Vision and connection make an operations manager's job less stressful (Operations managers, I hope you are listening!)
Genius is defined by Webster as a single, strongly marked capacity or aptitude. For management, this single, strong capacity is connection. How quickly can information be digested, how quickly can you get to the truth, understand ideas, breakdown silos, change beliefs, have people value you, each other and the company…this is connection—the quicker and the deeper it is the quicker things can change.
If people “get you” and you “get them”, you start from a point closer to where the action is. Think about those random acts of violence in the news where people have no connection to each other. There is no communication, and now changes and actions are in the wrong direction for building relationships and moving collective rewards forward. There is no mental model motivating relationship building, the bias (whatever the basis) directs efforts toward separation.
It is all about mental models and biases in everyday work life too…we just don’t realize it. To get the results you want, you must connect, and to connect, you must understand and change the mental models that are negatively impacting accomplishments. At the deepest levels of connection, your teams have collective intelligence, perform advanced work, and adapt in a resilient fashion.
Drs. Derek and Laura Cabrera teach the importance of mental models in learning. They reveal the nuance of training: When we try to share knowledge, it is received by the other person as information. We can only share information; to acquire knowledge, we must build it internally and individually. Most business training, problem-solving approaches, and management practices completely ignore this critical learning factor.
As noted in a previous post, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment projects between 2021-2031, "operations manager" is in the top five fastest growing occupations. Within this same timeframe, HR Managers will decline in number, with continued outsourcing of talent acquisition, benefits, and payroll management. Similarly, with such factors as M&A and changing organizational structures, executive occupations will also decline.
If you are an operations manager, these market changes will increase options available to you. With one perspective, realize you will have less resources and help with managing. But with another perspective, realize your influence is increasing.
This brings me to Lesson Four: You need to believe something extraordinary is possible! The future is now. You cannot fathom the activities occurring right now around you, and within you, dictating your future. Choices being made right now are changing options available to you. Doors are opening and closing as you read this blog. I've never seen the movie, but I love the title "Everything Everywhere All at Once". I'm not here to talk about astrophysics and parallel universes, but to prod your mind into an increased awareness of now.
We already talked about the importance of connection. It is also important to realize as a manager, you are communicating a vision of your organizational impact. If you cannot articulate this vision clearly, then your message to all of those around you is muddled. Worse still, you are probably leading your team in the wrong direction! This is an aspect of managing and leadership that most do not get right. Everyone's vision has one thing in common--the vision is part of the future state. No one really imagines themselves out of existence (legacy is an even higher existence). With purpose, you have intentional action, which yields results.
If you seek the right learning, connection, and communicate a compelling vision, you facilitate and fuel outcomes and decrease resistance. This decreases the amount of effort needed to be successful and could even release capacity to surge better outcomes. As a result, everyone's stress levels decline. It really is that simple! The earlier you seek these aspects of personal mastery and functional empathy, the better your future will be.
Lori G. Fisher
PLS Management Consulting
Purpose | Leap | Surge
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