Breakthrough Thinking and Performance
Contents 1
What is a breakthrough?
2
Context is decisive
4
Breakthrough organisations
6
What’s your little voice saying?
7
Background conversations / Expressions of this in organisations
8
3 steps of sealing “The Truth”
9
Breakthrough Thinking and conventional thinking
10
What is Breakthrough Thinking?
12
Willingness to be uncomfortable
15
Breakthrough commitments
16
Act from the future - Stand in the result
18
Making effective requests and promises
19
The breakthrough process
20
Shifting our conversations
21
Introducing a new relationship to responsibility
23
Enrolment
24
Managing concerns of others
26
Managing breakdowns powerfully
27
Resolving breakdowns
28
Process for resolving breakdowns
30
The 9 Breakthrough Thinking practices
What is a breakthrough? It is an opening that allows you to shift from conventional thinking to Breakthrough Thinking. Specifically, this opening occurs when you become loudly aware that the current assumptions about something are not ’the Truth.’
1
Context is decisive Context is the human environment that determines the success of any strategy, structure or process and the results that can be produced.
2
Content
Process
Context
Results Analysis
Methodologies Systems Structures
Frame of reference
3
Breakthrough organisations Creating breakthrough organisations that can deliver extraordinary results and visions that are not predictable
4
HIGH sense of competitive reality
LOW sense of competitive reality
Traditional organisations
Declining organisations LOW sense of competitive possibility
Breakthrough organisations
Entrepreneurs HIGH sense of competitive possibility
5
What’s your little voice saying? Is it helping or hindering you? It can kill or create possibility It’s always there The little voice is our ‘window’ in to someone’s reality It’s active not passive
6
Background conversation
“There is a way that things should be, if it turns out that way that’s right. If it doesn’t that’s wrong, and there’s something wrong with it, them or me.”
Expressions of this in organisations
them right agree either blame should responsible dominate not enough find the flaw
us wrong disagree or justify shouldn’t not responsible avoid domination time, resource
7
3 steps to sealing “The Truth”
You make an assessment
8
You find evidence that supports it
It’s “The Truth”, and it will never change
Conventional thinking A future created by your past
Interpretation Commentator
Breakthrough Thinking A future free from the past
Action Player
Possibility Coach
Past interpretations Assessments Opinions Judgements Stories
Present actions Facts Promises and requests What is missing?
Future possibilities Visions Commitments Objectives
I think… My opinion/view is… I agree/don’t agree… The evidence shows that…
The facts are… I promise to… I request that you… I can’t do this, but can do…
I declare… I’m committed to… What’s possible is… We are capable of…
9
Breakthrough Thinking starts with declaring a commitment or outcome...
10
...and is what naturally arises when you abandon the assumptions of the present and consistently take bold action from the future you have declared regardless of the circumstances. 11
12
Willingness to be uncomfortable
Objectives Goals Plans Being responsible for the outcome
Willingness to stand for a Breakthrough
Personal power to impact the circumstances
13
Who? “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element
Me It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
14
Breakthrough commitments A breakthrough commitment delivers an extraordinary result that is not predictable based on past experience
Business as usual
Stretch target
Breakthrough
Pipedream
15
Act from the future Stand in the result What does it look like? How did we get here?
Now
16
Future
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” John F. Kennedy 35th President of the United States
17
Making effective requests and promises
Who? What? By when? Conditions of satisfaction
Four elements of an effective request 18
Yes No Counter offer Commit to commit later
Four committed responses
The breakthrough process Result/review
1 What’s the commitment/ outcome you want?
4 Take action – specific promises and requests
3 Identify what is missing and essential, such as: ideas, action, relationships
2 Separate what happens (the facts) from your interpretations/ assumptions
19
Shifting our conversations Conventional conversations
Breakthrough conversations
Seek to explain
Listen to views Gain commitment of others
Describe/report
Ask questions and coach Create the future
Commentate on what’s wrong or lacking Use argument or debate to enforce your point of view Blame 20
Ask what’s missing? What’s the request? Provide a possibility Explore possibilities through conversation Take 100% responsibility
Introducing a new relationship to responsibility Eliminating the blame game! My responsibility
Your responsibility
The result
0%
+
100%
=
When something happens, its someone else’s fault and not mine!
50%
+
50%
=
Shared responsibility, but if something goes wrong it falls in your half!
100%
+
100%
=
We both take 100% responsibility, can be powerful but blame may still fall in your half!
100%
+
0%
=
Consider this – If I take 100% responsibility AS IF you were taking 0% 21
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because they want to do it.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower 34th President of the United States
22
Enrolment
Creating the need in their mind
Are we aligned to the need?
What is missing and essential to move forward?
Ensuring we do succeed
23
Coaching concerns Get them to be specific rather than general – by asking questions! Focus on the facts rather than hunches, judgements and opinions Listen for what is missing versus what is wrong Ask them: “What is your request?”
24
How? Specific
General
With judgement
Without judgement 25
We need to manage breakdowns powerfully Breakthrough performance Declare and manage the breakdown
Organisations set goals & objectives
Hit brick walls
Choice Path of least resistance to incremental improvement Rationalise/justify Defend/Explain Lower the goal or objective
26
From breakdowns to breakthroughs
Resolve breakdowns
The breakthrough process
27
28
Process for resolving breakdowns
1
Declare the breakdown
2
Separate what happened (the facts) from your interpretations/assumptions
3
What’s is the commitment in the background?
4
What’s missing and essential?
5
Take action - specific promises and requests
29
Breakthrough Thinking practices
1
2
‘Unhook’ yourself from your assessments and focus on the commitment you have
Manage conversations – listen Identify what you’re really for what’s happening and committed to missing versus what’s wrong and ‘should’ be
30
3
4
5
6
Practice speaking your commitments publicly
Act from the future – Stand in the result of the outcome, imagine you are there –“what does it look like?” and “how did we get here?”
Shift concerns and complaints into requests
7
8
9
Make effective requests and bold promises – take action, action, action!
Powerfully declare and resolve the inevitable setbacks with the right people
Actively inspire and authentically engage the relevant stakeholders 31
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