INDUSTRY INSIGHT their preferred answer before a discussion starts are usually the last to know, so self-assessment points at the wrong behaviour. Recording also solves a second problem, which is that leadership withholds the feedback skill development requires.
Engage in purposeful practice worked through seven common ones, including giving feedback, delegating and presenting to senior leaders, but those are examples rather than a taxonomy.
The next step is to build the practice into work you are already doing. Juan Carlos did not add practice sessions to his calendar. He carried one element into meetings that were happening anyway: ask before answering, then pause and let the silence sit. This is what makes constraintbased development feasible for people with no free hours. Volume still matters, though: in our experience 10 to 15 focused repetitions produce noticeable improvement in a single element, and 20 to 30 move it toward something you no longer have to think about, which at two or three meetings a week is a quarter’ s work.
Juan Carlos Holgado, Archer, Coach, Event Director and Author
Building one is not difficult if you hold to five rules. Every element must be a behaviour an observer could see rather than an internal state, and the elements should follow the sequence in which the process actually unfolds. Each needs a failure description written in the language of experience, and each must be small enough to practise on its own. And seven or eight is the right number, because that is enough to locate a constraint and few enough to hold in your head.
When the element does improve, the instinct is to move to the next one on the list. Resist it. Run the diagnosis again, because your constraint has now moved and it may not have moved to the adjacent element.
One caution, though. Constraints move more slowly than incidents do, so a constraint that seems to change weekly is usually a symptom being mistaken for a cause.
Finding your constraint
Once the process is broken down, three approaches will locate the binding element, and they compound when used together.
Examine your outcomes for patterns rather than incidents. One difficult performance conversation tells you nothing, but five in which people leave apparently aligned and nothing subsequently changes points at a specific element: you are probably clear about the gap and vague about consequences.
The discipline in all of this is not the practice. Most leaders are perfectly capable of working hard on their development. The discipline is deciding what you are going to leave alone.
The Archer’ s Edge: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Practice for Business Leaders by Michael Watkins and Juan Carlos Holgado is out on October 1. x
Ask a narrower question than you are used to asking. Not“ how am I doing?” but“ when you watch me run a meeting, what is the one thing that most limits my effectiveness?” General questions produce reassurance, and reassurance is worthless here. Be deliberate about who you ask.
Record yourself and watch it within a day. This is the uncomfortable one, and it’ s the one that works. Juan Carlos didn’ t know he was answering his own questions, and leaders who fill silence or signal
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