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[00:01:36] Welcome back to Talent Management Truths. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell. Today I'm bringing you the first episode of a two-part series. These episodes are a little different from my usual. They're all about creating what you want and how do I know what you want, because I want it too, and so do my clients.
[00:02:00] Whether we work together one-on-one or in the talent. talent leaders all want to create one results and momentum, and two habits and follow through skills. So even if you know a whole lot about talent management and HR and people, these are sort of the foundational skills that will help you be effective at applying that knowledge.
[00:02:22] So even if you have some or a lot of these skills, you likely still want more or you will as you and your life evolve and your circumstances change. In this first episode, I'm talking about creating results and momentum. Then next week I'll cover creating habits and follow through skills. In episode 72.
[00:02:42] are you results focused? I swear to you that when I was a senior corporate talent leader, this attribute was found on many a resume that I received when I was in hiring mode. It's also a trait that I've historically liked to attribute to myself. I really value getting results, and so being focused on them seems like a good.
[00:03:03] but what does being results focused really mean? I mean, does it guarantee that you get results? Does it ensure that you know how to create momentum that turns results into more results? Nope. Not necessarily. And why is the, why is it the case that many people I've met say their results focused, yet they still struggle to create the results they really want?
[00:03:25] I'm saying results a lot. Anyways, here's the reason. Three words, lack of. clarity comes first before results. In my experience, most people are not specific enough or realistic enough about the outcome they're wanting to achieve. You can be focused on results, but if those results you're changing are vaguely defined and you know, lacking any kind of true measurement of success, that it really doesn't matter how focused you are because you're focused on the wrong.
[00:03:58] So here's an example. One of my clients will call her Jane. She's highly intelligent, extremely driven, and she found herself in a role with expanding responsibilities that she was awarded. In fact, because of her results focus very quickly, she became overwhelmed with the amount of deliverables, and she got really frustrated with her boss.
[00:04:19] She struggled, frankly, with where to start. All of this was quite uncharacteristic of her. She was a high achieve achiever. After all. In this new context, though, she was buried full height, literally in a bed of weeds. The underlying issue turned out to be that she simply wasn't clear on the priority levels of the new deliverables, nor on the resources she had or didn't have to help her with them.
[00:04:43] She could not articulate what the outcomes of all these new programs would be beyond a vague, improved learning opportunities for staff . So we started with one project. I asked her to imagine that it's the end of the project and, and just picture that she and the team and the organization itself are in a big C3 bubble and she and I are on the outside peering in.
[00:05:08] What do we see? What has. What is the impact of those shifts and what are we celebrating? And the needed clarity as she started to answer these questions, started to emerge mainly in terms of where she needed to go back and ask more questions of her boss and sponsors and stakeholders. She worked her way systematically through the process of getting clarity on this project and documenting it, and from there was able to create the results everyone had agreed they were looking for.
[00:05:39] Because that's the other thing, right? You get clarity. It takes a village to get it right, to make sure everybody's really together on what is going to be different. That brings me to momentum. . So how can we create momentum? In this context, I define momentum as producing results that in turn lead to more results.
[00:06:00] This client had a multitude of projects, right? So once we started with the first project, then she applied the same process to the others. It became more about, how do I keep these balls in the air? Keep moving these things along. Well, here's the thing. The reason people might achieve a goal initially and then flounder or fall off the wagon get stuck again, it's because they forget what they wanted to achieve in the first place.
[00:06:26] Think for example, of a regular weekly meeting you have to attend or used to attend. The raison debt of the meeting was initially clear, but now no one can remember why it's still needed and it's become a painful weekly chore to show. . Well, everybody has lost sight of the desired outcome of the result they were trying to achieve in the first place.
[00:06:47] Here's another example. It's my own life example. I did this, this LinkedIn sprint. It was actually for work last summer, and I got some really good results on the surface of it. I learned more about how the LinkedIn platform works. I did a lot of writing. I made new connections and I got eyes on my. I had momentum for those 30 days, but once the sprint and all the accountability ended, I was back to procrastinating about my writing and was so exhausted, really tired that I wanted to take a complete break from posting anything at all.
[00:07:20] I literally went from some to a lot and back to some again when it came to my LinkedIn presence. Why? Because I lost track of what made me sign up for the sprint in the first. , you know, I, I wanted to learn how to use it and write, write more, and I wanted to do these things in a way that fit me, my energy levels, my time capacity, and yet I didn't actually remember to think about how to use it.
[00:07:47] in a way that fit me, that was effective for me on an ongoing, sustained basis because I got so caught up in kind of the daily piece and, and I didn't even sort of quantify well, what is more, you know, writing more, what does that even mean? I, I had told myself, because the focus in the program was to write daily, that I had to write daily, but who.
[00:08:10] right? That was just what they were talking about in the program. I don't feel like writing every day, and it turns out that's actually just fine. . So what's the secret to creating momentum? Well, first it's about having clarity on the results you want and your reasons for wanting them. It's about regularly regrounding your efforts and focus around these things so that you do not forget them.
[00:08:34] It's about creating accountability mechanisms that work for you, structures that ensure you actively review and remember your goals and how they align with your. , here's what I recommend to my clients and what works for me with the exception of that LinkedIn sprint, where I got carried away with, you know, the pace and the detail of it at minimum every one or two weeks.
[00:08:56] Review your written goals or results to achieve and review why they're important to you. From there, here's some questions you can ask yourself. Is what I'm doing still aligned with what I really. , where do I need to adjust my efforts? What's possible now? And so there you have it. This is my super quick primer on creating results and momentum.
[00:09:24] If you found this episode has resonated with you, you might be ready for professional accountability support.
[00:09:30] Consider joining your peers and me in the talent trust. Together we make results and momentum happen. Thanks for listening.
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