By Clare Richmond, author of ‘The Scavenger Mindset’. Clare is giving a 20% discount on her book: use the code SCAVENGER20 at checkout.
The role of leadership has become increasingly challenging, with growing uncertainty, rapid change and diminishing or limited resources, demanding a new approach and fresh thinking. We can’t rely on the past to answer the challenges of today, so we need to think smart, use our resources wisely, broaden our perspectives to enable greater creative and critical thinking to ensure long term growth.
For this we need to focus on building strong working relationships that are able withstand these challenges and be able to find innovative solutions to the problems and opportunities we face.
My book, The Scavenger Mindset, helps leaders to make the most of what they already have by seeing value in people and things that often get overlooked, and identifies three key performance enhancers that will encourage wider involvement, greater collaborations and innovation, without the need for big budgets.
The lessons I learnt from my own grassroot leadership experience, are echoed in the approaches taken by the many Scavenger Leaders I have met and studied over the years. Each of these leaders, although operating in very different environments achieve outstanding results, even within the most challenging scenarios, by working better with their existing resources.
Characterised by being highly resourceful these leaders achieve results by being upfront about uncertainty, developing a strategy of inclusion and equipping themselves and their teams to cope, even relish, the challenges uncertainty presents.
Their skill is in having a narrative that is clear about direction, but open to the details of the route, so bringing people with them, not with the pull of money, or the necessity of experience but through building belief in people and what can be achieved when properly motivated and understood.
From corporate kings to grassroot masters Scavenger leaders inspire even the most unlikely people to make important contributions, creating high performance space that allows for creativity and debate, developing a powerful currency of commitment that has its roots in strong relationships.
Scavenger Leaders have three key performance enhancers that build ambitious and empowered teams. To embed each of these costs little, but must be authentic and consistent.
- Feeling Valued
- Being Connected
- Having Ownership.
Consider element in light of your own experience personally, professionally and as a leader.
Feeling valued
When people feel valued, their levels of commitment and their willingness to contribute, grow exponentially. Feeling valued is the backbone to long-term success.
So what does it take to feel valued? The astonishing truth is that feeling valued is often most felt in the smallest of human interactions.
When did you last feel valued? How did this occur? What did it feel like? How much did it cost? How do you show you value others? Who do you most value, and why? How do you know people feel valued by you?
Being connected
The human condition suffers most in isolation. It is the ultimate form of psychological pain. Connectivity is the fuel that drives innovation, provides powerful insights, and makes collaboration meaningful. Connection is more about the relationship and less about the platform and the frequency. Working from home makes this a particularly important element to consider.
Who do you connect with? What type of connection exists? What would be your ideal levels of connection? How well connected are people to each other? Who are you not well connected to, and why? What might the advantages of better connectivity be? How confident are you that people understand their connection to your aims/ambitions?
Ownership
This is the element that can be the hardest for leaders to adopt but can raise some important questions to address. In my experience this is fundamental to creating a high performance environment.
What opportunity exists for wider ownership? To what degree do you feel people have a sense of ownership? What do you feel might be the barriers to introducing wide-ranging ownership? What might be the parameters necessary to achieve this? What could be the advantages to people feeling more empowered? Consider what ownership might look/ feel like to everyone in your organisation? What are fears, or doubts do you have about this?
The benefits of a scavenger mindset
Scavenger Leaders show that often it is the limitations that excite inspiration, and that in uncertain times growth and sustainability will be found in developing strong relationships and community around complex problems.
We need to rethink leadership to discover hidden talents and introduce broader perspectives to work with the reality of where we are now, not where we have been.
Now more than ever we need leaders not to be right or in control but to focus on providing a high-performance environment where we can all achieve far more with very much less.
Key takeaways:
- More resourceful, less waste
- Increased creativity and innovation
- Build sense of community
- Less absenteeism, turnover
- Focus and Impact
