CHAPTER 8
Postscript: In which Joe celebrates success and passes on his learning…

It had taken Gwen and her project team some doing to pull off the biggest celebration the company had ever hosted at such short notice, but a phone call from Kelly offering some budget and her support had been the only incentive they'd needed.

The UK office had achieved 90% of its goals. Following the Stretch Leadership^TM Habits, they had achieved unprecedented growth in profit and survived the pay freeze, which did indeed look like it would be short term. They had grown customer retention and engagement and had formed several valuable new strategic partnerships to help grow revenue and the customer base. They had achieved the highest levels of job satisfaction amongst the people employed in any Tiger office, anywhere in the world, in spite of the pay freeze. All this, and they had simplified and clarified their processes, ensuring they could be easily cascaded throughout the organization.

In his end-of-year address, Joe revisited the vision they had developed and shared back in the summer: “Tiger created the future of recruitment.” He explained how the UK office had come full circle and would be continuing its journey towards building a strengths-based culture by revisiting aspirations in the new financial year. He then showed a short film Gwen and Jane had helped him to secretly produce. The film celebrated the strengths and achievements of each member of the leadership team, and the members of their teams who had proven to be vital talent.

Joe was not the only leader to spring a surprise though. Kelly made an unexpected appearance presenting the UK team with the prestigious “Tiger Team of the Year” award. She also announced that the team would be losing a leader in January. Gwen was to be seconded to the US office to lead a company-wide stretch project. Jane would be stepping up to take the position of acting director of human resources in the UK.

Joe and the rest of the team were delighted for Gwen and their US colleagues. They knew, beyond doubt, that rigid boundaries and missed targets were a thing of the past because Tiger Online Recruitment was well and truly on the path of possibility.

Or was it?…

THE END

P.S. On starting her secondment, Gwen asked Joe to provide her with his top tips for leading at full strength. His response was as follows…

My Seven Stretch Leadership^TM Lessons

Understand your strengths (what you're good at – or have potential to be good at – that gives you energy) and how they can help you succeed. Align them with your values, aspirations and abilities. Gain the leadership edge.
Adopt the four Stretch Leadership^TM Habits: Sharing Vision, Sparking Engagement, Skilfully Executing and Sustaining Progress. Positively stretch your own strengths, those of your team and those of your organization. Build skill and experience in areas of strength and challenge yourself and others to move beyond comfort zones to fully optimize strengths. Find opportunities to practice your strengths daily to ensure new, productive habits become part of your natural leadership style.
Create a road map detailing goals, success measures and enabling strengths. Ensure you and your team are aligned with these goals and that everybody's strengths are contributing to defined business outcomes.
Recruit across the full spectrum of strengths. Align people's strengths with their roles and give them a clear vision – a reason to be passionate about their work. Inspire high performance. Provide encouragement and support.
Choose the path of possibility. The path of limitation is unproductive and drains your emotional, mental and physical energy. The path of possibility gives a sense of positive power and enhances productive energy. It gives staff a sense of meaning and connection. It helps ensure that targets are met, again and again.
Focus on strengths whilst addressing performance risks caused by limiting weaknesses, strengths in overdrive and sources of interference. Moderate the volume of your own strengths and call on the strengths of others when facing these risks. Just be disciplined about the stuff that doesn't energize you but that you know needs to be done. Focus on the benefits of doing these less savoury parts of your job to ensure risks don't derail you.
Building a strengths-based culture is a continuous journey. It revolves around the stages of aspiration, awareness, action, agility and achievement. Choose to take this journey. Strengths create positive energy. Strengths sustain success.

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Table of Contents for Chapter 8: Postscript: In which Joe celebrates success and passes on his learning…

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Table of Contents for
Chapter 8: Postscript: In which Joe celebrates success and passes on his learning…