’s deep intentions and inspiration so his core responsibility is to touch the audience emotions through the musical performance.
To me, providing effective Direction to others is kind of an elitist duty since it inherently means you’ve reached that pinnacle in life every manager aims to be at, where you command a group of people into a coherent single unit, interacting with them to produce a valuable outcome. Going back to the Orchestra Director, what I mean by an elitist duty it’s because as you may have noted, amongst nearly one hundred musicians, there’s just one leading Director! It’s nearly a 1 in 100 ratio… given the core responsibility to provide effective guidance is mainly driven by the manager’s ability to gain experience through the generation of a true-learning experiencing process.
It’s precisely this very concept of True-learning experiences a cornerstone approach in the complex formula of providing effective Direction. So what is a true-learning experience? And how can you profit as a manager by mastering this life’s approach?
—The True-learning experience life’s approach.
I’ll try with a simple but clear situation to reflect on this profound concept.
Walking, as simple as walking.
It’s a day to day action most of us do almost unconsciously. Since walking is a skill we acquire at an early age, it’s also something we take for granted, I mean walking probably won’t make any competitive advantage over anyone since again, it’s a skill most everyone of us have.
Just imagine yourself writing in your CV that you have plenty of experience in walking… So it seems walking does not make any competitive advantage for anyone so far… unless you reach the skills of an Olympic walk athlete. Then what’s the difference between you and me, and the Olympic walk athlete? That “tiny” difference precisely resides in some key aspects like purpose, self-awareness, relentless discipline and time, which in turn the elite athlete, in a well conscious approach manages to generate a myriad of True-learning experiences.
How does it work?
Anyone who aims to reach Olympic performance must be fully engaged into a disciplined and patient driven continuous improvement process regarding his or her
- mind-and-body,
- life’s routine
- specific techniques and equipment
- time management
- success outcomes
I will call those five elements as the Milestones for high performance. These milestones must be acknowledged once you have defined your purpose (your WHY, or the core reason you’re striving for in your life). Then each milestone should be submitted into accountability and self-awareness, since you must be willing to acquire a given set of skills while making mistakes, but continuously improving over your last step. Eventually you’ll gain a competitive advantage over others as long as you keep addressing and measuring your progress by self-reflecting on how you might be able to close those performance gaps between your present reality versus your future best version of yourself. Although perfect or peak performance will hardly be achieved and sustained over a continued basis, what’s most important is a disciplined and relentless approach on improving oneself while making a value added proposal on what you decided to excel so far.
So, under the leadership trenches you are at today, if you aim to manage others effectively, as the Olympic athlete you should be focused everyday on the generation of continuous true-learning experiences.
So again, this is about working on your inner-self before doing it outside of your bonds, by constantly revisiting and revising over the five milestones for high performance:
- your body (health, mind and spirit),
- your routine (goals and projects),
- your technique (leader’s essentials and strategies for success),
- your time (your daily agenda and priorities)
- your success outcomes (your team and learning resources).
As a final thought for reflection about the process of generating true-learning life’s experiences: To me, there’s a vast majority of people who are like wasting time of their lives because of the absence of a core purpose. Consequently, most probably they wouldn’t be able to strive for such self-improvement process about true-learning life’s experience approach.
It’s only when you consciously make a decision and work towards closing the gaps between your current reality and what you finally aim to become, that you will drive your life on the route to success. You will certainly know it’s the right path because it’s not that easy and most no one is willing to follow through-it at all, since we’re living in world plagued of distractions and shortcuts.
Once you are clear enough about your core purpose in life, and willing to work first on foremost on yourself by making the true-learning life’s experience approach, then you might be well prepared for the next ingredient in the formula for effective management:
—The Critical Thinking approach.
Previously, I exemplified about how you can learn and profit from generating true-learning life experiences over your body, your routine, your technical knowledge and equipment, your time management and your success outcomes. Then, basically by making insightful and powerful questions I will show you how to toss yourself out of your comfort zone and start driving your life towards sustained success.
Ask yourself on a frequent basis powerful and insightful questions so you can make a self-assessment about your ability to generate true-learning life experiences. Again, as a leader and as a manager of people and processes, you need to excel at yourself before pointing out and demanding results to those around you.
The Critical Thinking process over the five milestones for high performance:
I). Your Body and your essential being.
