Ms. GPS’ Lessons for Helping Others Achieve Their Goals

Leadership Coaching Notes OCTOBER 2010

Ms. GPS’ Lessons for Helping Others Achieve Their Goals

Ms. GPS is the voice of the amazing technology that helps us navigate through unknown territory to arrive at a hard-to-reach destination easily and directly. Global positioning devices have saved many of us lots of time and frustration. (OK, and occasionally led us astray, but stay with me here.) While the voice of Ms. GPS can become wearing, her usefulness is unquestionably lovable. Her style can teach leaders powerful best practices about how to guide their people through unknown challenges so they achieve new goals faster and with less stress

Some Leadership Lessons from Ms. GPS:

•  Ms. GPS doesn’t start guiding until after you have defined starting and ending coordinates. Lesson: Don’t start giving others instructions until after you have faced the reality of their starting position and objectively defined their measurable indicators of success. If Ms. GPS started talking before you had entered current and desired locations, you would treat her voice like babble and turn her off. You risk that your people will do the same to you if you don’t clarify the beginning and end points of their challenges. Check: How well do your people know the specific coordinates that define their success?

• Ms. GPS gives instructions in bite-size chunks, just before you need them. She never gives the string of directions you’ll need for the next 5 miles, just the one you need next. Check: How well do you provide guidance in a style that is most valuable to others rather than as it’s convenient for you?

• She always looks to the future. If you miss a turn, Ms. GPS just says, “Recalculating.” She always talks about the next task, not about you, the person. She never wastes time or energy saying, “You incompetent, inattentive idiot, you missed the turn!” She simply accepts what happened, recalculates and invests in guiding you to meet the goal in a new way. Check: How well do you simply recalculate without demeaning yourself when you make a wrong turn? How consistently do you apply this lesson with others?    Berating yourself or others is a true waste of time and energy.

• Occasionally Ms. GPS makes mistakes when her data model is outdated or she isn’t aware of construction, detours and other surprises. When she doesn’t understand a situation fully and you have to make an independent choice that contradicts her outdated recommendation, she simply adjusts. She doesn’t need to be perfect. Her focus is fully on re-calculating and finding the way to the goal, regardless of any and all surprises.

• Ms. GPS doesn’t need appreciation. Her job is done well when you meet your goal. At the risk of anthropomorphizing a GPS voice, she is internally driven vs. dependent on others to love her. Leaders would do less grandstanding and overadapting if they were as self-aware. Check: What drives your sense of fulfillment? Others’ appreciation or you intrinsic gratification from their progress and successes?

Ms. GPS never gives up. She keeps navigating from wherever you are to wherever you want to go, taking in new information along the way and recalculating when needed, without judging anyone.

I don’t mean to make leaders into impersonal machines or dumb down their capabilities and talents. There is plenty that Ms. GPS can’t begin to do that good leaders must do to inspire great performance and others’ best contributions, but I hope you find these ideas thought provoking and helpful.

Let me know if you have more lessons from your GPS and I’ll share them with others.

What’s Next

If you or leaders you coach are struggling to help others produce results faster and with less stress, take advantage of my offer for a free call to discuss your situation. We’ll explore ways to reach your goals. It isn’t always as easy as following Ms. GPS’s lessons, but I can help.

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All the best,

Meredith Kimbell
Executive Advisor,Strategy Consultant
Corporate Adventure

Leadership Coaching Notes uses real or composite client examples drawn from 25 years of coaching and consulting with leaders committed to solving their toughest personal, interpersonal and organizational issues.
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