Have you ever had one of those targets that on face value seems impossible to achieve? I’m sure we’ve all come across these either at work, or in our personal lives. The problem with huge goals, is that we are naturally wired to focus on gaps, incompetence, struggles etc, rather than our capabilities, strengths, and what’s possible. When the gap between the goal and the current situation seems out of reach, we will respond in a way to protect ourselves and shut down the very part of the brain that is required to collaborate with others, think creatively, and look at situations from a different angle.
This was the exact concern of our Leader Ally, who was faced with the task of presenting and motivating her team to hit a recovery target that seemed completely out of reach. After discussing the challenge, Ally’s plan was to present the goal in a way that achieved the following:
1. Her team believed the target was achievable
2. They could clearly link their efforts to the achievement of the goal
3. They were able to identify options, and take ownership of actions to achieve the goal
To do this. Ally worked with her team to break the goal down. Here’s how she did it.
The goal was to recover an additional $6M in the last 3 months of the financial year, on top of the existing monthly recovery target.
Together, the team identified how many claims they would have the opportunity to recover from over this period. They also brainstormed other, recovery opportunities available over the same period to identify the total number of claims they could recover from.
Using this, they divided the $6M across these claims and added this to the existing targets to quantify a new recovery rate for each claim. The target was now a lot smaller than $6M!
With the new, more achievable target, Ally facilitated a team discussion focused on exploring options to achieve the new recovery rate. In the end, the team identified and agreed on a set of actions and behaviours each member committed to completing for each claim they worked on in the following 3 months.
The team achieved their target, and if I recall correctly, had one hell of a celebration at the end. The behaviours and actions also remained embedded as part of their new way of working.
Let’s explore how Ally’s approach helped her team to turn what seemed impossible, into I’m Possible.
Reducing threat for higher level thinking
The limbic system in our brain is responsible for keeping us safe and is constantly scanning our environment for threats to avoid and rewards to move toward. Threats and rewards can be both physical, and socio emotional. Our brains are far more sensitive to threat and perceives socio emotional threat the same way as physical threat. When threat is detected, the limbic system triggers our flight, flight, freeze response, shutting down our high-functioning brain, impacting our ability to recognise challenges accurately, think creatively, take on others’ ideas and perspectives, and consider options rationally.
The threat of an unattainable goal and the prospect of failure is very likely to trigger a threat response in most people. By working with her team to break the goal down into an achievable target, Ally significantly reduced the threat response, enabling her team to engage their higher-functioning brain to develop options and solution their new perceptually attainable target.
Promoting a reward state through confidence
David Rock’s SCARF model outlines 5 social needs of individuals to promote a reward state. These are Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. By involving her team in the problem solving, and decision making process, Ally met her teams’ SCARF needs by:
Demonstrating respect and value on her teams’ experience, ideas and opinions, maintaining their sense status;
Providing certainty about expectations and each persons’ contribution to the goal
Increasing autonomy through ownership of decisions, behaviours and agreed actions
Building a sense of trust and relatedness through inclusion and collaboration; and
Maintaining a sense of fairness through transparency and setting consistent expectations for all team members.
When our SCARF is met, and we’re in a reward state, we are able to engage our higher-functioning brain, creating the opportunity to adopt a bigger picture view, think outside the box, try new things, and take on others ideas and perspectives.
Next time you, your team or colleagues are faced with a seeming impossible task, I encourage you to consider how it can be changed, re-arranged, communicated differently, or broken down to reduce the sense of threat, and what steps you can take to build confidence and a sense of reward so the brain can shift from impossible, to I’m possible.
댓글