Well, that didn’t work; let’s do it again!

Einstein once defined sanity as, “doing the same thing over and over again, but anticipating different results.” And yet, we tend to do that as humans. We feel bad eating a certain way, but we keep doing it because it tastes good. We create turnover in our businesses by not investing in the development of our people, but we keep doing it because they might leave us if we invest in them, or it costs money to invest in people, and more money not to. We are wired, as humans, to strive for sameness.

The mind seeks out ways to preserve what it knows, even if what it knows isn’t working. When we want new results in our business, personal life, friendships, or anything else, we have to take new actions deliberately. It is in changing our inputs that we change our outputs. One fascinating example of this relates to employee engagement and retention.

A lot of people experienced the school of hard knocks when it came to learning to lead others. They read some books, watched some good leaders and some bad ones, then did their best to chart a course for others to follow. They likely picked up some good habits and some bad ones. Success as a leader is formulaic, though. There are specific skills and strategies that make a leader great. The part that is fascinating is that we don’t invest in providing the right skills to our people at the three levels of leadership until after they have struggled and gotten frustrated if we ever do. We have known for more than 50 years that the carrot and the stick, formally referred to as scientific management, only works on jobs that don’t require a lot of thinking. This means that 90% of the time, a more professional approach is required to get the best from others.

Here it is on a poster… Great leaders consistently invest in creating great leaders.

For several generations now, one of the main reasons a person will engage at work is because they know their boss cares about their success, is investing in their growth, and has provided a great purpose to pursue. The ‘investing in their growth’ part is what makes success possible. Not taking a stronger approach to building your team will consistently not get you any better results.

What are you doing to invest in your team consistently? Be purposeful about bringing your team up to the next level.