Through life you have probably heard of the phrase ‘cause and effect’. Conventional wisdom tells us that there are certainties around actions and consequences. If you do this, there is a high probability that outcome will occur. In the scope of supervisor skills, if you take this action, it is likely to create that result.
When most people look to get different results, they look to change their action. It follows the line of cause and effect. If I take this different action, I should get this different result. That is why a lot of people look to supervisor courses to learn a new supervisory skill. What most folks don’t know is why they take their normal action in the first place. If you understand this, it allows for behavior change and skills enhancement to happen faster.
The reason we do what we do is based on two principals. The first principal is we do what we know to do. If you are looking to enhance your supervisor skills, taking a supervisor course will work best for you if you have not yet been shown or experienced what actions to take that create the outcome or results you are looking for. This principal speaks to the ‘what to do’.
The second principal is we do what is comfortable for us given how we think and feel about a situation. Here, our actions are based on how we view the world given our past experiences. In other words, your actions are driven by how you think and feel, or your beliefs and emotions. This principal speaks to ‘how you do it’; how aligned you are to take the actions.
I offer for your consideration that the thing that drives our ‘cause’, or what we do, is our beliefs and feelings about the situation. Put differently, consider the following equation:
Consciousness → Cause → Effect
Webster defines consciousness as:
The thoughts and feelings, collectively, of anindividual or an aggregate of people.
In your role of supervisor, what you think and feel about a situation impacts the actions you will take, and the quality of your actions determine your results. Quality is not about good or bad; rather I judge the quality of your actions by how effective they are in getting you what you want as your outcome. In other words, you might take action learned during a supervisor course, but if your thoughts and feelings about the actions are not aligned, the effectiveness of the action can be compromised.
As I’ve said, most supervisor training focuses on ‘what to do’ differently. I have seen people who have told me the right steps to take to get a result, but either didn’t do it or did it ineffectively. If you take action but are afraid or nervous, how you execute the action will be compromised and will affect your outcome. If you take an action that you don’t think is either right or comfortable, your thoughts and feelings can taint your results.
So what are your options?
If you are looking to improve your supervisor skills, you can take a supervisor course and learn the ‘what to do’, or connect with a supervisor coach to work on getting aligned with your thoughts and feelings in ‘how you do it’.
If you would like to learn more about how to improve your supervisory skills, go to www. ResultsDev.com. There you will find assessments to help identify your growth opportunities, plus access high impact supervisor training.
Image courtesy of Extra Ketchup