- do you workout frequently? Three times a week, half hour to one hour of workout should be more than enough to keep your body under well physical condition, no matter the exercise you do, just try to balance between frequent outdoors and indoors.
Also take into account, an In-shaped body requires healthy eating and sleeping habits. A well balanced diet and enough but peacefully sleeping, combined with regular workout are the fundamentals for your physical well-being.
- how much time and resources do you invest in learning new skills or improving the existing skills you already have?
In numbers, half hour to one hour a day of reading about any topic aligned to your life’s purpose will definitely contribute to your personal growth and expertise towards what you’ve targeted for success. By the way, highly inspired readers might also be pushed to express his or her own life’s purpose to others by writing, speaking but mostly acting on their wisdom, so they might convey into Coaching, Mentoring or simply inspiring others.
- have you discovered and clearly defined a core purpose for your life?
To know the reason of your existence in this world, the WHY of your life. This is something most everyone take it for granted, however it’s like walking through a path and then facing a crossroads without a clear and safe decision about which turn to take. Allow a moment everyday to reflect on the motivations and the stuff you’re good at, so you can make this world a little bit better by your actions while you’re enjoying life’s trip.
II). Your routine… beyond your comfort zone
- who are the people and what are the things that inspire you in life?
The core motive that motors your day to day will naturally toss you out of your comfort zone as long as far as it aims for the common good of yourself but also of those around you. Because when you’re truly inspired by a major purpose, your daily agenda will certainly include the time, resources and energy to drive you up to that ultimate goal you have set up as an aspiration for your life. The comfort zone is a place where no one with a clear purpose in life wants to stay in!
- what are your mid and long term aspirations in life?
Your aspirations are the projects that are so relevant as an effect of your core purpose. Then, your aspirations are the means for which you reach your core purpose, no matter the outcome of a project —because you may have a fifty-fifty chance for success— what really matters is the meaning you find through the ups and downs you may face while endeavoring for something of true value.
III). Your technique. A leader’s essentials and strategies for success.
- is your core purpose genuinely reflected in the way you lead others?
The wisest answer to this question: you make sure to walk the talk! When you lead others everyone is looking at you, then consistency, transparency and trust are all fundamental qualities you should show up.
- under your management role, when you provide direction to your team about a given problem, do you use to pinpoint into too many details and find it difficult to bring out into a conclusion with a clear definition to address and solve the problem?
On the other hand, when facing a similar situation as abone, do you use to start from a general view of the matter and then you focus your team on the most critical tasks to solve the problem?
You must assess yourself on the ability and the effectiveness of seeing both big pictures and granular details (and levels in between), that means mostly your perspective and assertiveness towards a complex situation and the way you address on the solutions through others.
IV). Your time, your most valuable resource.
- what’s in your daily agenda?
By the way, do you have any agenda? As a manager of people and processes, the way you organize and spend your time is the best way to predict how successful you’ll become in the quest of directing others. So my advice at this critical step is, make sure you have a methodology for organizing your daily activities, and evaluate the time you dedicate to trivial, urgent and important things while balancing your life between work, family, leisure and personal growth.
V). Equipping yourself and your team.
- how do you invest in yourself?
Having a curious mindset is fundamental for any leader who’s called for providing effective direction, while visualizing the big picture it’s key to have an open mind and the ability to show the right way through a myriad of details towards any challenge you may face as a manager. Such skill will always need a mind and spirit thirsty of knowledge. So regarding your responsibility for providing effective direction, continuous preparation must be part of your managerial DNA. Then you’ll be better prepared and more empowered to grow others.
- how much time and resources do you spend to develop key people in your team?
Indeed this is one of the greatest challenges of leadership, to show the attitude and allow the time for developing others. The pinnacle of every leader is reached when you finally leave someone to succeed you after some significant time you previously invested in this person to take your role as a manager who’s expected to keep proving effective Direction. Then you’ll feel proud of yourself, but also those around you will show appreciation and respect for what you’ve influenced in them. Finally, what you will see next for your life and career should ve aligned to your purpose.
Did you find value in my thoughts about the first approach of providing effective Direction?
This is the first of three posts that I will be sharing about the Trinity’s Management Principle for effective Management.
Please leave your comments and expect the following posts!
Best Regards
Jp